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I'm currently renovating upstairs rooms in my house and making changes to the upstairs sockets (moving some, adding new ones). I'm running new cabling and any existing socket is being removed from the existing ring main and wired with new cable - as soon as it has new cable it has no electrical...

Just removed 2 fairly large tree stumps and had to dig around an area of about 3.5m x 2m up to around 50cm down. Now they've gone I'd like to redo the fence and need to put 2 x 8ft concrete fencing posts in at the edge of the area I've just dug over. Is there anything I can do to speed up the...

I'd like to replace an ageing lean-to built between my house and garage. It's 6.2m x 4.2m, built from 4x2, plastic corrugated roof with a supporting wall about 1m along the 4.2m width (joists run in the direction of the 4.2m width). I plan to remove the supporting wall section and replace...

I have a gap in my garage roof (flat felt) at the very corner where the felt has been bent over to form the right angled edge. The gap is about 30cm long and up to 2cm wide in places. It is directly over the corner of the garage and although water isn't getting inside it's soaking the...

I've just had my gas service moved and new meter fitted, waiting for corgi to connect up new supply this thursday. Inside the house this leaves me with old steel pipe which runs under the concrete floor supplying the now dead boiler and cooker. The old pipe was open to the air for 10 minutes...

I thought that a combi boiler took a cold feed in and then had a cold feed out so all hot/cold water (for taps) passed through it. Am I mistaken, or do different manufacturers do it differently? I was looking at the Vaillant 838 install manual and noticed they only have 5 connections; CH...

I'm looking for new radiators for my house, 10 in all. Problem is I have no idea what is a decent make of radiator and what is a decent price to pay, making comparisons useless :? I've read comments on here about screwfix radiators being cheap and cheerful, so I use their price as the...

Is a CORGI plumber allowed to connect a gas service pipe up to a new meter? The one I've spoken to so far indicated he could do everything after the meter, but not before. The reason for the question is I'm having national grid move my gas service with my original intention to pay them the...

Hardly a new invention, but lockshields with built in drain valves are new to me. Looking at the pictures of them, I don't see how they can be used to drain down a system as you end up with copper pipe below the included drain valve. Am I missing something?

I've got to chase around 15 new runs for cable around the house. The work will be done room by room over a month or more, so hiring isn't really an option. The wall chasers I've seen to buy appear to be nothing more than two angle grinder discs with the ability to vary cut depth and cut...

I've decided I'd like a vaillant boiler and narrowed the choice down to ecotec plus 837 or ecotec exclusive 838. Seems like there is only £60 between the two, is it worth getting the exclusive? Do the extra bits actually mean much? I started looking at the control options and liked the look...

Any chance the plumbing and central heating forum can be split into two? One for central heating, one for everything else plumbing related? It's such a busy forum I think a lot of threads go partly answered because in less than a day they are no longer on page 1.

As the weather starts to warm I'll be removing my existing heating system (old gas boiler, single rads) and replacing it with a combi boilder - most likely Vaillant 837. I'm trying to design a flexible and economical system and wondered if what I'm planning is achievable and worth the effort...

I have a decent 1000w SDS drill and I need a 110mm core drill to make some ventilation holes in a dual skin brick wall (built in 1900s). I looked in various building merchants and they are £80 and up, for what I assume is a good quality product. On ebay you can pick up 50mm and 110mm...

I want to move my gas and electricity meter, so will probably post a similar question in the plumbing section. Meters currently live in the garage and I want them relocated about 5m onto the front and side wall of my house, so I can knock down and rebuild/restructure the garage in the future...

I understand how condensation is caused and the only good way to deal with it is to ventilate more (and I read the section in the wiki). House has solid brick walls and condensation (leading to mould) is forming on the inner walls. Gable end wall has been dry lined so the mould is forming in...

I plan to render, then plaster, the inside of my chimney around where the log burner sits. Am I OK to use standard mortar for the render layer, or should I be using fire cement? Depending what I use for the mortar layer, should I then use anything special for the finishing plaster layer?

My neighbour is insisting we do something to rectify the guttering between our two houses as when it rains heavily a stream of water flows very close to her front door. Her house is perpendicular to mine, so if my gable walls pointed east/west her gable walls point north/south. Where the...

I have removed the gas fire (and inner fireplace) from my chimney to have a log burner installed. I've had a ballpark quote of 3k for this which included £500 burner, new steel in enlarged chimney, liner, insulation, new pot, etc. That is far more than I expected and am hoping to bring...

I'd read the relevant regulations, but no doubt I'd be more confused than when I started, so thought I'd ask instead :) What are the rules concerning how close a window / door can be placed to the corner of a house? The house is brick/block with a cavity so walls are around 25cm thick...