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Can anyone help? We have old oak wooden floors in the lounge and hallway. They were sanded and re-varnished about 2 years ago with a polyurethane varnish. I have some of the varnish, as I had to do a bit of the floor myself a year ago, when we removed a fitted bedroom carpet and found some of...

One of the drainage downpipes in my appartment building is leaking. My plumber seems to feel the leak is just above the ceiling in the entrance hallway, jus before where the pipe enters the wall and goes into my (lovely fitted) kitchen. Plumber has suggested replacing a section of the pipe from...

Apparently there's a slight leak in an old lead drainage pipe in my building. The pipe has been replaced in the appartment above me, and apparently the plumber decided the leak is coming from my appartment. The trouble is, the previous owners installed a nice new kitchen (which I paid for in the...

The stupid previous owners who installed my quite nice kitchen decided to tile the wall tiles on top of the existing tiles. We've got to have a pipe fixed that runs behind the tiles, so thought we may as well fix the messy tiles at the same time, as we don't really like them and the tiling is...

My Bauckneckt washing machine has started making terrible grinding noises. They seem to be when it is pumping water, as it washes fine without much noise (just when it fills with water), and the grinding stops when the spin cycle gets going. I've checked the filter and there's nothing trapped...

Husband and I tried to fit some wall lights last night. We drilled the holes, but then found that the rawl plugs were turning in the holes once we started tightening the screws. It's an old flat and the walls can be quite crumbly. We did drill far enough into the masonary, but it appears we...

Decided to try spray radiator paint yesterday as I have 3 huge radiators to paint. Anyway, it's not the right colour white and the cover isn't as good as I thought it would be, so I've now decided to just paint them by hand with the normal water-based gloss I've used on other radiators in the...

I've just had a lot of re-rendering and skimming work done in the hallway and lounge of my appartment. The plasterers have done a good job, but the main guy told me today that there are some tiny hairline cracks which keep appearing in the plaster. He reackons it's down to the age of the place...

I've just had a lot of re-rendering and skimming work done in the hallway and lounge of my appartment. The plasterers have done a good job, but the main guy told me today that there are some tiny hairline cracks which keep appearing in the plaster. He reackons it's down to the age of the place...

I have to repaint 3 victorian style radiators that the previous owner of my flat painted a horrible shade of brown... When we did the bedroom one, we used normal gloss paint and a brush, and it was pretty hard work. I'm jsut wondering if radiator spray gloss paint would be OK to use? I've never...

In our toilet we've just tiled up to about 1.4m and the rest of the wall is painted. What should I use along the top of the tiles where they meet the painted wall? Should I use grout, or something like silicone sealant? I basically want the finish to be clean and cleanable, which is why I was...

Plumber is boxing in pipes in my bathroom using plasterboard (gyproc?). He says I can put a primer on and then paint directly. Is this true? I thought I'd need to get them skimmed. If not, do I need to do anything special to the plasterboard before painting it. I would obviously use a primer...

Bathroom being renovated, but we're doing the painting ourselves. In the toilet I guess I can just use normal emulsion? In the bathroom do I have to use special paint? It's about 4m2, high ceilings (just over 3m) and the tiling goes up to 2m70. There's no extractor fan - but there is a big...

We're having our bathroom renovated. Along the wall between the bathroom and the bedroom, where the plumber has channelled out a space for the new pipes, we've got cracks in the bedroom wall. The wall was reskimmed and painted a couple of months ago.... The builders/plumber are going to fix it...

We have those old-fashioned internal doors with windows in them. Despite masking taping the windows before painting, some paint has managed to get on the windows, as the windows have a bumpy pattern on them and the masking tape didn't quite sit flat.... I'm just wondering if there's an easy way...

Help! I have 3.5m high ceilings and am just about to get my bathroom done. I need to find a "U" shaped shower curtain rail that can have long enough ceiling supports to fit to my ceiling. Any ideas where I might find one? Alternatively, can you think of any other solutions - my plumber/bathroom...

There is a slight bit of mould caused by condensation in my bathroom, around the top of the window frame. I suspect it's from before the double-glazing was installed a couple of years ago, as it hasn't got any worse in the 10 months I've lived in the flat. Anyway, I'm about the have the bathroom...

We're renovating our bathroom and toilet, and in order to hide a load of unsightly pipework we're installing a "WC suspendu" (no idea of the English word!). It's basically one of those toilets where the cistern is encased behind the toilet and there's a button for the flush. We wanted to...

I have my worktop installed but now need to do the edging strip, as we had to order it in seperately... It's wider than the depth of the worktop - the guy in the shop said that was normal, but I don't understand how you're supposed to get it to fit. Can someone talk me through what I need to do...

We have a slight gap between the skirting board and the wall in places where the walls aren't quite exactly level. Is it possible to fill this with caulk without having to re-paint the skirting boards, etc? Any tips on how to do it well?