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The escutcheon (collar, gaiter ??) split and fell off my gas boiler flue where it exits through the outside brick wall. I've googled and can't find anything like it -- maybe because I'm using the wrong terminology. It appears to be made of some kind of rubber, maybe silicone, and is a tight...

At my mother-in-law's house in Thailand the mains water feeds into a tank, and a 250-watt Hitachi constant pressure pump supplies the house from the tank at a suitable almost-constant pressure. This pump is working, but it's quite noisy and, even with only a toilet cistern drawing water, it's...

For a while now my central heating has been making a significant banging/hammering noise whenever one of our heating zone valves shuts off. An engineer has been and says the valve and actuator are fine, so the banging is because some of our pipework beneath the floor is not secured properly...

Can you please advise whether PVC trunking is acceptable for outdoor use? I plan to install a short section through a wooden conservatory window frame to carry the 5v DC power supply for a CCTV camera, but I'm aware that PVC used to degrade in sunlight. Hopefully these days it's UV resistant...

At my wife's family's house in Bangkok we have two Hafele cold-only basin faucets, part no. 589.22.000. When one started dripping I went to the place where we bought them to get a new valve insert, but they said they could only 'repair' the tap if we took it to them! Since I was shortly...

My master telephone socket is down at skirting board level behind a heavy desk. I would like to raise it to above-desk level for better accessibility. Am I right in thinking a new socket connected to it by a short extension lead (less than 1m) plugged into it would be okay? The socket is...

Just finished laying and grouting the first section of my utility room floor tiling, and I have one last (I hope!) question: Is it 'best practice' to use tile grout or silicone sealant around the borders, where the tiles meet wooden skirtings, a wooden door threshhold, and a plastic tile edging...

I'm about to start my first tiling job -- about 4m2 of ceramic tiles on a concrete floor in our utility room. My local builders' merchant is Wickes, and looking at some of the reviews of their tile adhesives -- own brand and others -- I noticed several references to tiles not sticking. What...

My daughter is planning to have a water softener installed in her new kitchen, but her plumber has suggested that it's a waste of money and she should have an electronic/magnetic limescale prevention device (which he can supply and install) instead. My understanding of these limescale...

I've had a programmable electronic switch on one of my lights for several years now, like this one. For a few years now it has worked with the modern energy-saving "folded tube" fluorescent bulbs, but today the bulb blew, and when I replaced it with a new Philips 18W (85W equivalent) "Genie"...

I know there's a sub-forum for overseas electrics, but since there's more people viewing here and my question is a general one, I'm posting here first: I'm staying at a relative's house in Bangkok, and the main circuit breaker is forever tripping -- probably at least once a day, and always when...

The gale's just blown most of the sheeting off my shed roof. It was regular mineral shed felt, fixed with large-headed nails. It's many years old, so has earned its keep. To replace it I'm looking at something simple like Wickes shed mineral roof felt, but what I'm wondering is should I...

Here's another puzzler for you: As part of my ongoing saga of heating coming on in the night when the controller's clock is "off", one of the BG engineers replaced the valve and actuator on the hot water tank. He described the original actuator as "motor on/motor off", but the new one is...

My central heating, installed by BG about 10 years ago, and maintained by them on contract, has a master clock on which I can set what times I want the heating on and off. It's set to be on from 7:00 to 22:30 every day, and off through the night. For some time now the heating has been...

I need a new fabric roof panel for this 3-seater garden swing, but the place I bought it from no longer sells this line, and nobody there (nor me) can remember what the make is. Does anyone here recognise it please? Alternatively, can anyone point me in the direction of someone who could...

I had a problem with my British Gas 330 gas-fired central heating -- now fixed by BG -- where the boiler and pump kept going all night, even though the timer should have switched the whole thing off at 10:30pm. The BG engineer said it was because a valve was sticking, and not sending back an...

A friend of mine is having trouble tuning his new Freeview TV, a Samsung Series 3 TC300. He (and I) can access all the menus, and set all the options okay (language, country, aerial or cable, etc.), and it goes through the auto-tuning process seemingly without a hitch. The problem is that...

A while back our dishwasher was filled with foam after each wash. We called an engineer, and he cleared it all out and adjusted the drain pipe where it connects into the pipework behind our kitchen sink -- said that suds could have been travelling back from the sink. Since then my wife's...

I'm decorating the bathroom, including replacing a stand-alone light-with-shaver-socket with a mirrored cabinet with the light and socket built in. I've removed the old stuff, and am left with a pair of cables coming out of the wall, to which the old light-and-socket unit was directly...

My 1/4-turn kitchen sink mixer tap is dripping. It's a cheap one from Focus, so I don't know its brand. I've looked on the internet for replacment valve cartridges, but all I can find is ones specific to their own brand of tap. I haven't disassembled my tap yet, but I suspect it's a 1/2"...