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Over the past few weeks I have been bombarded with calls by various people from an organisation called Coastal Efficiency who insist that: (a) mineral wool loft insulation is no longer recommended by 'the government' as it is an irritant and doesn't work (!) (b) that they have been asked by...

My 1960's house has a small (2.5m x 2.5m) upstairs bathroom built as an extension in the 1980's I think. The room is very cold in winter. It has 3 external walls, and a pitched roof. There is no access to the roof space above the ceiling, though I know the hot/cold supply pipes for the shower...

Our utility room was created decades ago by previous owners who flat-roofed the gap between the side of the house and garage and filled in each end with a door. Not surprisingly it's very cold in the winter, so insulating the garage wall seems an obvious improvement to make. Any advice on how...

1960's house, Potterton Profile boiler 13 years old, mostly original pipework. The central heating pipes are buried in concrete floors downstairs. The expansion tank in the loft has been filling at a steady trickle continuously for several months, but there is no sign of leaks anywhere in the...

My utility 'room' is a roofed-over enclosed gap between the house and garage, done many years ago. I'm pretty sure there's no insulation between the plasterboard ceiling and chipboard/felt roof, as the wind blows dust and grit out of small gaps where drainage pipes, cables, go through it. The...

I want to install an extractor fan (100mm) in a utility room, and the best position for it is in a narrrow-ish top-opening window. Has anyone used one of those circular glass cutters? Any hints or tips on avoiding disaster? Or would it be more sensible to take the complete window down to the...

I want to wallpaper a room which has one recent plasterboard/skimmed wall (smooth as the proverbial virgin's thigh), the rest are bare '60s plaster on solid walls. All the plaster is sound, but different lots of building work have left uneven areas where a newer surface joins old - plus dozens...

Probably a bit late in the season now, but it occurred to me :idea: as I struggled to control the weeds growing through my gravel driveway this summer as I do every summer, that instead of pouring on more and more toxic chemicals or nuke-ing them with a weed-wand (very therapeutic, but only...

Strange but true. The overhead lamp in the hallway of my 1960's house flickers occasionally when someone walks underneath it. It's switched by two 2-way switches at either end of the hall, and my impression is that it happens more when one switch is used to switch the lamp off rather than the...

Can anyone tell me what's the difference between a 'Part 1' and a 'Part 2' ball valve? I was trying to get a replacement for a leaking toilet cistern ball valve (very old) that looks like a 'Part 1', but the only ones I can find of this design are for high (mains) pressure. I thought maybe that...