johnhenstock83

Thanks both. It’s a matte paint, wickes builder’s white paint, thin coat, doesn’t come off.

hi all, I need a bit of help. we built an extension, all done now, more or less. walls are typical masonry walls (brick out, block in), hardwall plaster + skim. I painted the walls white, a think layer, seems to be holding ok. I now want to tile behind the gas hob, but not sure what preparations to make. how do I make sure my tiles will bond to the wall properly? PVA? do I scrape the wall? special adhesive? also, can someone recommend a ready made, decent adhesive for a DIY job? thank you!

hi all, hopefully I can get a bit of help from you. for context, the house is a 1950s ex-council property with a brick wall at the front. when I say wall, I mean probably 1ft high, single skin, essentially marks the boundary. it's a continuous wall with a gap here and there (gate every 2 properties) and also a pillar every... let's say 8m. our side of the wall is also around 8m. what I'm looking to do is to remove part of this wall, rebuild where necessary (there are some cracks) and make good the "left overs". what am I likely to find underneath? aside from some cracks where a higher ground level and some shrubs have pushed the wall towards the street, the wall is perfectly straight. I'm wondering if it's got some sort of a foundation or will I need to pour one myself? on one end, I'll be left with around half a metre of wall, with a pillar to the left of that length. do I need another pillar on the right or given the short length of the wall, I can do without one? on the other end, I'm looking to demolish what's left (around 1.5m) and rebuild with new bricks and mortar, hence my question about foundations above. any tips you can give me?

hi all, I wanted to pick your brains on something I've recently seen, I can't figure it out. 3 bedroom terraced house for sale in Western Avenue, Egham, Surrey, TW20 (rightmove.co.uk) This property above, if you look at the first picture, had a shared alleyway between the two neighbours, but only downstairs. Upstairs is essentially the neighbour's bedroom/bathroom with a flying freehold. I know this is a shared alleyway because we have exactly the same house/layout/setup, but in a different part of the country. These are all ex-council properties, freehold and those alleyways are extremely common, if not standard practice for this type of development. My question is: How did the owner of the property advertised above manage to incorporate the alleyway and extend his hallway? Leaving aside the discussion with the neighbour and potentially paying the neighbour to give it up (many don't use it at all), how would this work from a planning/ownership/covenants perspective? Is it even a possibility or did this guy just pay his neighbour some money and is hoping the council won't find out? I'm asking because I'm very tempted to do the same, it's a relatively small job to open up the side wall (single skin) and the benefit would be a warmer property, both for myself and the neighbour, along with the added space. Thanks!

hi all, we finalised our single storey several months back, everything is ok. it has a flat roof (roughly 22sqm) and it has a downpipe on one side. the downpipe hasn't been connected to the sewer, as it's not a combined one (confirmed with Thames Water), but building control wants to see either an agreement (nope) or a soakway anyway, so it doesn't matter. Long story short, I'm happy with a soakway, I just need some advice on regulations. What I have so far is 5m away from extension (no problem) and 2m away from boundary, though that doesn't seem to be enforced, anyone who had one dug it right next to the fence. 1 meter deep as well and I'll probably be using some plastic crates filled with pebbles or whatever the material is. Is there anything else I need to know or do? We do live on a flood plain, so I can imagine the water table is quite high, but the building control guy is quite experienced, so he wouldn't have suggested a soakway if he knew it's not workable in the area. What about width/length? Worth mentioning that right now, the water from the roof is just draining next to the extension, next to the foundation (which is why I want it done properly asap), but the amount of water coming down is negligible. Even with the wild rains in recent days/weeks, we're talking a fairly small amount. Any advice welcome, thank you!

thanks for replying, I managed to get a manual and you're right, that's the way to change it. what I also found out is that our control that came with the boiler has some hidden settings. one of them was modulation. essentially, every time the boiler kicked on before, it was running at full power, heating everything up to 75 degrees and consuming a lot of energy. since I turned modulation on, the boiler only heats up to the required temperature. it's much quieter now and the temperature rarely goes above 60 degrees, as that's all it takes to keep everything at temperature. gas consumption seems to have go down a tad as well. it's so sad that every boiler installer is only in to connect the pipes and the flue, really. no gas engineer cares about efficiency or talks to their customers about their boiler's capabilities. thank you!

Hi all, we have a 1 year old glowworm energy c30 boiler, works a charm. Our setup is radiators, draytone TRVs with various settings for various rooms, wireless thermostat (always on, min temp 21 deg). every time the boiler kicks in, temperature goes up to around 75 degrees, if required, which I believe is excessive. I tried to adjust the flow temperature, like I did with the hot water temperature, and the boiler displays no. how can I change this to, let’s say, 60 deg? I think that will be more than enough for our house. thank you!

from a weight perspective (downwards force), a 150mm pier will do. in fact, even using just the lateral wall will be enough, as the perpendicular wall can take all the load, easily. what most people don't take into account is lateral strength. less of an issue in a terrace, but STILL a consideration.

1. we simply used a damp proof membrane and connected it to the skirting, which tucks nicely under the DPC (on the internal skin). essentially, you have a barrier between ground level and floor, absolutely no issue with humidity at all, with the extension sitting nicely at 50%, except for in the summer, when the doors are open a lot and the humidity inside reflects what's outside. 2. internal wall between existing kitchen and extension was taken down to screed level, so we didn't remove any bricks from the "footings". we then used liquid DPM to close any tiny gaps, but that was completely unnecessary, as the underside of the extension is bone dry anyway. we then used self-levelling compound to combine everything nicely, again, all nice and dry despite a lot of rain and humidity. 3. we removed the internal skin along the width of the bifold and used the same damp proof membrane to create a "tray" underneath the screed and insulation. again, absolutely no problems with humidity, but I have to admit that area of the floor is a bit colder that the rest, despite using celotex. not a big deal and there's no condensation, which for me is good enough. from the outside, you can see the ground level at 3 bricks under the internal floor, with a DPC 2 bricks above ground floor, so it's quite difficult for anything to get damp/wet, even in heavy rain.

absolutely no need, 100mm+ of celotex on top of everything will keep things toasty. we've got the same set up and the space in between the joists is nice and bone dry, warm as well, as are the upstands. everything freezes, but the upstands and the edge of the skylights never do, that's how warm things are kept.

update: it is now cold, 4-5 degrees during the day, 0/-1 at night. without opening the windows and without any extraction is the kitchen, the humidity in the entire house is around 50%, so it must be ok. if I had a PIV or better ventilation (e.g. extractor duct instead of recirculating), I'm sure I could achieve below 40%. turns out there's no damp at all, the house just breathes and adopts the exterior relative humidity in the summer. turns out the "wisdom" that humidity in a house should be much lower than outside doesn't apply to houses built to breathe through walls/mortar. thanks all!

I mean it's £4 for 3 meters, the whole lot will cost me £20, so I'll go with CLS :). It is indeed for a concealed cistern (a normal one, not a metal frame one). as for the build, I'll build the frame first, plasterboard what needs covering and then tile. thanks a lot!

ah, I see. thanks for explaining how it works, I thought CLS was your typical international standard. so yes, it's a 3 x 2 then, and I'm planning to use it for a frame much simpler than the one posted above. I trust it will be strong enough. do I lay the flooring first (tiles) or build the frame directly on the solid concrete floor? if the latter, do I need a DPC under the timbers? there's no damp in the house. thanks

I'm looking to get a simple frame built in the downstairs cloakroom, which is currently just a space (1.5x0.9m) with some pipes in there. I am looking at wickes' CLS timber (38x63mm, I understand this is referred to as 2 by 1) and I was wondering if it will be strong enough for my application. all I'm looking for is to be able to fit a plasterboard sheet (12.5mm) to cover a very irregular wall, build a 80cm tall frame to hide a toilet cistern and have some further plasterboard cover a few pipes, again up to a height of 80cm. is this timber strong enough or do I need 2x2? thanks!

no, Howdens is never cheaper than the better quality competitors online, but they will (with the right technique) price match or beat the price. if you're not getting any joy, however, don't waste your time. for every item they sell, there are better and cheaper options online. for example, if you need kitchens, DIY kitchens beats any supplier in the UK in terms of everything. worktop express beats anyone on worktop. national skirting beats everyone on skirting boards and architraves etc. ... you get the point