Ferdinand Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 I might be inclined to paint the plasterboard with something moisture-resistant if I can just because a bit of water spray or dribble can damage it. I would not worry too much about what I used. But this is probably a ferdian-fandango that is not normally done. Though I did used t think that that applied to tiling under cupboards, and it turns out half the BH community agrees. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 4 minutes ago, Onoff said: Not getting angry at all. Been there, done that! It's very difficult advising somebody. For a start it's trying to condense someones's learned knowledge, gleaned over years, into just the bits the DIY'er wants to know. They then don't have the benefit of an "old hand" looking over their shoulder as in the electrician/electrician's mate to tell them "Well done!" or "That's crap, do it again!". Then there's the whole dexterity thing that can only be learnt. It's OK saying "stick all three wires into the L terminal" but the trick is to know how much to strip, how not to nick the copper, when and how to fold a solid core back on itself so as to "double up" etc. Luckily I err on the side of thinking it's better to maybe advise someone the "right" way to do it in the hope the end result if they do have a bash will be at least "safer" than if they had gone in blind. You then get into having the proper, often expensive tools and test kit and so on as well as knowledge of Building Regs & 7671. Just to back up what @Onoff has very rightly said, I'm just about to send my £300 multitester in for calibration, at a cost of around £35. That bit of kit alone is near-essential, just to check that any bit of electrical work is as safe as it can be, and it's not economic for most DIY'ers to own such a bit of kit or keep it in calibration (I only have one because I was going to wire our new build, but couldn't, because there's no one locally, not even within Building Control, who's prepared to inspect, test and sign off 3rd party work). It's the main reason I'm looking at getting a ticket to do just this, as I reckon it's a lot safer to offer a free inspection, test and sign off service for local DIY'ers than it is to let them go ahead with a little bit of knowledge and end up with a potentially dangerous installation. I can give an example of how potentially dangerous electrical installation faults can catch out even those who try to be pretty diligent about electrical safety, from some work I did yesterday afternoon. We're selling our old house, and it still has the original wiring from 1986, with a fuse box. I've made one or two minor alterations, like adding a light in the loft off the existing lighting ring final, and the previous owners had fitted an electric shower (which we took out), but the purchaser is looking at getting an Electrical Installation Condition Report (EICR) done, which will get an "unsatisfactory" mark purely because it has no RCD protection - just wired fuses. I've advised the purchaser that she'd be much better off just getting the fuse box changed for a 17th Ed Amendment 3 one, and not bothering to get the EICR right now, as she'll get an Electrical Installation Certificate with the consumer unit installation and that will include most of the key tests done during an EICR anyway (with the exception of a visual inspection of the visible wiring plus checks on the outlets). For my piece of mind I decided to do my own EICR, not that it would be valid for the purchaser. I found all the wiring to look OK, all the outlets checked out OK when tested and the first issue I found was that the person that removed the electric shower (at the time we fitted the combi boiler - it was their electrician who I asked to disconnect and make safe the electric shower wiring) had failed to remove the cable from the fuse box - they had just pulled to fuse, which is a bit iffy as the cable has been cut off and is buried in the bathroom wall now. It was easy enough to isolate the power, remove the unused electric shower cable from the fuse box though and get rid of that problem. I then disconnected each ring final in turn, and measure the loop resistance for the earth, neutral and line for each. All went well until I got to a lighting ring, which was open circuit on all both the line and neutral when tested, but the earth looked OK. It looked to me as of the outside light was newer than the rest of the lights in the house, so I went and checked that, and found that one side of the lighting ring had just been cut off in the hall switch. This switch had clearly originally been a single gang switch, that only turned on the hall lights, and had been replaced with a double gang switch, with an extra feed to the outside light. I've no idea why on earth someone chose to break the ring at that point, but it may well have been because space was a bit tight, as they'd used big sections of choc block to connect the neutrals. An hour of cursing followed as I tried to get enough free cable to neatly and safely connect everything in the back box, using wagos to save a bit of space. The key thing here is that for at least 18 years that fault had existed, with the potential that one side or the other of that broken lighting ring final could have been overloaded. Clearly no one had done a proper check on the installation (and that's as much my fault as anyone else's, I just assumed it was OK). This isn't an uncommon type of fault, either, I've found loose screws behind outlets a few times, occasionally so loose that wires have pulled out when it's been pulled away from the box. One failing with our usual system of having ring finals is that a line, neutral or earth connection can come loose and it won't show on a simple socket test, as the other side of the ring will still be connected. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 36 minutes ago, newhome said: That sounds great @JSHarris. They must have a formal conversion course for someone who has done the full C&G qualification for a previous edition I would have thought anyway. It's a one day course for £169, plus the cost of the 18th Ed, plus the fees to an accreditation body (Elecsa/Niceic or whoever), plus assessments by the accreditation body. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoothorn Posted September 1, 2018 Author Share Posted September 1, 2018 i can't find any info on what size hole to make for my mixtap. i know 35mm was discussed, but how can I be certain? it seems very close to the washer ring internal dia. Nothing on the tap info, or its pdf tech sheet, nothing on TP site or the Co's site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 33 minutes ago, Onoff said: Though they don't advertise it I think NAPIT still do their "Just 8" scheme whereby you can annually verify just 8 notifiable jobs. Designed for retirees and say college lecturers who just want to keep their hand in / be on a par with their students and do the odd job for family and friends. Worth a look. Thanks for that, NAPIT is the one body I've not delved into yet, that sounds spot on. When I had a 15th Ed ticket I retained that as a part-time lecturer with a similar scheme run by C&G. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 40 minutes ago, zoothorn said: Right now hard bit done.. I reckon you can be rightly proud of your achievement so far. I think we've all seen some real abominations done by some people who consider themselves to be competent DIY'ers, and for someone with little or no DIY experience I reckon you've done a damned good job - a better job than many so-called professionals would have done, IMHO. Please let us retain all the earlier posts, they are a really good lesson in how someone can go from knowing very little to tackling what is a pretty big DIY job very well, and will be of benefit to others who read the whole story, I'm sure. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newhome Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 13 minutes ago, Ferdinand said: Though I did used t think that that applied to tiling under cupboards, and it turns out half the BH community agrees. Only half though . The other half thought that you should save your money and tile up to the plinths and under appliances like the dishwasher. Moot anyway as @zoothorn needs his sink back PDQ and is only putting lino down anyway . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 Just now, newhome said: Only half though . The other half thought that you should save your money and tile up to the plinths and under appliances like the dishwasher. Moot anyway as @zoothorn needs his sink back PDQ and is only putting lino down anyway . I have recently been developing some theories about sinks, but I will save those Ferdian-slips for another time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 August 21st, p26 of this thread, it was you you suggested it was "35mm or s'thing". Measure with a cheap vernier caliper, or look at the internal diameter of the rubber washer that came with it etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 44 minutes ago, Ferdinand said: @JSHarris, I thought that had a stinking Annual Fee attached ... of the order of £500 ... to be a Registered Competent Person, My BiL did the qualifications at night school with a view to doing electrics, then found just how much he would need to be doing to be worthwhile, and that it would be difficult to justify in the interim while building up a possible business. Eg I've been thinking about this for some years now, and I know roughly what the fees are. My intention is to be able to offer a service to committed DIY'ers that's free, but for which people can choose to make a donation towards my costs if they wish. People are always going to do electrical installation work they shouldn't, and I don't think that will ever change (I'm sure you guys who work as electricians see it all the time). By offering free inspections and testing at least I can (hopefully) make a small dent in the number of really iffy installations there are around. As a side effect, I can make some of my own "unofficial" wiring in the water treatment plant shed and in my workshop legal, which alone will probably come close to covering the initial costs I'll incur. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 3 hours ago, JSHarris said: I've been thinking about this for some years now, and I know roughly what the fees are. My intention is to be able to offer a service to committed DIY'ers that's free, but for which people can choose to make a donation towards my costs if they wish. People are always going to do electrical installation work they shouldn't, and I don't think that will ever change (I'm sure you guys who work as electricians see it all the time). By offering free inspections and testing at least I can (hopefully) make a small dent in the number of really iffy installations there are around. As a side effect, I can make some of my own "unofficial" wiring in the water treatment plant shed and in my workshop legal, which alone will probably come close to covering the initial costs I'll incur. I only really work now on niche industrial 3P and the associated control stuff tbh. Hate domestic. My own place is like a mechanic's car! Not totally true, the bits I've done are well planned, tested and recorded. Been in the loft today tracing the original downstairs ring on the back of putting in a dedicated hot tub socket close to it. Been telling SWMBO of late not to overload a spur on the downstairs ring (actually in the kitchen) with the dw, wm and now the F**CKING HOT TUB! Keep catching her doing it and the response is "I keep checking if the socket's hot!" Parts of the ring are under the dormer, under felt covered roofs left in situ when the place was re-roofed in the 80's. JB's everywhere! The usual loft "tat" atop the flat roofs. The more accessible runs are under glued T&G floors with carpet and furniture on! I suspect vermin damage somewhere. SWMBO + youngest out tomorrow so I'll get some testing done in peace hopefully. Hate domestic...did I mention that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted September 1, 2018 Share Posted September 1, 2018 I hate trying to find other people's screw ups and then trying to fix them. That outside light cockup really had me going, especially as we'd been living with a switch that had a clipped live cable just tucked in the back box for over 18 years, I can understand hating domestics, there are always going to be bodged DIY stuff in any house that's a decade or more old, I suspect. Worst I've ever seen was when I was still lecturing. Over 90% of the students were South West Electricity Board apprentices, so I was known to SWEB. They had a case of meter fiddling, uncovered by the police during a drugs raid on a cottage. I was asked to assess the meter bypass method the druggies had used, as the SWEB guy hadn't seen it before. The usual method was to break the seal and lift the test link there used to be on old meters, which just stopped them recording energy. These guys had gone one step beyond and come up with a way of reversing current through the meter, using a modified Radiospares 50VA transformer. They rewound the secondary with two or three turns of heavy gauge wire, connected to one side of the primary and with both the heavy cables coming out and soldered to two insulated brass spikes. The other side of the primary was connected to a lead with a croc clip to connect to earth. It worked by poking the brass spikes up under the meter line connections, and when they were the right way around there was enough reverse current through the meter to make it go backwards, even when current was being drawn to feed the house. It was damned clever, but bloody dangerous, all the same. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoothorn Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 Thanks for comms JSH! you've helped alot yourself. Satisfying 2 days (no www).. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoothorn Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 ..but by god a tricky top c/o due to sink siting with only mm's to spare L to R, & Back to Fr, in the cabinet.. took me 3 hrs to mark top/ check/ redo/ mark/ check, check check......... cut with major fingers x'd. Top c/o perfect.. jeepers, stressful. 35mm hole to be safe/ cheapo cutter ideal for job. Tarty tap on. Nothing connected yet.. I just read the 2 damn tops to join, need 3x oiling 1st with "Wood Oil". Now what the dickens is that? So all held up due for a day for these 3 coats to dry just when Im on a roll. Then I need to consider joining, both with biscuits & 2 clamp thingys. And the plumbing bits to buy/ confirm (Ive got the waste pipes, including an overflow to think of (plus to confirm the water pipes Hep2o bits to get). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoothorn Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 Now, the connectors are top RHS & the overflow thing.. advice on what placcy waste bits to get if you would chaps. Smart n tarty.. tap's rather IM A BIG SHINY TAP though.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoothorn Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 Actually the damn tap is too big.. for the kitchen being on the small side, esp moreso now, & spoils the view of the garden: old mixtap was a low squat job which didn't 'go into' the window area from this ^ pov. buggerit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newhome Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 That looks really good! Wood worktop looks so much better than the old tiled thing, and I wouldn't worry about the tap because it only looks out of place as it's new. It will soon become just part of your kitchen and large taps are pretty usual these days. Hopefully someone else will come along soon and help with the plumbing bits. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterW Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 If that is the worktop from Homebase then don’t bother with bolts. If you want it to not move, sand the edges lightly to get rid of the oil and then mark the angle of the end of the unfixed portion - assume you know how to do this ..?? Trim the end and clean up to a perfect flat finish with the router and a clamped bar to give you the straight line. Mark and biscuit cut in both sides / ends to match. Cut a couple of plates of 12mm ply 150mm square and put a 30mm screw in each corner. Get some decent wood glue on the biscuits and the joint and push the joint tight. Now put glue on the plates and screw them on from underneath across the joint. May want to add a couple more screws once they are on. Damp cloth over the wood joint to wipe off excess glue and leave to dry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoothorn Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 4 minutes ago, PeterW said: If you want it to not move, sand the edges lightly to get rid of the oil and then mark the angle of the end of the unfixed portion - assume you know how to do this ..?? Yup homebase acacia tops. Ok understand all you say Peter, bar this ^.. & I read on the spiel they come with, that lots of oiling etc esp edges, to prevent bowing/ warping & water ingress. But you say no oil-? nothing? it surely needs something as the surface is very 'unfinished/ raw' as it is, &, the most pressing issue here: the area is -extremely- damp, I mean you get your (dry) post & it feels limp/ moisture laden. Constantly (bar this weird summer). Clothes always feel never quite dry.. you just get used to it, affected my lungs to begin with, but it is extreme. My Howden's back door -mdf clad in 1mm veneer, then coated copiously by me- bowed in a few months & expanded drastically too it jammed time after time/ complete cr*p tbh. On the other hand a new basic pine (internal) solid wood door near back door.. seems fine. Which is why I said yes to the tops.. but I must do ALL I can to seal from moisture, even 3x coats of xyz I'm happy to do due to the weird climate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newhome Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 This is supposed to be good for wood worktops. Osmo Top Oil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 Looks a good job that. The tall tap will be ideal for home brewing & rinsing demijohns! Where does Peter say not to oil? He means just get rid of any oil on worktop surfaces you want to glue together! Thought it had been decided upon ages ago NOT to jig and bolt these worktops as so "thin"? You are going to have to think very careful as to how to protect that little upstand of plasterboard behind the sink. It's not moisture resistant pb and even then that's only "resistant". Maybe some exterior grade/waterproof PVA whilst you decide? My first thought is maybe tile the upstand and maybe the whole sill? Wiser people will chip in with advice shortly I'm sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 You could camouflage that tap to make it stand out less: 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoothorn Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 "If you want it to not move, sand the edges lightly to get rid of the oil and then mark the angle of the end of the unfixed portion - assume you know how to do this ..?? " Here onoff.. its the moving/ bowing the worktop spiel that came with it says is sorted -with- oiling. Also the spiel shows pics of clamping/ bolting (kept placcy wrap on tops until only today to protect- spiel is underside of pretty pics facing out) so still feasable maybe.. & nothing decided upon until I come to do a job: the circular clamp c/o I could do with one of these cheapo holesaws I just got + chisel.. & a trench with a router.. IF that is, this is the very best method. If Peter's idea is as good, with the square ply bits, then I'll go that easier route.. but again damp issue- ply is very prone to moisture/ warping. It needs extra care/ consideration working with wood here. Do it once/ do it as best as, taking silly time if that's what it takes (it is & some!) is my way I know likely infuriating to you experienced chaps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zoothorn Posted September 2, 2018 Author Share Posted September 2, 2018 12 minutes ago, Onoff said: You could camouflage that tap to make it stand out less: Urban-backcountry-chic tap. Or get another one. Its in my face as I fanny about in me sink doing stuff, being too cool&BIG. godam tap. Tip top tap tipped for tip in top tourist trap. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
newhome Posted September 2, 2018 Share Posted September 2, 2018 7 minutes ago, zoothorn said: It needs extra care/ consideration working with wood here. Do it once/ do it as best as, taking silly time if that's what it takes (it is & some!) is my way @Onoff works just like this . Lots of planning and prep needed and take your time. No point in rushing things and ruining it all after all that work. Remember the 6 Ps - Prior Preparation Prevents P**s Poor Performance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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