Rich

Hi Swinters If you put your location into your profile then people can at least see where your from, and would know if its worth contacting you for the builders details. Thanks for not posting the details in your first post, its often seen as spam when people blag the first post into a full on testimonial which makes it difficult for others to take it seriously. If you want to, do up a new thread about them, and be sure to attach some pictures of the work they did so others can really see its been done, and the results you got

Hi Maya Not sure myself, never had one, never used one. Doesnt it have any bolts/screws/fixtures holding it in place in your kitchen? Show us a pic of what it looks like at the moment?

Hi James If you mean this stuff: Paint Insulation - Insulating Paint Additive - Ceramic Paint Additive then no, never seen it before, but it sure does look expensive for 5litres worth @

Hi Neil Are you able to cut the beading to replicate the skirting board? An easy way to do it is with a "Mitre block" to cut the angles, and some wood filler in the gaps in the joins if you end up with any, but you may need to cut smaller strips, thus helping to fit round the curve. Alternatively, if you have time on your hands, and some space, make a cardboard template of the curve in an exact fit, then transfer this curve to a similar sized peice of plywood, then place nails in the plywood every inch along the inside of the curve, and every 2 iinches along the outside of the curve givng you 2 rows of nails the width of the beading, resulting in an identical curve, made out of nails, wide enough to accomodate the beading. (Hope this is making sense so far?) Then get a wallpaper steamer, and steam the beading continuously in small sections as you very gently bend it into the curve of the nails. Make sure your wearing heavy duty building gloves, or something strong enough to avoid getting burnt with the steamer. Place one end of the beading into one end of your nailed curve, then, VERY gently, flex the beading down into the curve as you move the steamer along the beading. Its best to do this with a flexible, plyable beading, so consult your builders merchant on this, and do it REALLY slowly, prefarably in a garage out of any drafts or wind, and keep the beading steamed all the time. You will find it easier to do it in lots of small sections over a number of hours, just bending small sections maybe a foot at a time as you will need to keep the timber moist for as long as possible (An hour or so) then let it cool slowly before moving on to the next part. Those are just 2 methods, maybe somebody else has another method? How about a picture of what you are working with?

Hiya mate Apologies for the delay, yes, if you are 100% knowledgable in what your doing, and can competently isolate other items on the mains to a "certifiable standard" then you should be fine, but do get it certified immediately when done, otherwise, if anything goes up in smoke, you may find yourself without any home insurance. If your not sure about the "exactness" of it, then leave it to a pro. Electrics are immensly dangerous, and extremely easy to get wrong, even when all "appears" to be ok and working. I know first hand as I had a team of electricians rewire my place, and although it all worked on the surface, upon professional inspection, half my house had to ripped out and done again as it would have caused a fire had I put any loads on the ring main. To upload a photo, you need to use the "Advanced interface" which you can set in your "UserCP" and you will then get the "manage attachments" box below the post message window.

Hey kaloochi, welcome to the diy forum.... Regarding your mains smoke alarm... Why on "earth" (bad pun) would you want to get rid of a mains powered smoke alarm? ok, so lets assume your crazy enough to want to actually get rid of it, do you have a fused switch for it on your mains consumer unit? If you do, switch it off, hopefully the alarm has some sort of light on it to indicate its on mains power, so once this has gone out, you should then be able to remove it safely. Then go get something called a "choc box" from any electrical supply store, its basically a big plastic box, the size of a packet of cigarette's with a terminal connection inside and a screw down lid. Eterna Choc Box 5A Remove the wiring from the alarm, fit it into the terminal connectors in the choc-box, screw the box shut and if you really want to, tape the box up with electrical tape, then just push it back into the ceiling. Job done. Pop a bit of tape over the consumer unit fuse too so nobody tried to switch it back on, (Not that it will do any harm) and your good to go. Before you remove the wiring though, make sure no other alarms are linked to that one, or that it isnt feeding something else. If your not 100% sure, consult a qualified electrician though, they wont charge much just to do a little job like this, its very simple if your wiring is already certified and in good condition. Show us a picture if you can?

Hiya, welcome to the diy forums... These questions you about your pump, have you asked the suppliers or the manufacturer yet? Got a link to the manufacturers website and/or the pump itself?

This is fairly easy to do, just start in the doorway and use a blunt bolster to chisel the tiles up off the floor. Either that or break 1 tile on a corner where it is weakest then you can get underneath it to remove it. I hope you don't have the tile adhesive stuck directly to the floorboards?

Thanks Bob, look forward to seeing the pic's, its this one line of yours that sounds a little confusing as DPM is meant to be laid horizontally, across course of brick/block etc to prevent damp from rising, its not normally meant to run top-to-bottom of a wall at all unless you have some really odd special circumstances.

Hi Bob Is this in a basement, or are you just referring to the normal DPM course around the bottom of the wall? What makes you think there is a DPM right behind the plaster? There shouldnt be, the plaster should be directly on the brick/block/wall with no membranes in-between it. You got a photo to show what your referring to exactly?

Always welcome, if you do get anything, lets us know, and hopefully show us the finished work?

Hiya spark If your looking for actual lighting suppiers, maybe something like ***WEBSITES REMOVED AS OWNERS HAVE TAKEN TURN FOR THE WORSE*** ? If its not lighting suppliers your after, then maybe shed some light on what you want and stop keeping us in the dark, boom boom!!!!!

Well, back in October 2007, we had ADT in to supply and install a monitored alarm system for us... So I figured what the heck, lets tell you all how I got on with them to-date so far. So, the sales pitch.... Well, the sales guy was pretty neat, super friendly and didnt give any reason to worry, he was smart and tidy, but did go on to explain all his life's woe's and troubles with his family, which you kind of listen to just to be polite and squeeze a bit of discount from if you can get them on your side. Told him I'd dealt with many companies who had screwed everything up previously and was VERY aprehensive that something will get screwed up by them during the install, but the sales guy was very "re-assuring" as they are.... So, the sales guy gets the alarm system out aand shows me all the functions and features, the remotes and panick alarms etc, all very impressive stuff as you would expect from ADT So we sign up, as we had requested anyway, and after the sales guy fills in a ton of forms, he ask's me to sign the dotted line. Once signed and agreed, we had abrew, and chated for a bit, and all was good, install was scheduled for the following week instead of the 2 weeks he initially scheduled, and we didnt squeeze any discount, but I did get some extra

Hey PMking Its really hard to tell because your pictures dont indicate any orientation, and they are really really small. On the wall with the cracks, is that an outside wall too, and is it a cavity wall? If it is, can you take a big picture of the outside wall?

Good choice, easier on maintenance and cheap to run too, and much thinner to roll out under the tiles. They reckon underfloor heating is actually far cheaper than normal central heating too, costing only 0.07p p/hr to run. (Or about a grand if your with British Gas )

This is something you really should consult a qualified plumpber about because your effectively asking the world"What car should I buy" We cant see your house, and your what your needs are, but either way, this one is best left to a professional plumber who can actually pay you a visit. By the way, a hello and thanks doesnt cost anything

Hi there Funny that, just did ours last year the same, and we removed all the floorboards completely and replaced with waterproof plywood, bonded and sealed the joints, and made special lift up floor sections around pipe work. Looked at several types of underfloor heating, and the specifications do vary from one manufacturer to the other. Generally speaking, you wont need any special insulation, unless the underfloor heating itself comes with or recommends it, but you would always benefit from it if you did choose to put insulation under the actual floor itself, directly under your current floorboards, otherwise obviously heat will be lost warming the space under the floor too. Depending on the size of your bathroom too, this could be expensive because building reg's specify you must use fireproof insulation, not that polystyrene rubbish. Given a choice though, I would insulate the floor underneath anyway, even if it wasnt a requirement for the heating, but either way, the floor will always heat up fairly quickly, just how efficiently and how much heat is retained is what your insulation will affect. Is your underfloor heating electric or water based?

Hey Marc, thats fantastic, thanks for highlighting that. So many people have fall-outs with builders as they dont know how to cope with the stress, and can often easily over-react given a lack of information. I think something a lot of builders often forget (Like in many trades) is that the customer has no idea what your doing or why, so its always a good idea to stop and bring your customer up-to-speed on your progress, and why things are being done the way they are. This can not only be very re-assuring, but can also quash any niggling worries the customer might have, but just dont want to bother you with, or they might feel stupid asking about. What profession are you in Marc ?

Christ, @

Hiya reallylight Have you got any "Before" photo's, so you can show us the "After" version later?

Small groups of people shouldnt be limited to there discussion by what others think they should talk about right? Dont look at it as not having many posters, look at it as all the different things you surely have an opinion on? If your not posting in any of the forums, then we assume you have no opinions on anything?

This is pretty difficult to offer advice on because you will need to book an appointment with your local building inspector who will need to assess this type of floor before the slab is cast so, once you've got your damp-proof course and membranes are ready, book an appointment with them so they can come and examine the installation work.

Hi there The first thing you should do is check to see if your conservatory needs planning permissions, and if so, seek guidance from the planning department at your local council. Many councils have varying regulations and the type of sub-soil your property is built on can also affect the requirements. Where we live for example, all properties are built on clay, so foundations dont need to be as deep, nor require as much re-enforcement as the same type of property built on soft soil for example. So, first point of contact, get in touch with the council.

Nice one Alan, thats a great tool for saving hours of mess with actual paint brushes.

Welcome Alan, great website you have there.