verne

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Everything posted by verne

  1. mould will always grow where there is food and moisture for it. a lot of it is bad for the health too. i think part of your problem is likely to be your painted walls. modern plastic emulsion paints aren't breathable - in fact they are so good they can be used as an isolator coat between paints of different (incompatible) types to prevent reactions between them... using these for decoration instead of the more traditional whitewashes or limewashes (or nothing at all) will seal off the wall as if you have put a membrane over it, concentrating the escaping moisture into areas where the paint fil
  2. i don't know much about stone built dwellings. a lot of the traditional peasant type houses were built of little more than rubble and were always damp and slightly better housing was built with cavity walls that had a decent stone facing but an infill of rubble and rubbish to keep the cost down... i suggest you investigate the possibility of a damp course of some sort before you begin spending much money on the place. an injection damp course probaly wouldn't be very successful alone - depending on the type of stone and construction the chemical would probably only saturate the mortar - but th
  3. it would be a good idea to try and minimise the damp if you can by attempting to trace the source and then taking a few precautions... an area that is naturally damp must be well ventilated and the source of the damp must not be covered with anything that can't breath... drylining the walls will probably drive more damp into the narrow strip between the floors dampening the woodwork... damp in solid walls can be caused by rising damp bridging the damp course (if it has one) in some way - perhaps by the internal plastering or because the ground level outside is too high or because a porous floo
  4. i have never seen one though i wouldn't be surprised if one existed. there are many light level switches available fitted to various devices from street lamps to night lights, including one that plugs in to a bulb holder. i suggest you approach one of the larger electrical wholesalers in your area - they often have access to consultants or at least tend to know their catalogues pretty well... if you get no success there i suggest you contact somebody like farnell or maplin or rs components who i am fairly sure will be able to supply something that could be installed within a switch.
  5. the simple answer is - you can't! as far as i know there are no products that bond tiles to fresh air. i suggest you carry on removing the grout and any tiles not securely fixed until you have discovered the extent of the problem - then attempt to remove a few more tiles so you have an area of good solid plasterboard around the hole that it will be necessary to make by removing the sodden plasterboard. give it some drying time so your repair is not going to trap any moisture where it can cause long term damage. clean the edges of the resulting hole. don't worry if the hole isn't a regular sha
  6. the victorians, like many from before and after, built many very good houses - but also threw up a lot of rubbish! a lot of the rubbish from the barratt type builders of those days is still standing - and i am living in one of them now. perhaps you are too? building materials were fairly expensive in those days, so was labour - in fact things weren't much different from now except there was no diesel lorries to haul stuff around and there was no power tools to make work quicker and easier. houses that were built for the letting market would have as many corners cut as were needed to bring them
  7. quickest and easiest thing to try first would be to use a different type of fire caulk. there must be many different types on the market with varying degrees of flexibility for different purposes. the problem is probably caused by the existing caulk being too rigid. i suggest you do some research into the local building and fire regulations where you are and find the purpose of that caulking; is it merely to stop smoke or is it to give a 30 minute fire barrier - or longer? armed with the correct requirements you can then approach some suppliers with your problem and requirements and obtain s
  8. hello. traditional deep shine finishes take a lot of time and skill to achieve, although french polish takes considerably more skill than using coloured varnishes or stained wood and clear varnishes. i have produced some "nearly" french polish finishes with varnish by applying six or eight coats and flatting between coats using a fine wet or dry paper and a rubber block. the first couple of flattings were carried out dry with a 400 grade and thereafter wet with 600 grade. the last but one coat was flatted with 1200 grade with soap and water. the last coat had to be done in a very clean place
  9. as long as you know exactly where your lights are going to be sited i think plaster first... if you are going to have to dig around a bit to avoid joists, it would be a good idea to to that before the plastering. might be a good idea to ask the plasterer what he thinks - plasterers aren't normal people and they tend to bite when upset...
  10. thanks for that info. i've not seen any clear stuff yet - pink and brown, and the stuff i generally use is the (almost the cheapest) white water based which does the job around the house ok. the stuff you speak of might be useful at work. sometimes things need to be stuck that would normally need a polyuerethane structural type adhesive which is expensive and has a very short life once the tube is started. i will buy a tube of clear and give it a try...
  11. just a reminder to make certain the light/power is switched off first. when a bulb has failed it is easy to forget this little detail or become confused if there is more than one switch... water based no-nails will probably take longer than 15 minutes to set sufficiently due to the lack of absorbency of the materials to be stuck together. due to the difficulty of sticking glass to anything because of its smoothness its probably a good idea to scuff the surface a bit with some scotchbrite or fine wet-or-dry paper before you begin.
  12. 750mm is a wide span for a single louvred door. the construction of that type of door is not strong and to remove more than an absolute minimum of material for fitting is to invite problems for the future... i suspect the only way to fill the door hole with just one door would be to have one made especially for the purpose. who ever made it for you would probably have a good holiday this year on the proceeds... even using the double doors you have found would mean removing more than just a shaving or two from each door. in order to make them fit and have a couple of mm gap all around will mea
  13. i am sure we would welcome more information about your roof before you used the foam; was it purely for insulation or did you hope to overcome other problems at the same time, did you spray direct under tiles or slates or is your roof felted? also, how much foam did you use, how much did it cost and how did you apply it?
  14. i am no expert but 10.5 degrees sounds more suitable for sheet roofing material than tiles... i don't have any input for you about the correctness of your plans. i just wanted to remind you to use only treated timber and it would probably be good to give the plywood a coat or two also. low pitched roofs are often associated with lean-to type buildings. if this is so your water through the tiles might actually be finding ways past any flashing. it is also possible that moss has a good foothold and is beginning to lift the tiles a bit or is separating them... i feel the underlay should either be
  15. years ago i bought a huge bag of dry fire clay from our local builder's merchant to line an industrial heater. don't remember how much it was but i do remember it was remarkably cheap. i believe pottery and other types of furnace and kilns are lined with firebrick. maybe someone in stoke could help. there is a famous wood burning bread oven somewhere in the lakes producing specialist breads and distributing nationwide...
  16. my plumber mate speaks a lot about repairing boilers. he says choose a boiler expecting it to go wrong sometime - how easy is it to service and repair? how much are the spares and how easy are they to buy locally? most new boilers of the correct specification will be ok for a year or two but i have heard all sorts of horror stories about dodgy heat exchangers that rot soon after the warranty expires and cost more than a new boiler to replace and a complicated boiler having complicated problems and the owner being without heat or hot water while waiting for a specialist to arrive from the other
  17. i would suggest you have a close look at it. after 5 hours it should have been fairly firm and if it didn't rain hard it shouldn't have done much damage. if the rain did penetrate the screed i think the damage will be obvious - if it looks ok, then it probably is ok.
  18. survey won't let me in without a user name and password!!! biggest problem with cordless tools for diy is they don't get enough use to give the batteries a good enough run for your money. batteries left discharged for long periods are soon ruined and who can control where they are dumped? diy cordless tools are cheap enough to replace which is good, but does not encourage people to look after their tools... more tradesmen just chuck their old stuff into a skip than recycle properly... it is the current fashion for corded tools to be as big and heavy as possible which makes them really unsuitab
  19. clearly the items illustrated are high quality components but for £150 they should also be gold plated and studded with diamonds... i have seen something like this before but cannot remember where and it is bugging me. got a feeling it was something to do with some equipment made for the disabled... there is a company called pera in melton mowbray who specialise in developing products for other companies. it is possible they have a database of useful bits and pieces. another company called rs components supply a huge amount of unlikely stuff as well as the electronic gear they are reknowned fo
  20. about 35 years ago my father bought some rolls of thin expanded polystyrene to use as a lining paper at my gran's house. i don't know how much less coal and wood they burned on their black-leaded range but it did remove the severe cold shock if one accidentally touched a wall... still available??
  21. pictures are not incredibly clear of the second switch. there does seem to be a problem with the wiring of the second switch. two way switching is relatively straightforward - the switches are connected by a three core cable with the common terminal of one switch being the live into the system and the common of the other switch going to the light. the other two switch terminals are connected individually, usually by the blue and yellow wires, to the opposite numbers of the other switch. the picture of the second switch shows a red wire sharing the terminal with the yellow wire. i think this i
  22. suggest you determine whether your lights are wired in the modern fashion; the supply leapfrogging from ceiling rose to ceiling rose - the extra terminals in the modern rose being used to replace junction boxes, or whether junction boxes are used exclusively, or a combination of both. you might have to unscrew and pull down some ceiling roses to check. when you have an idea of where the supply enters the dead lighting circuits, and the route it takes, it should be fairly straightforward to determine if the fault is within that circuit or with the supply from another lighting circuit; progressi
  23. firstly, the white pot hanging thing is an aerial insulator. i have several. old radios needed a good dipole aerial for decent reception over a large part of the country and you have found a remnant of one of those. i reckon you have about hit the nail on the head with your theory about condensation. most houses have some big air currents - do cooking smells roam around the house? if they do you can guarantee everything else does too. gas ovens produce huge quantities of water vapour and people produce gallons. if you have a limited number of open chimneys/fireplaces and not much alternative v
  24. if your roof is felted under the tiles the polyeurethane foam or whatever they spray on cannot hope to bond the tiles together unless they cut or tear away the felt first... this could then be a good way of stabilising a failing roof - as far as the bits between the rafters is concerned! any leaks above the timbers is unlikely to be sealed leaving the timber open to attack by nasties. a few soffit vents are unlikely to help. i think this process is best suited to insulating steel based industrial type roofs and kept away from timber and tiles (probably how they have remained in business 40 yea
  25. thanks for that. i will look out for some. it sounds like the sort of stuff to make the wife a new winter coat from and help save the planet... the staples would probably hurt though!

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