r/DIYUK

We’re turning our attic room into a spare room. As it’s on the third floor.

It’s usually boiling in the summer and cold in the winter, although we’ve never had the heating on up there as we didn’t really use the room.

I went above it today into the roof space to move the light fitting and noticed there was no insulation.

I only have access to half of the room (highlighted in red) which is what you can see in the photos of the attic space.

So I have some questions:

1. Is it worth insulating it using wool in between the joists? As I don’t have access to the remaining part of the roof.

2. what are all the parts of plaster? On the left hand side? I’ve started to tidy them up but wondered where they’ve come from.

Thanks

Hi all, first-time homeowner, and I'm getting some plastering done at the end of the month. I'm removing the 1960s coving to give a clean finish to the walls.

When removing the coving, I've found so many problems with the space behind it. Loose bits of plaster, chunks of old brick and plaster coming off with the double 2-inch nails, and the worst was the room I just did today. It looks like it leads to the wall to the neighbours (semi-detached) and is a direct gap to the attic (i can see and touch insulation). It's brick, and it looks like there's some wood placed between the brickwork which is attached to the wood that was attached to the coving that I broke when pulling the coving off. I put an image in which shows how the wood usually sits behind the coving between the plasterboard and ceiling (pic 3 - on the right is the wood that remained).

A few questions

• Is this OK to leave for the plasterer? They assured me that behind the coving it will be a mess, but this is an inch+ deep and a 2-3 inches tall of filling to do where the small piece of wood was that got pulled out
• Should I re-fill with wood (the same way it was before, that the coving was attached to)
  • If so, how do I do this? I'm guessing I can just nail it into the bits of wood there - but is there anything I should know/check to see why this wood broke and the other didn't?
• Is it OK that this was broken? Is this wood important, or have I fucked up and will I need to get a builder in to check this? Dumb question I'm sure, as I don't think coving is structurally important, but I don't want any problems going forward as this house has been problem after problem
• Is it OK to breathe any the space after cleaning? This is my office, and I've not covered it, but will there be any problems for the few weeks ahead of the plastering job to sit here 10+ hours a day?

Any help would be appreciated. I wasn't sure what to flair, so I did building as this seemed beyond a bit of polyfill

Finally, there was what seemed like old soot behind much of this. There is an old covered chimney on the left between two rooms. I'm unsure if this is soot, black mould (ancient) or we did have a boreworm infestation that we got treated (it was not due to damp I was told by the specialist, and the attic has remained damp free so far in the 6 months i've been here). Google suggests this could be boreworm droppings. It's chalky and leaves a black smear like charcoal would. If it is mould, is it likely to be just really old?

I just dropped a glass pot and it’s chipped the worktop and I’m gutted as it’s fairly new. What is the best way to address this? Buff? Fill and buff? Rip out the entire kitchen?

Hi all, long time reddit reader brand new to posting so apologies if I've got something wrong.

My wife kept her original house and kept it as a buy to let. We're begining to explore the idea of moving back to it and becoming (very nearly) mortgage free 😍. It's got a garage built on that at the back is a little short of being flush with the rear of the house so I'm hoping to fix that with a small extension to make the flow work. Next to the garage at the other side of the perimeter fence is a public entry that is gated. I've begun to mess around with ai and it seems like a good idea. It's on the north west of England and willing to go to £75k to get the place sorted, future proof and turn it into our forever home. I'll be able to get some lads in I know to help with plumbing and doing any manual dirty work. I'm hoping to do a full rewire, any plumbing upgrades needed, kitchen, decorating (I've got a mate for that), hopefully I'd like to modernise the outside with rendering and renewing facials. I'd also hopefully like a house battery and hopefully solar panels. SORRY TO GO ON.

Anyway I've included some pics. Am I being realistic for this budget if I get some lads in and help myself? To be honest I'd like to come in under that budget.

Ps. OBVIOUSLY some of the pics are ai and it's gone a bit rogue but you get the idea. Any advice greatly appreciated. This ain't my forte at all and I'm at the very begining

Thanks in advance

I have never seen this before. Have you? Doesn’t look like it’s been badly constructed. I go up onto roofs a couple of times a week and you wouldn’t catch me on that thing.

Roath, Cardiff, Wales

I watched a YouTube video which said that there would be a nut at the base of the plastic rod but it doesn't look like there is.

And something which doesn't show in the pic is that the edges of the circular piece alongside the pipes are about 8mm deep. Thanks in advance.

I had some guys in to paint the house back in May/June time. Since then only the front of the house and the garage have had these runs and streaks appear. Was it due to the hot weather we had? Rear of the house which is south facing and gable ends are fine! Just the garage, and front.
My fear is they didn’t wash and prep the front and garage as well as the others because they were trying to get it finished after one of the early heat waves .

This is just a post to show off something I’m quite proud of really and decided I wanted to share my progress pics.

We’ve been in our new build for a year now and the whole place has felt pretty sterile as we let the walls settle. So while my wife and toddler were away I decided to practice my decorating skills over a couple of weekends. (because if I f-ed up at least it’s only a small room to fix)

I’ve not done dado rails before or been brave enough to have two colours meeting on the same wall so that was new but I thought the rest was mostly quite a normal job. I think it came together really well. Used some old shelves which have been knocking about in the garage since the move and cut them to size.

Actual DIY, I know, I was as stunned as you.

Double socket in the kitchen stopped working, and the 'On' switch was stuck open. I'm super wary of electrical work, but I turned off the kitchen sockets at the board, and removed the offending face plate. Earth wire was super loose, not sure if that made any difference. Re-did the wires, making sure I matched them up to the correct spots, and then screwed the new plate in place. Power back on, no sparks or explosions, and I've got a fresh cuppa in hand. Game on.

The replacement socket is double pole, original was single pole. Dunno if that matters? Single pole isn't as safe I think? I dunno. Either way, socket is fixed and I'm not dead. So that's a good result.

I took off 3 radiators to get walls skimmed and painted. I still need to prep and paint 2 of those rooms but wife wants to turn heating on as temps are going down this week and we both work from home. Is it safe to turn the heating on with pipes as they are?

Fuck do I hate angles and our of square walls and ceilings...

The drawer is huge and fits 9 pairs of shoes in a single drawer, not sure how long I'll trust the B&Q push to open drawer slides for though

Why not put the robot on the right?

You need clearance to lift up the water tanks on our robot vacuum dock, so sadly it couldn't fit in on the right without being basically in the middle meaning we would have had even less space. So it had to go on the left (the tallest side) so we lose some space that way - i might fit some shelves / a door at some point in the future!

Access to under floor heating manifold

The section on the left is fixed with all accessible screws so I can pull out that fake wall pretty easily for servicing the UFH

Have had some new windows installed at our house. I don’t know enough about windows to know what should be done but I’m pretty sure this shouldn’t be like this.

Does anyone know what should be done/have been done? Fitter is still doing other windows and not sure what to say to resolve as they seem to fob us off with explanations we don’t know if true or not (“you have to leave the expanding foam to set before filling” etc).

We already had to pay upfront for the windows themselves so not getting that back but would be good to have this fixed if possible. Any ideas/advice would be really appreciated. Cheers in advance.

EDIT: Thanks for responses. Perhaps have jumped the gun here (as he’s still installing some bifolds) but these other windows have been in for 3 weeks now and when we told the fitter that the windows looked unfinished he asked “what do you mean it’s not finished?”. At least know what to look for when it is finished though.

The room was all bed, except for an alcove I work at, and I rarely have overnight guests. Replaced the carpet with laminate, changed walls from grey to cream, added feature wallpaper, splurged on the armchair, and saved on the (flatpack) wooden furniture and rug.

We're currently installing a new basin and having a nightmare trying to connect it. We're trying to fit a waste to a push fit connector and nothing we buy seems to fit and I don't know if he's doing something wrong or we're buying the wrong thing. Sorry if I sound silly but I'll explain it as best I can.

Pic of the connector. The size of that bit in the middle is 32mm when I measure the outside of the internal bit with a caliper. It's my understanding that the waste we get has to fit perfectly between that inner and outer part. So what size do we buy to fit?

We moved last year, and I've finally got to the point with the DIY job list (and space in the garage) where I can get my workbench sorted out.

In the last house I had a simple 2x4 frame, with a ply top, butted up to the wall in the garage.

For Workbench 2.0, I want to be ambitious. It needs to house:

- Table saw

- Mitre saw that folds away

- Router table

- Vice (mounted better than last time - it was an after thought for 1.0)

- Storage for things related to those specific tools

It also needs to be somewhat mobile so I can spin it around in the garage, and wheel it out to the drive when I'm doing things that are too big for just in the garage.

Size wise I'm limited to 1.2 x 1.5m as that's the biggest (literally) I can spin in the garage around everything else I have in there.

With that in mind, I did some CAD (cardboard aided design) to work out the layout of things.

During the CAD, and day 1 of framing it out (no photos, sorry) I was thinking of just plopping my bench top router table in a space behind the table saw, but in practice I can't line up the mitre slots of the table saw and the bench top of the router table. My plan now is to take the motor and rising mechanism off the bench top router table and mount them to the underside of the wooded bench top directly.

Today's efforts have seen me get the mitre saw in place and fold away. (If I could go back in time I'd get a smaller one. There was an offer, I had a voucher, and I got too excited and got a massive one.) and got the top in place. I need to dial in the height so it's all flush with the top.

I still have plenty to do, as you can see (the table saw is wonky AF):

- Dial in the height of the mitre saw so it's all flush

- Make a blanking plate for the mitre saw section and a way of fitting it

- Mount the vice & line/face it with plywood

- Fit the table saw & dial in the height so it's all flush

- Route in the mitre slot extensions for the table saw (I'm thinking T track)

- Remove the shelf & supports that were going to be for the bench top router table

- Mount the router motor and rising mechanism

- Route in the T tracks for the router table fence

Now, I know it's rough. I'm trying to get it built quickly as there are still loads of jobs on the DIY list for this house and in some ways my workbench feels like a luxury (even though it'll make all the jobs a lot easier). Frankly as long as the top of all flush, and it's sturdy, I really could not care less about the framing being beautiful, or square, or flat. My garage floor isn't level, nor is my drive, so trying to have everything be square and level on the bench feels like it'll have me chasing my tail. Tbf, I could add leveling feet in the future if I get bothered by it.

Maybe I'll get planed all round wood (I doubt I'll ever have space for a planer, nor a jointer) and do proper joinery for Workbench 3.0.

I'm hoping to get some time in the week to be able to finish it off, so will update when it's done.