Meldrew moment.

[The Medway Handyman]

Had to change a rad in a downstairs bathroom today, terraced house built around the turn of the century.

Took the old rad off, old brackets nowhere near right for the new rad. Couldn't see any screws.

Turned out the wall had been rendered as part of a damp proofing 2 years ago - 4 mm of cement render applied over the face of the brackets! Not just that, the pipe clips were rendered into the wall as well.

So neatly done it was impossible to see which edge of the bracket was the right angle. Much hacking about & filling later I got it sorted.

The mind boggles - the time it must have taken to neatly render over/around things must have been about three times what it would have taken to remove/refix them!

Mustn't grumble though, got paid for the extra time.

[Martin Pentreath]

Why the hell won't the "pros" take things off walls and do jobs properly? As you say, it's probably quicker, and anyway it's the

*right* way to do it! Electrical fixtures are my bugbear. In my house someone has emulsioned up to them and slightly lapped over them so that when I want to change a switch for a dimmer, taking off the old switch pulls away a few mm of the paint from the wall leaving a nice reminder of the old colour around the edge of the new dimmer. A friend of mine had her place reskimmed recently, and they plastered nicely round all the switches and sockets so that they are now literally flush with the new plaster surface - looks bloody awful, and will be a bitch to sort out any electrical problems that need fixtures to be removed.

Victor Meldrew had the right idea.

Cheers!

Martin

[<me9]

At a place I worked at someone had taken a lot of trouble labelling cables leading to another building with tie on labels. The decorators had come along, and had carefully painted both sides of the labels magnolia. You can't win with professional decorators/plasterers!

[nightjar]

Wouldn't that have put the radiator a further 4mm away from the wall and, therefore, probably not aligned with the pipes?

Colin Bignell

[Lobster]

Well the pipe clips were buried too, so presumably a proper job would have involved removing and refixing them too, bringing the pipes further out?

David

[Skipweasel]

Not just pros - anyone. Cutting paper round light switches is far harder than unscrewing the plate and tucking the edges behind neatly.

[Man at B&Q]

The trick is to go around the edge of the old fitting with a Stanley blade to break the paint seal.

MBQ

[Stuart Noble]

We all know the problems with lifting electrical sockets and not being able to re-tighten them because the threads have gone. I'm not surprised tilers and plasterers don't want to to get involved.

[Adrian]

The Medway Handyman ("The Medway Handyman" ) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I'm just surprised you're surprised. We had that on a couple of rads in our house - fortunately just a skim of finish plaster, though.

[Cod Roe]

I take your story, and I raise you: not only were the back boxes for the sockets plastered "around" and not raised upwards in the kitchen when I brought this house, the sockets were put on with extra long socket screws to compensate, the wall tiles where put round the sockets to make their fronts flush with the front of the socket, and the remaining fine gap grouted! After having trouble with the ring main, I had to break tiles off all around the sockets to get them free, only to find behind the total of four sockets: two loose earth wires, a loose neutral and most worrying a loose live, all just floating around the back box.

[Stuart Noble]

Or take the switch off completely, paper over it, and then cut.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Eh? Why would the threads have 'gone'? It's not like they get much use.

Plenty of other reasons why they don't. But that doesn't make it correct. The sensible way is to remove all fittings and make safe with chock blocks. If plastering anywhere near a fitting the power should be off anyway.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I know they cost more but I've got grid switches near everywhere. With these you can remove the front plate leaving the actual switch and grid in place - still safe to use. Makes papering or painting dead easy. I think you can buy some types of 'ordinary' switches using the same idea. Don't know of any sockets like this, though.

[Stuart Noble]

Dunno why, but it's the female on the box that goes, so a new bolt doesn't fix the problem. I don't think dried plaster setting on the threads helps.

I guess they'd say it's up to the customer to prepare the area they want tiled/plastered. Cans of worms are often opened by simple jobs like removing sockets.

[nightjar]

Most of my radiator pipes would need re-plumbing to run 4mm further away from the wall.

Colin Bignell

[Dave]

Run a 3.5 mm tap through the hole and you can use a new screw to hold down the socket / switch. It is usually the screw that gets knackered.

Dave

[The Medway Handyman]

I keep one of these in the electrical tool bag

reccommended by Adam Wadsworth. Only used it once, but saved me more than it caost.

[The Medway Handyman]

Could have I suppose, but in this particular instance it would have been OK.

[John Rumm]

I know someone who was having a bathroom redecorated as part of a much larger insurance job. She thought they were a bit rough at the best of times, but when they neatly painted around a cloth that was hanging on a waste pipe from the sink rather than move it, she decided it was time to sack them!

[John Rumm]

Yup, handy. Now what I want is a way of resurrecting knackered plastic lugs on dry lining boxes where either the brass ferrule has pulled out or the plastic broken. You can guarantee that the ones fitted are incompatible with any you may be able to pry from a box you have in stock!