Cheers to all who replied with advice re 1930's house with crack

[Velvet]

I'm due to complete on said house this friday :-)

Crack is of little/no concern, it seems, though will be keeping eye on it. I'm sure I'll be spending lots of time here, searching past posts and asking new questions, since I'll be getting a lot of stuff DIY'd rather than paying a pro - lack of money due to house purchase!

But I wanted to say thanks to those who gave me some sound advice, and blow raspberries at those who said don't touch it with a bargepole ;)

I'm getting a bigger house in a quieter road with a much bigger garden than I ever expected to be able to. If I'd been scared off as a first time buyer by the crack/damp/woodworm issues, I'd still be frantically trying to find a place to live before my current place was repo'd (crap landlords in debt, hate them!).

As it is, I have 6 months to get the damp/woodworm sorted (though leeway available on this, as long as I don't want to borrow any more against the place) - woodworm's probably being done 2 days before the furniture's moved up there, the rest I'll be DIY'ing if poss... and the woodworm guy said the original damp and timber people were talking out their a**es on the damp - he's happy to show me why he thinks I have woodworm needing treatment too though, so we'll see if I believe him on that :-)

Finally I'm joining the ranks of homeowners, and thus able to DIY in my own house without having to hold back due to tenancy agreements!

I'll go read the FAQ once I'm and have net access again, but in the mean time, what would people suggest (if it's not in the FAQ) as essential toolkit for those emergency repair situations? I'm thinking electrical/plumbing/drains - anything else that might not have occurred though...

I have some of the basics (reasonable hammer drill, spanners, adjustable spanner of some size or other, hammer etc, but probably not a lot more than that - screwdrivers but generally the sort more used in IT (pc sized to suitable for racking kit in comms rooms).

Oh, and a question straight off the bat:

I want to route coax up from the livingroom (front room) to the front bedroom. And telephone and Cat5 cable from livingroom to back bedroom.

What's the best way to do this - coax up the internal wall, through teh ceiling/floor? There's a solid brick wall between front/back half of the house. Again, is it easiest to run cabling for telephone and cat5 up the wall, along ceiling/floor, through wall, and across back bedroom floor and up at a convenient point through teh floor? Or route it out the living room, up the stairs, around the landing/bathroom door, into back bedroom that way?

I'm sure I'm not the first or the last to be wanting to do this :-)

And wireless would be nice but I want the AP up in the back bedroom, and the internet will be in the front livingroom...

Velvet

[Mike Dodd]

*** replies interspersed ***

Congratulations.

Find the quickest route to the A&E department :)

Definately a decent set of screwdrivers, and a cordless screwdriver (or maybe better, a cordless drill/screwdriver). Other tools like saws etc. you'd be better buying as and when you discover a need for them.

Make sure you also have a key for the gas / electricity meters (and isolators) - if you need them, before you start work :p

Big house?, most APs have a decent range, even indoors.

Mike

[PC Paul]

In big old (stone) houses round here, I've had a lot of success installing an AP or sometimes a directional antenna in the ridge of the roof firing downwards.

2.4GHz goes through a few layers of floorboards much better than through 16" stone walls...

[Christian McArdle]

That's normal. Damp-proofing companies are often run by crooks.

There's very little damp that can't be sorted by the following steps:

1. Remove any heaped earth or concrete from the outside walls.
2. Ream out the crud from any airbricks.
3. Don't be stingy with the central heating.
4. Ensure that all rooms have adequete ventilation.
5. Don't dry clothes on the radiator/indoor line
6. Don't use a vented dryer without an external hose.
7. Fit an extractor fan in the bathroom.

It is rare that any great expenditure is required unless (3) requires the installation of the central heating.

Christian.

[bigcat]

nice one.

lol

sounds like youre a bit lacking there. A cordless drill/driver saves a whole lotta effort. If you work out how much labour they save, and what thats worth, even an expensive codless is a decent deal. Avoid junk stuff, though even that is much better than nothing.

For more power, get a hex bit holder that goes in the mains drill. Also a set of hex shank drill bits, makes life quicker for the lighter duty drilling. And of course drill bits, rawl type plugs and a box of mixed woodscrews (crosshead, avoid slot head).

Tools are so cheap now you can wonder down to poundland with =A350 and get one of everything you think you might need. Youll come away with =A3150 worth of reasonably decent tools, plus 20% of junk, and save endless trips back into town.

Also I'd get screwfix and toolstation catalogues.

If you list what needs sorting we could advise further. If much needs doing I'd get at least a budget circ saw (not a codless) and a ladder. DIY the ladder of course.

For drains, some caustic soda and washing soda are good, plus eye goggles.

Tesco limescale removing bog cleaner is multiuseful - though a bit vicious, it contains HCl.

Without seeing it, who knows... I cant even begin to visualise it.

If its practical to put some kind of trunking in, that sure makes cabling upgrade a whole lot easier in future.

bad neighbourhood?

haha. Good to succeed isnt it?

Its walletworm you gotta watch out for. That does the most damage.

G'luck,

NT

[dave stanton]

I think you ought to repeat that on some pc newgroups, having seen some of the bollocks spouted about wireless on those groups .

Dave

[Anna Kettle]

Congratulations! Now the fun begins

Screwfix catalogue. Even if you don't buy everything from them, the catalogue has a wide range of good quality equipment at reasonable prices and will provide you with a good benchmark

Anna

~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|

01359 230642

[Chris Bacon]

Good-oh.

Makes lots of sense if you're at all practical. It might be productive to ask "pros" questions, watch them work, or whatever - even if you have someone to do the first job, you can learn how to do it next time.

That's nice, then - when I bought my first house, I'd noticed it with a "For Sale" sign up for *ages* and thought "I couldn't

*possibly* afford *that*!" - however, at an Estate Agent the details (in my price range) were produced, with a "Oh, you wouldn't want that, it needs lots of work!". Hah! Sold.

Great, sounds a chatty chap. Ask questions, you may get "war stories", information about how things work (why the treatment is effective against woodworm, how "rising damp" works, meters, dry/wet rot, etc.); just talk, if you've a good 'un, you'll get lots of interesting stuff, even OT useful stuff maybe. Don't directly contradict "tradesmen", make your own mind up about what they say, ask the whys and wherefores, give tea & be friendly! You know - "life" - as you'd expect to be treated if working for someone.

(excuse the cider, it's making me rather expansive)

"May I put in a screw to hold a mirror up?" Ans: "NO!".

Don't worry about it. Make sure you know the system you've got. You need to know where the stopcock is and whether it works, where valves are from the cold/hot water tank, how to switch off the electricity/gas. This is enough to stop *really* rude things happening, and you can then sort the problem out at comparative leisure.

Buy kit as you need it, if you can - *don't* try to put together an all-purpose toolkit straight away, you will find that you never use some tools which you thought might be really, really useful, and haven't what you need. Buy quality unpowered hand tools; for powered hand tools go for what works. Don't ignore unpowered hand tools such as tenon saws, planes, brace & bit etc., etc. (pssst! these can sometimes be had at markets 2nd. hand) - they can be of more use than power tools, sometimes. I've yet to come across an unusable power tool (although some are obviously better/longer-lived than others), but a screwdriver/plane/float/whatnot made of monkey metal is a disaster.

Dunno. IIWY I'd put up with trailing wires, or wires stuck/stapled or blu-tacked or whatever until I "got to know" the house a bit better, i.e. when it's yours, you're there, and can prioritise things a bit better. What do you do? Install your wires, then find you've got to move them 'cos [something else is in the way]? Decorate & then have to re-do something? Realise after you've been "in" for a while that it would have been much easier/neater/better to put the wires somewhere else, & you need to make good previous work *and* re-wire? Just put the cable where it can go/be removed easily - it's cheap in terms of time and effort. Hide it under the carpet, clip it (or tape (!) it) to the skirting, let it run loose, run it under doors - 'till you can work out your "grand scheme".

Well done, keep up the good work. I have now nearly run out of cider, so it's probably sleepy time.

[tony sayer]

In article , dave stanton writes

More tends to reflect round such obstacles.....

[John Rumm]

What the others have said, plus:

Bleeding key for the radiators mini pipe cutter cheap multimeter blowtorch big box of rawlplugs boxes of screws (10x2" are pretty hand for lots of stuff)

[Richard Faulkner]

Fire Extinguishers

[bigcat]

First find the nearest route to A&E, then fire extinguishers... poor OP will be thinking we dont have much confidence in his diy. :)

When I asked about extinguishers on a fire fighters group I was basically told that domestic ones dont save lives, as they get as many people into trouble as out. But Im not professing any real knowledge on that.

Smoke detectors are agreed to be a life saver, cheap too.

NT

[Velvet]

LOL, thanks peeps :-)

Some good ideas in there that I'd not thought of (looks up A&E)...

Fire extinguishers - I used to have one of these but well out of date by now. It was generally regarded, as you say, that the domestic ones are barely worth it, and definitely not worth it unless you actually know what your'e supposed to be doing, and have practised it too..

Have smoke detector but am thinking need another one (current place all on one floor, new is typical semi over two). No, I'm not stealing the landlady's one, it's mine cos there'd never been one installed when I started renting it 13 years ago ;)

Oh, and I'm a her not a he (or I was last time I looked!) - but I don't mind about what you think about my DIY skills, it's well known that any DIY'er assumes all others (including the professionals) are incompetent fools until proven otherwise, after all ;-)

-- Velvet

[Richard Faulkner]

In message , Velvet writes

I only mentioned fire extinguisher because, when I turned on the C/H in one of my flats the other day, there was a sharp crack, the power went off, and I could smell a burning smell near the Fuse Box. It turned out to be no big deal - a wire had burnt out, and cooled down fairly quickly, and it's now fixed. However, I felt really uncomfortable/worried, and would have felt a lot better if I had had an extinguisher handy. Pull the loop, aim at base of fire, press the trigger - not sure what's difficult about that

FYI I have almost completed the refurbishment of a block of 6 flats, and fire extinguishers are due to be fitted shortly.

[bigcat]

:) I suspect its cos you said you had so few tools.

Not difficult, but if I understand right, lethal. It is essential to stand on the exit side of the fire, so that when the fire is 5x the size after youre done spraying it, youre not then trapped and facing death. That is, again IIUC, one way they get people into trouble. Another is they expose you to smoke inhalation, which kills more people than the fire itself.

I was told that unless youre a fire fighter, get out and stay out.

Smoke alarms are cheap, unreliable, and life savers. Use 3 or 4.

NT

[Anna Kettle]

When I went on a fire safety course the fireman said get a fire blanket not an extinguisher cos ...

- There are several types of extinguisher for different sorts of fire and will you choose the right one in the heat and the smoke of the moment?

- If the fire is too big to put out with a fire blanket then you don't want to be anywhere near it

- Fire blankets are better than extinguishers for dealing quickly and safely with a chip pan fire

Anna

~~ Anna Kettle, Suffolk, England |""""| ~ Lime plaster repairs / ^^ \ // Freehand modelling in lime: overmantels, pargeting etc |____|

01359 230642

[dennis]

A fire-fighter told me the cheapest and safest way is to keep your insurance is upto date and get the hell out there if there is a fire. Don't phone from the house just go and wake someone.

[PC Paul]

Although a recent test (in Which maybe? was on the news anyway) found that most domestic fire blankets performed worse or only as well as a wet towel...

The really dangerous thing is using a water extinguisher on burning liquids, chipfat, petrol etc. Easy and spectacular way to make a flamethrower.

[Owain]

You shouldn't be using a chip pan in the first place.

Owain

[tony sayer]

Not that surprising really. The few fire blankets I've seen seem to be rather inflexible and if you were to put that on a chip pan the air could easily leak around the edges whereas a wet towel would be far more flexible and form a better seal, thus cutting off the air supply.

Not that this likely to be a problem here, being married to a French foodie who thinks that English women are grossly overweight 'cos of all the chips they eat.

Still you don't need to cook all those salads do you?, even in winter;(....