There's been continued water ingress from the flat above mine, which came from a poorly sealed bathtub. There was extensive enough damage to my ceiling that a section needed replaced; the plaster on this *was* just about dry enough to be repainted today.

Unfortunately the builders upstairs were also looking to sort the leak at their side. The upstairs bathroom has been gutted and they saw fit to pour concrete onto the old floorboards - which naturally went through and onto my ceiling. As the video shows, one of the light fittings is still out of from the ceiling and the liquid cement drained out of the hole.

My bathroom lights are now tripping the fuse box. Is it sensible for me to try switching the bulb(s) to see if this fixes things? Or is it better to just get an electrician to inspect the entire fitting(s)?

Bonus plastering question: is there any danger the hardened cement might compromise the new ceiling?

I have an 8-yard skip in the driveway, and it is a bit high for dumping heavy stuff, so wife put my weight bench in front of the skip so we can step on it.

A guy who drove a white van stopped by, had a look at my skip, and then walked through my driveway to the other side of the skip, close to my front door, saw the bench, and took it and drove off.

I was a bit shocked. My understanding is that everything on the front of the driveway, close to the road is free to grab, am i right?

just checked; it would cost about £130 to get a new weight bench...

Edit: thank you all for sharing your stories. So basically, don't leave anything in your front garden/driveway...

I wanted to sand my decking down before oiling but didn't want to spend an hour on my hands and knees so I stuck some sand paper to the bottom of an old pair of garden shoes.

It worked a treat!

I couldn't believe the fiddly cutting done to get these boards to fit the irregular stones on the top of this wall. There are nine of these panels and they are all completely different.

I just thought it worth sharing. It's not my wall and I don't know who did the work.

So a bit of an update from the previous thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/DIYUK/s/Jli8KyVrpf

The poo tank was redundant so I’ve incorporated it into a wildlife pond (hopefully no nasty surprises in the future). Digging the old shit out wasn’t much fun! So now onto phase 2, I’ve lined the pond and I’m looking to cope some of the edges. I’ll leave some parts open to allow pond access for critters. In terms of the coping I plan to use block paving blocks, can I just mix some sand and cement and sit them on top of the liner? Seems a bit overkill to dig some footings out when they’re effectively not going to be under and sort of load.

Hello, not exactly sure if this is the right sub. We had a kitchen fitted last year that cost us £13,000, which is not a small amount of money to us. 2 weeks ago I noticed the panel on the end of the worktop has started to split at the bottom.

The kitchen fitting company that supplied and fitted the kitchen has basically said it's our fault and probably a result of mopping the floor and fobbed us off.

Is this reasonable? We mop every couple of weeks but in my mind i wouldn't expect the counter to split after a little over a year from very moderate cleaning.

Any opinions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Edit: seen a few responses saying this is indeed water ingress. Is the only solution to change the board? I'm miffed that the kitchen fitter would use this material if it's so prone to swelling.

Thanks again.

I have this hole in the garden, it started quite small about 3 years back, I though filling with stone and topping with soil would be a good solution as it was previously stone and soil but it appeared it had just washed away somewhere.

The hole has gotten much bigger over the last year.

Im not sure what would be the best solution to fixing the problem, I've had a few people suggest filling it with post crete but I don't know if that could just hide an underlying problem. The hole when it was at its deepest was probably about 80cm deep.

Hi all, the light in my bathroom (installed by my landlord when I was a tenant but I’ve since bought the house) has stopped working. Opened it up to see it’s not any normal bulb and Google has overwhelmed and confused me

Am I able to replace/fix the LEDs (it’s possibly not even a year old), if so - what do I need to be looking for to buy? Or is it a case of the whole damn light has to go (it’s IP65 and I’ve seen that can often be the case) and if so, are we talking a job for a proper electrician?

Thanks in advance!

I have a vision to build some custom open-backed built-in joinery for my living room on both of the long walls (first two images, AI rendering). My landlords left behind some laminated particle board bookshelves (third picture) that I thought I could use as the skeleton for these new units, and simply add some MDF (or paintable plywood) siding, face, plinth, and crown molding, plus walnut veneered plywood shelves.

If they let me, I figured I would cut off 1/3rd to 1/2 of the old shelving units and stick them on top of some pre-fab cabinet boxes. Is this even worth it, or would I be better off building from scratch with some paintable plywood?

I'm in the final stages of buying my first home and one of the things I want to do is add a cupboard under the stairs shown in the picture for somewhere to store cleaning stuff and whatever.

Am I right in thinking I can just put up a stud frame, plasterboard and have it skimmed? I've manged to convince myself that walking up the stairs will crack the plaster if the frame is attached to the stairs?

Hi DIYUK! I've got a curtain rail problem in my new build property where all of them see to suffer the same demise as the photo attached where they are coming away from the wall.

Any advice on what I did wrong?

Edit: Thanks all! So many comment, but all point towards I need to use a batten, and I need some better wall plugs. Grabbed both tonight, hoping it fixes this problem!

Just starting re-decorating the attic, I suspect it’s not been touched for about 15 years (since it was built)

Took a shelf down, wall paint was starting the flake, 3 hours later here I am.. 😂😩

Is there an easier / quicker way to get rid of the rest of it? It’s at the point now where what’s left isn’t loose or scrapeable!

Tyy

So I’m going to my Mum’s later and since she moved in there has been a Masterlock keysafe attached to the render outside. We’ve tried a few combinations, but realise it’ll take an awfully long time to go through all the permutations, so I think a brute force removal is required.

Ideally I’d do it with minimal damage to the render, and then I can just fit a new one. Are these drill-able or am I going to need to take my BIG hammer?

Edited to add - Solved, I’m going to try the lock picking method, failing that I’ll drill it or wedge something in the hinge.
Thanks to everyone that commented

Just levelled out the floor in the kitchen from where a poorly done extension was done previously.

The space I needed to fill has taken exactly one bag of self levelling compound. I poured every single drop out of the bucket and it's full to the brim on all sides.

Very satisfying.

Hi,

The threads have stripped and now the higher doesn't work. How would I go about fixing this?

Thanks.

I removed an old vent at the front of the house that was previously attached to an old Gas heater which I had removed years ago in the hallway.

Used a SDS drill and masonry bit to slowly stitch out the mortar on the old existing bricks. There were three of them in total.

The house is 1930s so sourcing the exact brick was not possible, so asked ChatGPT and it came up with the best option available in Beesley and Fildes, was 5mm shorter in length than the current brick but can't really tell by the eye.

This is my first attempt at something like this. How did I do? Work in IT so no trade experience.

Waiting a few more days for the mortar to dry up before I give it a proper scrub with a stiff brush to remove the dust drilled out from the old mortar.

I've been renovating my house and needed some building help for part of it. Used a builder who's worked on loads of my friends houses and it was all good and paid for

The builder went through an unwanted divorce before we had building control signoff. I sent him a chaser 5 months later to get the BC sign off. No response.... A friend has seen him in between and he is basically lost to drugs.

I contacted BC and they came round and said it was all good. I received an email 2 days later with a link to say I was happy with it. That was 3 weeks ago I chased the to see what's going on and they said they also need a reply from my builder. I've tried a few times to get hold of him but get no response. I told them my situation but all they could say was that I need to get my builder to respond.

Where do I stand with this. It can't be the first time a builder wasn't able to respond. Seems mad the BC have signed it off and teh structural surveyor has signed it off but I can't get the certificate.

We bought this house about a month ago and noticed a really large bump where the previous owners had their sofa. It came up on the survey as concrete reaction to a sulphate attack. No issues as it hasn't effected the integrity of the house.

We noticed it fucking stunk on the bump and I assumed it would just be concrete under the carpet I could smash, lay new mesh down and pour in new concrete to fix the issues. Well we've found these seemingly Victorian tiles and the Mrs has fallen in love with them.

What's the best way to clean them and restore them to look nice? Seems they have the carpet underlay stuck to them, years of shite and grime and possibly paint on them.

I have a bad back, so if someone can come up with anything other than dish soap, a hard brush and elbow grease I'd be mighty greatful.

Edit: I think they'll need sanding but we can't do that at the moment due to them being so unlevel

We had a soil pipe fitted which now needs boxing in. I’m averagely ok with DIY but need some help figuring out the easiest way to do this. Mainly, where I put the batons to affix the MDF. Any advice? It runs the length of the room and joins with the boxed in down pipe.