Hi im looking to polish some scratches out of my perspex windows on my boat. Ive been looking around Ali baba and only found a polish for glass with good reviews.

As you can hopefully see in the pic, the vent under my house is only about 50-60mm above ground level (this is an older 70s home). The ground below it is hard fill covered by a thin layer of grass, and any water drains very quickly.

To date, we have never had any flooding under the house.

I am looking for suggestions if I need to do anything. Should I cover it up?

There are four other vents on this side of the house, all of them around 150mm or more above ground level.

I'm strongly considering buying bunch of Shelly EMs and their clamps to monitor power for each circuit off the main board at home, and getting a sparky to install them. Then I'll make them work with Home Assistant.

Shelly are having a sale soon, or now, the messaging is a bit confusing, but there ya go if you are looking for more Shelly smart home stuff yourself.

It's a 1980s residential home and most of the breakers are C16 16A 3kA, so, I assume the 50A clamps are fine.

I think there are 10 circuits including lights and water, so I'd need 5 of these EMs because they each have 2 channels....

Does this sound like a fairly solid plan or absolutely stupid? Is there anything I should take into consideration for the sparky?

If I don't respond individually, TIA.

I've reached out to a few local electricians but Reddit is always a good help. I need three phase cabling run through existing conduit to my garage with a submain installed at the garage end and a single phase connected for the time being until I have completed an extension of the garage.

The cable run will be about 50 meters. What would you think a ballpark figure for this would be?

Hi all! I'm thinking about building a covered carport in my driveway, in front of my garage (we don't use the garage for cars). I've seen some that have solar panels on the roof and then charge ports in the carport for electric vehicles. Would I be able to theoretically do this? I think there's rules around building anything in front of your house in terms of how close it can be to the road/sidewalk?

I have an alcove laundry Reno and want to use cupboards for a decent amount of storage and get the fronts to align with the existing wall. Unfortunately that means I need to get 680mm deep base cabinets.

Any suggestions for companies that might do these in a reasonable timeframe, and a nice satin almost black door fronts that are not crazy expensive?

Oh, and just for your amusement, we turned off the main water feed so we could disconnect the sink for demo... Well all the water stayed on. Seems there is another valve somewhere in the mix! Wtf! A loop in the cold feed. Classic!

Hey all,

Does anyone have any advice on the best way to cut cast aluminum?

Asking as I'm planning a project to add a removable side discharge chute to my old repowered mid-1990s Masport 600i mower and need to cut the hole in the side of the deck accommodate the chute assembly I'm going to fabricate from 2mm 5052 H144 Aluminum treadplate.

Right. I desperately need the DIY hivemind.

I need to replace atleast 4 to 5 internal doors....however my current doors are 40mm depth and I can't find any bloody 40mm internal doors anywhere.

1. Does anyone know where to get 1980 x 760 x 40mm plain internal doors???

2. If I got 35mm what do I need to do to make them fit right? Move the little jam bit 5mm?

3. Has anyone replaced 40mm doors with 35mm doors?

Help.

Hi, I’m needing to attach a set of the Top Flyte pre-made stair stringers to the side of my deck. About 850mm rise. My question is how to attach these to the face of the deck? I had thought to do 2 x M12 Coach Screws through the back of the end joist into the end of the stringer but Gemini tells me this isn’t sufficient. Pic showing what I was thinking

Any suggestions?

Have several coats of paint I need to remove from an indoors room.

At least two of the coats are lead based as far as I can tell so that rules out sanding.

I see the recommendation is a gel based stripper but, I have not had good luck with them in the past.

Any ideas?

. EDIT - The walls are solid concrete .

Moved house and went from beautiful real tawa floors with smooth polyurethane finish to this horrible Quick Step engineered wood floor (top layer oak) full of deep pores that are black with dirt in high traffic areas.

I think getting the muck out of the pores is a lost cause because you're not allowed to use any method that would actually penetrate that deep according to Quick Step (correct me if I'm wrong), so I guess I'm just going to deal with the surface.

Quick Step recommends their QSSPRAYKIT microfibre mop thing for 80 bucks, which looks pretty unimpressive to me, but they forbid any other mop system that I would have used. You can't use any wet mop according to Quick Step, and I can see how badly this floor handles water from looking at the area near the kitchen sink. The seams and ends have blackened despite Quick Step crowing about "easy to clean" "waterproof surface".

Should I go with the Quick Step kit or try something else?

Hi all, we are looking at getting a front fence put in plus a gate. We've had a few too many visitors, and my dog has chased them off. It's not that this will 100% fix the issue, but it's been on our minds for a while.

At the moment we are looking at getting our old concrete fence (roughly knee height) knocked down and a new timber paling fence built with a 1.8m aluminium gate. It's roughly 15 meters total length. The question is, for the quote, a nib/mow strip is an extra 1k. Should we consider this, or would it be fine?

Not strictly DIY, but looking for project management advice.

Over summer we want to get 3 things done - roof repainted, solar installed, and gutters redone.

I am assuming the right sequence is paint -> gutters -> solar to avoid the gutters getting damaged.

What's a bit hazy and what makes it hard is not being sure what the scaffolding requirements will be. I assume that the painters may use harnesses (still to get quotes), I know the gutterers will need full height scaffold (two storeys), and the solar likely to need something a lot less - maybe edge protection.

How could I efficiently manage this? Contract scaffolding directly? Get the painters to sort scaffolding for the full duration of the project as part of their price? How would I handle it if the gutter guys or solar pushed it out? I have a full time job as does my wife so don't want to spend half my work day acting as the middleman between tradies.

Any advice or recommended processes would be gratefully received.

Naturally prevention better than treating - but I’ve just moved in so that ship has sailed.

I wipe down and air the house out daily.

What is the best way to manage the mould around window frames now though?

Edit to add: just to clarify it looks like it goes under the window frame hence asking.. I know how to do it on a surface but I own so wanting to prevent core damage

Hi all! Hopeless DIYer needs some advice!

We have a walk-in shower with a panel/screen. We are finding that there is water leaking out to the tiles when we have a shower.

What is the best way to seal the underneath to stop this?

I'll put up some photos in the comments (please don't @me for the green bits, I have tried so many times to scrub this off but I can't seem to reach it underneath a plastic bit that runs across the panel).

Theres a user on here who gives fantastic advice on fireplaces who I'm hoping will see this and lend us a hand - but greatful for any and all other input you guys might have!

We just moved into a 170m2 home, single glazed with concrete floor (no carpet) and are freezing our buns off. Only heating is an ancient heat pump which is not cutting it, and we want to put in a freestanding fireplace for next winter. We are arguing about which one to get - after reading some posts on here I'm leaning towards a Masport or Firenzo (for the performance) , while my spouse still wants to go with a Metro (for the look and price). Kitchen, dining, 2x bedrooms downstairs and 2x bedrooms upstairs. HRV in already.

Any advice on what the best woodburner is for our situation? Not rural, BTW. Thanks in advance!

Doing a bathroom reno atm and looking to get a LED mirror.

Has anyone bought one from Trade Depot or Danik? I know trade depot gets a lot of flak but surely a mirror with led stripe can't be that bad.... Right?

Hey folks,

I was suggested to put this thread here. We have an issue with our aluminium front door weep holes that make draughts super noticeable but the landlord says the only thing that can be done involves covering the hole, which is against the building code ergo there's nothing that can be done.

Other than the long dog draught stopper, any suggestions?

Well it appears the idea of moving our cylinder outside might be coming sooner than later

Anyone found this and it ended well 😂 cylinder is a 2001

On another note I opened the door to check the temperature as it's too hot to put my hand in so 48 is a bit hard to believe

Time for a coffee

I would like to build & install a bench and community library on the berm in front of my place. I like the idea of neighbors stopping by and reading for a bit or just taking a break during a walk.

Would I need to get permission from the council? I know they allow some planting but I’m not sure what else is permitted. I’ve noticed some of the neighboring streets have Libraries.

What is the best non-permanent but sturdy way to secure the bench and library? I’m assuming it needs to be easily removable but I also don’t want it to get stolen/blown over by wind.

Kia Ora, anyone (in Auckland) here work for chorus and can do an ONT box move for our kitchen Reno?

I already went through our ISP and reached out to chorus but they said I need to go through my ISP and I’m just stressing the timing is gonna be late because they haven’t got back to me yet, will pay the usual cost of the move

I'm in the market for an undermount rangehood - Bosch, Fisher & Paykel have the below style. They look nice, but has anyone used one and is it still as effective as the ones with the metal grill showing?

Looking at using them. Any good / bad stories or just general roof advice for me?