The House Projects Thread

[Mito Man]

I put one up with my dad 10 years ago and vowed to never do another one after I ended up with a beam falling on my head. Got mild concussion and needed new glasses.


This isn’t sketchy at all.


Fuuuuuuck

You couldn’t screw down the roof onto the frame until the entire thing was complete and a large gust of wind came just as I was sliding the last quadrant of roof in…

[DeskJockey]

Booked a viewing on a house that pretty much ticks all our boxes, at least on paper. If it becomes ours it'll need some work, but hopefully nothing major. Mostly paint, floors and decorating.

House still ticks all the boxes, but replace the "some" work with "a lot".

You can live in it like it is, but it'll need: all walls and ceilings replastered, floors, kitchen (including removing a wall), bathroom (including moving the shower out of the former airing cupboard in the hall), electrics and plumbing, some windows and doors, roof and drive repairs. This is just based on the first viewing.

All bedrooms have massive built-in wardrobes, and more than half of them will need to come out.

We've not decided against yet, but will view some more finished properties to decide whether we want to take the plunge.

[duncs500]

@Jobbo Yeah, I did see that video when trying to figure something out. Different to my one though, so didn't answer much for me.

[dinny_g]

Booked a viewing on a house that pretty much ticks all our boxes, at least on paper. If it becomes ours it'll need some work, but hopefully nothing major. Mostly paint, floors and decorating.

House still ticks all the boxes, but replace the "some" work with "a lot".

You can live in it like it is, but it'll need: all walls and ceilings replastered, floors, kitchen (including removing a wall), bathroom (including moving the shower out of the former airing cupboard in the hall), electrics and plumbing, some windows and doors, roof and drive repairs. This is just based on the first viewing.

All bedrooms have massive built-in wardrobes, and more than half of them will need to come out.

We've not decided against yet, but will view some more finished properties to decide whether we want to take the plunge.

So what you’re saying is the bricks are fine, everything else is fucked

[DeskJockey]

Booked a viewing on a house that pretty much ticks all our boxes, at least on paper. If it becomes ours it'll need some work, but hopefully nothing major. Mostly paint, floors and decorating.

House still ticks all the boxes, but replace the "some" work with "a lot".

You can live in it like it is, but it'll need: all walls and ceilings replastered, floors, kitchen (including removing a wall), bathroom (including moving the shower out of the former airing cupboard in the hall), electrics and plumbing, some windows and doors, roof and drive repairs. This is just based on the first viewing.

All bedrooms have massive built-in wardrobes, and more than half of them will need to come out.

We've not decided against yet, but will view some more finished properties to decide whether we want to take the plunge.

So what you’re saying is the bricks are fine, everything else is fucked

Sort of. House is on the market for the first time since 77. It isn't poorly maintained, just not to our liking and with some odd quirks.

[KiwiDave]

So we're seven days into work now, so far only a few gremlins. The framing for one of the walls was damaged by the water leak along the bottom edge, so the base bit which sits flush with the floor needed replacing. It also came to light with the plasterboard off the walls that the framing spacing behind it was set at 600mm centres. That in itself is to building code here, but not once you hang the weight of tiling on the walls, whereby it moves to 400mm spacing. This explains the narrative we have for the house where the builder 'lost images' of the work he did and therefore consent couldn't be issued. The theory is no one told the previous builder it was having tiles on the walls, so once that became clear he neglected to supply any evidence of his work and get busted.

The result now is that the framing for a number of walls is having to be redone at 400mm spacing. The floors are up exposing the dirt beneath (and I presume a dead rat somewhere as the builder arrived to a room full of blow flies today) and we're looking at replacing some under floor insulation. The next question is do we want the whole floor reinsulating of course...

So already a few detours from plan but generally, all on track and no massive disasters so far.

[KiwiDave]

Some pics. First up the water damaged lower part of the wooden framing:


Then images so far of the en-suite, main bathroom and laundry (all back onto one another down one side of the house)

[Gavster]

Completed a small yet incredibly effective bit of DIY today. The little office room where I sit and edit videos has always had a really horrid echo/reverb. While editing I often need to record little segments of voiceover, which should be a really simple process, however the echo means I have to go and grab some pillows from the bedroom to put either side of the mic to isolate it and cut out the echo.

I tried a couple of different types of foam deadening panels on the wall which helped but only cut the echo by about 30%, it wasn't enough to negate the need for the pillows.

Today I made a couple of large sound deadening panels to hang from the ceiling. I knocked up some 600 x 1200mm timber frames, wrapped one side with heavyweight cotton, put a slab of Rockwoll RWA45 in the middle and then sealed the back with another sheet of heavyweight cotton. Hung them 20cm off the ceiling with some chains.

The result is an absolute triumph, they've cut the reverb down by 80%, I can record voiceover audio now without needing any additional sound deadening. Big win, very happy

[mik]

On reflection / this sounds ideal

[V8Granite]

Worst boast of “I did 10,000 of something” ever!

Dave!

[Gavster]

This is driving me completely mental, any suggestions appreciated.

I made the fatal mistake of using the wall anchors supplied with a telescopic light bracket. I usually only use my own fittings but these looked okay so I ploughed on with them. Unfortunately they're completely shite and made from toffee.

They fixings are comprised of a metal sleeve and a bolt down the middle, with a flared tip (now deep in the wall). You hammer the whole thing into the wall, and then as you tighten a nut down onto the end of the bolt, it's supposed to flare the sleeve into the wall. Except it's not.



The hole in the wall was sized perfectly; the sleeves were an interference fit, and I really had to batter them into the wall. Despite that, as I've tightened the bracket, none of the bolts were going up tight. They're all just slowly pulling the bolt (not the sleeve) out the wall. Fucking useless toffee metal shite.

Now I can't use these steaming piile of horse shite fixings, but I am also completely stumped how to remove them from the wall. I've tried attaching a nut to the end and levering out, however that's not worked. I've reached the shank on one of them so can't wind it out any further with a nut.

I've checked YouTube and it seems to be either lever them out, or smack them a hammer and pull them out. Absolutey BS.




I'd be finished having a cup of tea now if I'd listened to myself and gone straight to my lovely selection box of Fischer wall fixings

[Gavster]

[DeskJockey]

That's not good.

[Mito Man]

Couldn't you just hammer them back into the wall?

I bought special plasterboard plugs https://www.screwfix.com/p/gripit-tv-cl ... pack/371hp to hang a shelf on my wall, they claimed to hold over 100kg each. One day I heard a bang and my 5kg shelf was on the ground - the gripping 'claws' had all sheared off and taken a chunk of the plaster with them
Utter shit when you try and do a job properly but the item is crap quality.

[Gavster]

That's not good.

On the bright side, they came out

[DeskJockey]

True.

I was going to recommend something similar to what @Mito Man just disparaged. In one of the bedrooms in the extension the depth between the plasterboard and the (formerly exterior) wall varies from about 45mm to nearly flush, hanging shelves proved to be quite tricky. Ours are still firmly attached, carrying loads of books and other stuff.

[IanF]

Oh noes! I mean, it looks like they were doing a good job of staying in the wall?

[Mito Man]

True.

I was going to recommend something similar to what @Mito Man just disparaged. In one of the bedrooms in the extension the depth between the plasterboard and the (formerly exterior) wall varies from about 45mm to nearly flush, hanging shelves proved to be quite tricky. Ours are still firmly attached, carrying loads of books and other stuff.

Was the gripping bit on your metal or plastic? According to another of the reviews they changed to plastic recently, which isn’t strong enough.

[DeskJockey]

Metal ones.

[Carlos]

Nothing worse than a simple job ending in disaster, my wife thrives on those moments

On a positive note the plaster looks inch+ deep, you could add a few square feet to that room if you hack it all off