The House Projects Thread

[NotoriousREV]

Not really a project, but I couldn't think of anywhere better to post this. We temporarily had a Ford B-Max garden feature this morning.



I've always hated that hedge, spiky bastard that it is. I'd like to replace it with a low fence or dwarf wall, but I vaguely remember there being something in the covenant about remaining open plan but I've no idea where that document is. Is there anywhere to look up covenants online or do I have to get in touch with my solicitor to see if it's in his records?

[Jobbo]

You can get a copy of your title from the Land Registry, but if you just obtain the title you might find you then need to download a deed as well to see the covenants. It's £3 per thing you download.

The solicitor really should have sent you a copy of everything when you bought.

[GG.]

Fortunate it didn't hit anything immovable.

At least you now get a nice new hedge for free, if not a dwarf wall! Happy days.

Funnily enough I removed a section of the hedge from the front of our house last weekend so I could re-site the wheelie bins - probably took me a bit longer to accomplish it...

[Mito Man]

Did a good job of it and no muddy tyre marks on the lawn despite the recent wet weather. Looks like a B-Max is a pretty handy brush cutter.

[Simon]

So now the garage is sorted I've moved on to the spare room. I was going to swap my office from the third bedroom into the spare room this week, but then at the start of the week I thought "When the room is empty I can lift the carpet and fix a new light into the lounge (below)". Then I thought "If I'm taking up the carpet then I may as well replace it with a new one". Then I thought "If I'm replacing the carpet then I don't want to cut holes for the existing radiator pipes, seeing as the rad has a twin entry 10mm valve that is un-servicable and should be replaced with a standard TRV and lockshield setup (so one pipe at each end of the radiator like 'normal', rather than both pipes going in one end like at present).

The long and the short of it is that what started off as one job is now 4 jobs and none of them are finished.

[Jimmy Choo]

What are you guys actually feeding through the cat 5 to the tv?

300 Mbps broadband to use smart functions on tv like browsing, netflix, youtude etc also proper full internet tv can't be far away.

I hate wires so wouldn't bother if i couldn't easily run them through the ceiling stud/walls. I've also run one upstairs to have an extra router or access point to provide strong wifi all around the house.

Both kids have an xbox and only watch on demand type internet tv, they have a meltdown if something buffers, poor internet coverage is child abuse if you listen to my kids

The wifi to the telly is flakey, I've got 30m of armoured Cat 5 cable from a project that I never used and I'm ripping up the floor anyway. Seems like a no brainer to whack it under there. We're using Netflix and catch up services on a 1080p Telly so we don't need massive speed. Cat 5 will do the job.

edit: It might even be Cat5e.

[240PP]

Cat5e would get you 1Gig and is a lot easier to work with than Cat6.

Worth buying a roll if what you've got is just Cat5

[mr_jon]

Most likely it's cat5e, not many places will sell you cat5. Even if it is cat5, once you have done the cable run you can always upgrade it in the future without having to tear the floor up by taping the ends together to pull it through, assuming it is going into some sort of cavity.

[IanF]

Sorry Rev, the wife just popped over for a coffee...

Having read about 5G, I’m beginning to wonder if we are near the end of having FTTC>copper wire>WiFi to connect to the IoT.

[GG.]

Sorry Rev, the wife just popped over for a coffee...

Can't have been your Mrs, she missed the house

[integrale_evo]

Sorry Rev, the wife just popped over for a coffee...

Having read about 5G, I’m beginning to wonder if we are near the end of having FTTC>copper wire>WiFi to connect to the IoT.

I've been considering a 4g router and binning the cable all together. I get far quicker up and download speeds through 4g than our fibre broadband.

Unfortunately most providers have pretty low useage caps. Would probably be ok if off peak use, say 11pm -6am didn't count out of your data allowance.

[V8Granite]

The garage is pretty much done apart from.......... electrics

I have an extension from the house but no lighting, our fuse board in the extension needs upgrading to meet my power needs and that means upgrading our main fuse board. So that turns a 1k project into a 2.5k one.

Luckily head torches are cheap and I’ll wait till spring. I could have a heroin addiction in a flat and still not spend as much as I do on a small 3 bed semi

Dave!

[Mito Man]

Sorry Rev, the wife just popped over for a coffee...

Having read about 5G, I’m beginning to wonder if we are near the end of having FTTC>copper wire>WiFi to connect to the IoT.

I've been considering a 4g router and binning the cable all together. I get far quicker up and download speeds through 4g than our fibre broadband.

Unfortunately most providers have pretty low useage caps. Would probably be ok if off peak use, say 11pm -6am didn't count out of your data allowance.

I remember when 4G was being discussed in the news a few years before it came out - high speed internet for all the villages, no need for routers connected to a phone line. But as you say they have poor data usage caps and so it costs way more than regular broadband. In fact it cost more than satellite broadband when I looked at it some years ago.

[mik]

I measured it myself using the same method is before and now I’m getting 7.5 litres/min.

For reference I had a check of mine this morning.

Utility room tap (at mains stopcock) fills a 4pint (2.272l) milk carton in 7.48 seconds. (Average of 3 runs but all pretty much identical).

Call it 18 litres/min.

Dial showing about 3.6 bar pressure.

[Jobbo]

Checked our water at the kitchen tap. I only had a 1l measuring jug but it’s jusf under 3s for the mains cold and 4s for the hot. So 20l/min for the mains feed and 15l/min for hot water.

Must try it in the shower upstairs too at some point. I’ll find a bigger measuring receptacle.

[Rich B]

My builder brought up the incoming water main today - it’s 15mm (though always gave decent pressure?)

We’re relocating the stopcock as part of the project, so we’ve selected a location that will be relatively easy to upgrade the incoming water to a larger pipe (via a different, far easier route to the existing) if needed.

[Jobbo]

Pressure is independent of pipe size - flow rate is what you improve with a bigger pipe. Means you can run two powerful showers at once, for instance.

(Igniting boundary layer effects which are almost certainly not negligible in a 15mm water pipe, so there’s more improvement than just doubling the flow switching to 22mm).

[Jimmy Choo]

Every time we do any work on this house, we find another bodge.

There was a hole in the floor that had been "fixed" by nailing a placemat over it. I've also discovered that a fair chunk of the repair patches are chipboard which hasn't coped particularly well with the cold, damp air under the floor.

[Jimmy Choo]

One of the recent jobs was to strip the old hand rail on the stairs. We started with a chemical stripper and then sanded the rest.

Mmmm, chemicals.



It really helps to get them started young. He was genuinely helpful.



The finished bannister is so much nicer to touch than the old, scabby paint.

The patch on the lounge floor looked like this


When I removed it, I was kind of suprised to see the full 90's horror of the design of the "patch".


You can also see where I had to use an entire tube of caulk to seal the holes between the skirting and the floor that let in a massive draft as it was effectively open to the void under the house.

I'm putting a polystyrene-esque layer between the existing floor and the new surface and nailing through the 6mm board and the insulation.




The first section is completed and I'm really eager to get back to it but I'm not going to be able to until next weekend.

[Rich B]

Is that a Ryobi One+ nail gun.... (mentally spending B&Q vouchers)...

Looks like you’re doing a nice job with the old features - the handrail looks great.