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Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 3:50 pm
by Delphi
duncs500 wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 1:58 pm
Really struggling to find a cost effective solution that I'm happy with for the garage floor. I would like epoxy painted, but I think if you don't scabble it first it basically won't last (or is a lottery at best), so I'd be looking at paying a contractor £££, or trying to do it myself which even then isn't cheap by the time you've hired kit to scabble it and bought the paint... plus would have the added risk of fucking it up.
Might have to look at tiles again, although I just think once you start storing a car in it oil etc will get into the concrete and it would be hard to go back to the painted solution later.
Probably worth getting a quote for epoxy I suppose.
A few guys in the Porsche Owners Group highly recommend the
BigDug tiles as a cost-effective garage floor solution.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 3:52 pm
by mik
How do you jack your car up on a rubber-based tile floor? Nice and clean and tidy, but are they practical?
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:01 pm
by duncs500
Delphi wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 3:50 pm
duncs500 wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 1:58 pm
Really struggling to find a cost effective solution that I'm happy with for the garage floor. I would like epoxy painted, but I think if you don't scabble it first it basically won't last (or is a lottery at best), so I'd be looking at paying a contractor £££, or trying to do it myself which even then isn't cheap by the time you've hired kit to scabble it and bought the paint... plus would have the added risk of fucking it up.
Might have to look at tiles again, although I just think once you start storing a car in it oil etc will get into the concrete and it would be hard to go back to the painted solution later.
Probably worth getting a quote for epoxy I suppose.
A few guys in the Porsche Owners Group highly recommend the
BigDug tiles as a cost-effective garage floor solution.
They don't look bad, but still nearly £500 to do the garage (even for the cheapest one).
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:02 pm
by integrale_evo
In the absence of wanting to spend loads of money on it but not wanting a bare concrete floor I'd probably just use some decent floor paint and accept it'll need a fresh coat every few years.
We use Johnstones floortread paint at work in an industrial setting and its fine, even areas where solid wheeled pallet trucks are dragged over several times a day seem to last ok, and even where it does lift it's more often because the concrete underneath isn't the best.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:09 pm
by Mito Man
Seen Americans have good results with sealing the concrete then using truck bed liner. Works out pretty cheap too, will probably try that myself next time.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:10 pm
by duncs500
integrale_evo wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:02 pm
In the absence of wanting to spend loads of money on it but not wanting a bare concrete floor I'd probably just use some decent floor paint and accept it'll need a fresh coat every few years.
We use Johnstones floortread paint at work in an industrial setting and its fine, even areas where solid wheeled pallet trucks are dragged over several times a day seem to last ok, and even where it does lift it's more often because the concrete underneath isn't the best.
Probably not the worst idea, should keep oil and general dirt from penetrating and if I have more money when it wears out it will come off easy during the mechanic prep for epoxy. Nice suggestion.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:13 pm
by Swervin_Mervin
integrale_evo wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:02 pm
In the absence of wanting to spend loads of money on it but not wanting a bare concrete floor I'd probably just use some decent floor paint and accept it'll need a fresh coat every few years.
We use Johnstones floortread paint at work in an industrial setting and its fine, even areas where solid wheeled pallet trucks are dragged over several times a day seem to last ok, and even where it does lift it's more often because the concrete underneath isn't the best.
I suspect that's all the previous owner of our place did and it's worn fairly well - we've been here 8yrs. Mind he was a bodging cheap sod so I doubt it will have been quality stuff he used. Hence you'll probably be fine with decent stuff
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:20 pm
by mik
Considered just getting the concrete floor polished?
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:29 pm
by duncs500
Swervin_Mervin wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:13 pm
integrale_evo wrote: Tue Jun 16, 2020 4:02 pm
In the absence of wanting to spend loads of money on it but not wanting a bare concrete floor I'd probably just use some decent floor paint and accept it'll need a fresh coat every few years.
We use Johnstones floortread paint at work in an industrial setting and its fine, even areas where solid wheeled pallet trucks are dragged over several times a day seem to last ok, and even where it does lift it's more often because the concrete underneath isn't the best.
I suspect that's all the previous owner of our place did and it's worn fairly well - we've been here 8yrs. Mind he was a bodging cheap sod so I doubt it will have been quality stuff he used. Hence you'll probably be fine with decent stuff
When you say "it's worn fairly well" do you mean it still looks good or it looks badly worn?
[mention]mik[/mention] Probably a pricey option I reckon, plus doesn't look as good.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2020 5:15 pm
by Swervin_Mervin
I mean it still looks alright

Given when I know he built the garage I reckon the paint must be 15-20yrs old and probably just masonry paint.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2020 7:32 pm
by duncs500
Change of plan, I went in there to sweep the leaves out yesterday and the amount of laitance was incredible, a huge cloud engulfed me. It was annoying me as I don't want to be dealing with that when trying to sweep the place, so I jet washed and then swept it, and it's much better now, but I have very low confidence in getting any sort of key in it for paint to stick. I can see why people fuck this paint up and it ends up with mixed reviews.
I'm just going to leave it until I can pay someone to do a professional epoxy job on it. It looks fine.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Wed Jun 24, 2020 7:49 pm
by GG.
I'd apply Zinnser Gardz and then paint it. Worked very well when I needed to seal an old distemper painted ceiling before skimming.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2020 10:14 am
by Delphi
In the weekend deluge I noticed that water was leaking into the rear extension. Turns out the previous owner had only put brackets on the guttering at either end which meant in heavy rain the centre was unsupported, so it sagged and tipped all the water directly at the window.

I took it all down, bought some more brackets and re-hung it. All good now.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Sat Jul 11, 2020 10:36 pm
by Simon
So, the radiators in both the dining room and kitchen were off the walls whilst we decorated, and as I was swapping the old regular valves for new Honeywell TRVs i hadn't put them back on straight away until that was done.
The nipper is crawling around pretty fast and walking with his walker thingy now. I had suggested we put a baby gate to stop him going into the kitchen walkway (no door fitted to the kitchen), but I _had_ lost that battle until recently. Anyway, NoNo likes to grab and play with anything he can get his hands on. He had at one point got into the kitchen and started rocking the radiator tail sticking out the floor backward and forward. We have 10mm microbore in the house so this is easy for a toddler to bend. Little known to us in doing this he had kinked and fractured the pipe on the bend in the sub-floor and it was pissing water into the woodwork for what must have been a couple of weeks at least. The first we knew something was wrong was when my wife stood on a kitchen floor tile and it broke in two, as the floor had swollen up at that point.
I drained the system down a week ago when I realised and today started pulling up the floor tiles and wood floor underneath to sort out the damage, but it's pretty extensive TBH. I stopped counting after I'd pulled up 40 tiles, half of which had been broken by the swelling. I'm now at the point where I'm just gonna have to rip the whole lot of tiles up, replace probably 1.5m2 of wood and put a new floor covering down, likely vinyl until we either extend or move.
Kids will be kids eh?
We now have a child gate for the kitchen.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 1:12 am
by integrale_evo
Don’t know if it should be in this thread or the shed thread, but we have a small brick shed just away from the back door which was originally the toilet when the house was built.
It’s always been dark and dingy, full of spiders, tins of paint and gardening tools. It’s now being repurposed to take a freezer and store some little used kitchen items.
Old shelves and random nails removed, inside pressure washed and painted with white masonry paint. Today I made use of some old wardrobe doors I thought might come in handy one day as a new internal roof to cover the corrugated asbestos one.
Freezer doesn’t arrive until Friday so I’ve got a while to get power and a light in there.
Door has been stripped of many many layers of paint, most likely dating back to the 30s. I was hoping to be able to clean up the metalwork but it’s all pretty corroded on the back so may have to put new hinges on and would like to fit a twist knob latch like the internal house doors.
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 6:51 pm
by Ascender
I need to replace the door handles and locks on the bathrooms. Thing is, I need to make the holes in the doors larger to accommodate all-in-one mortice locks. I’ve managed the first one and it was an utter ball ache with hours of drilling and chiselling. Is there any way to make this easier or is it just one of those thankless tasks with no clever shortcuts?
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:01 pm
by Mito Man
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:05 pm
by mik
Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 7:25 pm
by Ascender
I can always count on this forum to cover both ends of the spectrum when it comes to solutions.
I’ll see if I can find a small enough holesaw.
Thanks lads

Re: The House Projects Thread
Posted: Sun Jul 12, 2020 8:22 pm
by integrale_evo
I’ve found an oscillating multi tool works well when fitting / modifying doors.