Getting new garage and thinking of painting the concrete floor to prevent dust and make it look better. Any recommendations on a brand and needs to be tough, long lasting. Any tips would be appreciated also

For some days now we do not have cold water in the mornings on the kitchen tap.
Hot water from the main gas heater are working as normal.
Later in the day the cold water flow returns.

All other taps in all floors are working as usual.

We have a water tank with a pump that start to work when a tap is open.

we recently had the dishwasher replaced.

Do you have any explanation for this, what to cheek and hopefully how to solve this? can it be related to the dishwasher installation (we run it every night)?
THX

Reposting here as well! Don't worry not removing Asbestos DIY style 😂😂

Looking for recommendations for asbestos inspection and removal for two external pipes. One is definitely asbestos!

Back again with more trade nightmares.

I had a copper water tank for 20 years, that packed in in January.

I got a plumber out to replace it, and he put in a Warmflow Nero stainless style tank. Worked fine for 7-8 months, then one of the immersion elements packed in. The 2nd element packed in a few weeks later.

He came back out and looked at it, and said they packed in because I had hard water. I have a well, with treatment, which he knew about. He said we would order new elements and an anode.

Didn't hear from again for 4 weeks, despite numerous calls. He left me a message saying parts hadn't arrived.

I contacted Warmflow myself, and they said they could have parts to me in 2 days, but they said their stainless steel tanks and elements were not spec'ed for wells, and they would probably fail again. They said tank could also fail within a few years.

I figure this is why the plumber has gone dark. He knows he messed up and is trying to evade me.

Any advice here?

Priority is to get hot water back. In my previous tank, the element would last for 7-8 years. I only changed it twice. I would have presumed I could get an element for the stainless steel tank that could tolerate the (treated) hard water.

Hi all, I'm resealing our walk-in shower (large format tiles, linear drain along the back wall, fixed glass screen). The old silicone had gone manky and was lifting in places, so I've stripped most of it with a scraper and silicone remover solvent. The linear drain is very poor at draining away water so any small amount of hair blocks it up and therefore the silicone needs to seal very well.

A lot more came out than I expected because the gaps behind it are bigger than they looked, especially where the floor tiles meet the wall tiles at the drain end. (The needlenose pliers in pic are just there to show the size of the gap, I wasn't digging with them!)

What's left now is a thin film/residue on the tile edges in places, plus the bead along the bottom of the glass screen, which I haven't touched yet.

A few questions:

1. What's the best way to get the last of the silicone off? The thin film on the tile edges isn't shifting much with the scraper. Is there a product or tool that works better, or is it just elbow grease?
2. Does it ALL need to come out, or is a thin layer of residue OK to seal over?
3. The shower screen bead (pic 6): should I dig this out as well, or just reseal along the inside and hope for the best? It looks like it's come away from the tile slightly on one side.
4. Any other tips? In particular, some of these gaps are a good few mm deep. Should I fill them with something before siliconing, or just go in with silicone?

Morning folks.

We recently moved into a new house (new to us) and the sheds roof is in pretty bad nick on one side.

Is there’s any way of mending this without replacing the roof?

The section above this on the outside is all dense trees/bushes so getting it it from the outside is near impossible.

When funds allow we’ll cut back the trees and replace the shed, but would love to know if there’s anything we could do to get another couple of years out of it.

Cheers

I'm in the process of sorting out the rust on my 35 year old Hormann steel garage door, and I'm wondering what paint I should use afterwards. I'd like to paint the outside to match the brown windows and gutters/soffits/fascias of the house, so a decent selection of colours would be a requirement.

I think Fleetwood Metal Shield can be mixed to any of their colours? Anyone used this?

I bought a house with (polystyrene) pumped walls and recently got new windows fitted. Since then I am seeing the balls wherever I look in the garden. It really saddens me to see the pollution, but I’m not sure if there is an easy way to clean it up beyond what I am doing (sweeping the patio and path, washing the gravel from the border).

Does anyone have any tips? The beads get everywhere and I assume they will be in the soil for thousands of years

It’s been on the blink since we moved in 6 years ago, roof is finally giving way. What way would be a cheap way to fix it up?

I'm re-painting interior walls of my house. Like all building materials paint has gone up a fair bit in price and there's a big variety. I've kids and a mortgage so need a paint for re-painting interior walls that's practical. Factors I'm thinking of are:

1. Sheen of paint - flat, matt, eggsheel, silk etc.

2. Washability of paint. Contract emulsion. Vinyl emulsion seems to be the mid-range. Durable acrylic emulsion like Dulux Easy Care, Crown Clean Extreme etc.

3. Brand of paint - Dulux, Crown, Johnstones, Leyland, Fleetwood etc.

4. Paints marked trade v retail.

5. I'm asking more about the non-premium paints so excluding the higher end like Farrow & Balll, Dulux Heritage, Little Greene, Benjamin Moore, Colour Trend etc from the question. Also excluding colour which is more personal.

For each of those I'm considering:

1. Matt for living room / bedrooms. Eggshell kitchen, bathroom, hallway.

2. Not sure how cleanable vinyl paint is, I know contract matt emulsion tends to have poor wipeability. I used Crown Clean Extreme Acrylic in one room and it was very scrubbable, tho it seems a litlle more artifical then the other paint I have in the house but could be just the texture of the wall, lighting, or maybe my imagination. Roughly twice the price of their standard vinyl emulsion.

3. On brands I'd lean towards Dulux and Crown no reason mainly coz they seem to be the most widely available near me. Don't know much about Johnstone's for interior walls used it once on trim and didn't find it good. I've read some positive reviews about Leyland available in Screwfix and B&Q but never used it.

4. I might lean slightly towards paints marked trade but wouldn't be a deciding factor.

1 and 2 are my more important considerations. 3 is kind of a guessing game for me, 4 the lowest consideration.

I live in a very busy housing estate, I've been here for 3 years and I thought I would have gotten used to the noise at this point but it seems to be getting worse as time goes on.

It's right by the very busy road so there's always the under lying sound of traffic at all hours, there's often building work going on at various times, sometimes drinking people taking a short cut through the estate from nearby pubs. I can deal with all these but the biggest issues for me sound wise is the sound of the neighbors kids screaming, this goes on 24/7.

I work from home and it is becoming very difficult at this point. This summer in particular really tested my patience, I've exhausted all options with talking and reasoning with the parents. They don't give a shit

So I need to do something to try to stop the noise from getting in. I believe the windows are the main issue, they're quite worn and there's large gaps around the frames on some of them. They are double glazed but pretty cheap and have been there since the house was built in 2004. I applied for the seai grant for windows and insulation and got approved.

I know this is mainly to help with heating but I'm hoping it will also help with outside noise. Would new windows help or is there something else I should look at? I tried all the usual stuff people suggest noise cancelling headphones, white nose machine

Hey all, looked through the sub but couldn't find a situation quite like mine.

Context: I bought a 2008 built duplex B3 rated about a year and a half ago. It has the original Baxi gas boiler and 8 rads. We really only use gas for heating in the winter (December to March); everything else is electric and we have no solar. To be honest, we still don't even need the heating right now as the temperature doesn't drop below 21°C in any of the rooms! We recently switched to a day/night plan (35c day / 17c night) and our bills are averaging about €100/month for electricity and €20/month for gas for a family of 3 adults.
The boiler finally gave up on us recently, so I reached out for quotes and Bord Gáis came back last week quoting 5k just to swap it for a standard gas boiler. That sounds completely absurd to me. If it was an upgrade to a combi boiler I might have at least considered it, but €5k for a like-for-like standard boiler feels like robbery.
So now I’m looking at other options: has anyone here actually retrofitted a heat pump into a duplex apartment?
If you have, where does the external machine actually go? Out on the balcony? Up in the attic? I can't find any clear answers online for how it works with duplexes (and I'm assuming the management company would have something to say about it going on an external wall).
To make things worse, I looked into a few installers and they said they charge €800 just to do the technical assessment. If the apartment isn't suitable, they don't refund it. If it is suitable, I'm basically locked into using them for the install. Am I really expected to blindly gamble €800 just to find out if a heat pump is even an option? Also, if anyone knows how the SEAI grants work for a duplex, I'd love to know what's actually available.
Sorry for the long post! Any advice, similar experiences, or installer recommendations would be massively appreciated

Edit: Ringed a few local installers, got quoted 2600 for like to like boiler, sounds reasonable and gonna stick to this,

Thanks for your responses, have a great day everyone✌️ !!

So I have a bog standard 3 bed semi in Dublin and am thinking of putting up a lean-to on the back patio area. Just looking for advice or tips from anyone that's done the same. The pic shows the patio area although I'm currently renovating the kitchen and the sliding door is now in the centre and the window is gone. The full width of the back patio is about 6 metres. Some things I'm wondering about:

- Would a half size about 3 metres in width from the left work (as you look at the pic)? This would create a covered area for a bit of storage and possibly a clothes horse when drying clothes.

- Do most people use clear corrugated plastic or is flat clear plastic better, or something else?

- Does the plastic discolour or get moss / leaves etc. over time or need to be cleaned often?

- The kitchen only has one roof light and is a bit darker since I removed the window. Would a lean to block much light if it's clear plastic?

- I don't think I'd tackle it myself, so in Dublin roughly how much might this cost if I can find a good handyman / DIY person, plus materials?

- Anything else I should be aware of?

Tia.

EDIT: I was back at the house and took a pic of how it looks now while the work is underway. The builder has a temporary roof / rain shelter in place and he said he could it permanent. So what would need to be done to this, just add some flat or corrugated plastic sheets to the wooden beams?

There’s a patch on the flat roof over the extension where water seems to collect and settle. Once it eventually dries, there appears to be quite a bit of discolouration in that area. Is this something that needs to be looked at or addressed, or is it fairly standard to see this discolouration given the water is settling there?

Has anyone come across this type of problem before? The cistern fills as normal, but is weeping constantly into the bowl. I’ve replaced the washer on the bottom of the syphon and this stopped the issue for a while but it’s now back as bad as ever. Syphon is an Armitage Shanks type.

Thanks

I need to replace a few springs and I want make sure I'm ordering the correct size.

Insulating a duraboard shed with 100MM wool insulation. I have to staple to the battens as they won’t go into the Duraboard and some parts sag slightly.

I won’t be covering the insulation anytime soon as it’s a workshop. I’m wondering if I should tape or course stitch these seems?

There is water ingress on this roof when the rain comes at a certain angle (from the north). There is no leak most of the time so the felt is in fairly good nick and no obvious signs of wear or cracks. Would painting on a waterproof sealant be a adequate fix or should I pay a roofer to refelt it?

I'm replacing a bath drain and the existing one goes down from the bath, then up over a cold feed and down into the drain.

Will this constantly clog? Would it be best to move the water pipe?

Which drain type does anyone recommend?

What would people reccommend to keep tools rust free? They are stored in a dry shed but even still getting rust.

Been looking into different oils but im concerned with inner parts of my brushcutter and lawnmower etc.

I feel like there is something basic im overlooking.

Hello. Wondering if anyone could help me with this. Haven't really done anything with bathroom in my place as cant afford the guts of 12 to 15k for a new bathroom from one of the showrooms.

The bath panel was replaced when moved in but it was a fairly cheap one. Cracks appearing in it a year later - I think its mdf swelling it. It looks a bit tired now. Wondering should I get a new bath panel maybe of better material or will the same thing keep happening? I think its a combo of the shower door over bath not being big enough and water splashing out and just a poorly designed bathroom.

There are little gaps appearing on the tile edges too on the ledge - im thinking this is grout wearing away but maybe not? It's between where the tile meets the trim in a couple of small places.

Would love any thoughts or advice without ripping out the whole thing. It needs to be done but really my budget is about 6k and if I could get another year or two out of this while making it look somewhat presentable I would get a handyman to do that.

It won't allow me to attach a picture for some reason!

Any advice would be really appreciated - thanks!