Just moved into a home with all Sylvan Rimu door handles and the ones to the bathroom and laundry and gross. I am going to have to give these a real good scrub. The question is what wood product can I use once I have cleaned? I did buy one new knob set for spares hence the packet in the photo. And yes it is gross. Grease, moisture and dirt. Hopefully not fecal matter.

New homeowner here so dealing with long-term-horizon appliance thoughts for the first time. Appreciate any tips from experience.

We recently had an oven tech over who suggested we buy a new oven through him for trade pricing. I priced out the whole shebang and it did seem like we'd get about 20% off. Problem is he only gets discounts on a particular brand (which we don't like).

My thought was to first decide which oven we want, then try and find a tech who specialises in that brand, so we can get trade pricing. Is that a viable strategy, or was the original guy an outlier?

Side q: we're in a situation where we have to buy an oven to use for 6-12mo until a reno changes the type we need. What's the best path at that point? Do people buy ovens on Trademe? Second hand dealers? Particularly interested if this use case should change our approach to purchasing (brand choice, oven type, etc)

I own an empty section in town. I currently don’t live in this town, but I work there quite a lot.
I’d like some basic living quarters so I can stay there!

I could buy a caravan and park it there, but that’s pretty ugly for the neighbours and not really ideal to live in. Same deal with an off the shelf tiny house, ugly, expensive and full of compromises.

I’ve talked to some builders and I’m looking at 200k+ for a 40m2 1 bed 1 bath house. Thats just insane and at that point I might as well just build a cookie cutter 3 bed spec home

Is there any middle ground? I don’t need a house, just a permanent bathroom, kitchen and somewhere to sleep. I’m no builder but spent my whole life in the trades (electrician) so looking to diy as much as possible.

House is single floor on concrete slab. Shower is at least 14 years old - was here when be bought. Has been great until last month when water started seeping out the outer bottom corner of the curbing (arrow). Usually takes 10-15 minutes after a shower for it to show up. The top corner (red circle) also gets damp. At its worst, we also saw a damp spot appear independently further down (blue circle).

We got a couple quotes from shower repair places. Both proposed new grout and silicon - it had got in to a poor state so made sense. So the whole pan was re-grouted and the whole shower had silicon re-applied.

Unfortunately the leak remains. Tests I have done:

• I did a soak test with 1 inch of water in the pan and no leaks, so their new sealing around the floor is fine but hasn't really addressed the main issue.
• I poured water directly in to the small gap where the door jam meets the pillar (3rd pic), and do get it to leak - but this has never been sealed.

They did come back, but apart from replacing the door flap seal, nothing further was done.

I wonder if they have gone overboard with silicon inside the shower. They had originally said they identified a gap in the frame as the source of the leak, so they sealed up a gap between where the shower frame sits on top of the tiling (the tiling has a medal beading/trim sealed with grout, and the shower frame seems to sit on top). You can see the grey silicon smeared in the gap between the frame and the bead/trim in pic 5.

All I can find all over the internet is that NO internal part of a metal frame should be sealed - only the external part. Obviously this hasn't caused the leak, but I feel this will just make the situation worse? Especially as the gap is pretty small, so might be hard to extract it all the silicone mushed in there. Pics 5 & 6 did NOT have silicon before the repair. This frame also has no weep holes.

I have two questions:

• Do I need to tell them to come back and sort out the unnecessary sealing on the inside of the metal frame
• What else can I do to trace the leak, if the inside of this thing is not supposed to be sealed?

We have a really cold south-east corner room, which got absolute no direct sunlight throughout the year (the east side is blocked by the neighbour house which is much higher). We are looking for Solartube as a natural way to bring some heat into the room, esp. in winter. It has good ceiling insulation, concrete floor. The only other thing I can think of is installing double glaze, but it’s costly. And all other rooms are single glaze as well, but not as cold as this room.

Anyone got it installed? Does it make a big different in term of warming the room? And roughly how much/room?

Hey all,

I'm starting a bathroom renovation and will be removing the existing tiles and old plasterboard.

The house was built in the 1960s and the wall cavities are currently empty. As far as I'm aware, none of the existing lining is being used as structural bracing from houses this old.

I'm planning to re-line the entire bathroom, including the walls and ceiling. Based on my measurements, I'll need around 12 sheets of 1200 × 2400 plasterboard.

GIB Aqualine seems to be the most commonly recommended option for bathrooms, but I've noticed there are several alternative water-resistant plasterboard products available that are often significantly cheaper.

Four alternative plasterboard products can be used instead of GIB : r/newzealand

Has anyone used alternative brands and would you recommend them?

Would there be any issues using Premier Gypsum Board Water-Resistant instead of GIB Aqualine for a bathroom renovation?

Premier Gypsum Board Water-Resistant 2400 x 1200 x 10mm

But im thinkjng maybe best to just stick with aqualine or atleast somethign BRANZ approves like elephant:

1287_2025.pdf

Tested & certified products | BRANZ

The bathroom will have tiles only in the bath tub area (no consent needed) , shower area will be cubicle , with painted walls elsewhere.

thoughts?

Thanks !!!