Our main radiator in the lounge is about 4M long! Not very high (it sits under a big window). It was very heavy though. It takes a lot of effort to mount it, but it is actually fairly easy. Re-bleeding the system afterwards is a pain!

No. 1 tip, find a girlfriend with a big family, who have built their own houses! You get a lot of knowledge and plenty of help! When we moved in, they took out 2 walls, put in a support beam and removed a fireplace in one day!

You don't have to take rads off to paint behind them, you can just drop them flat - this works for rads that are fed from the floor, and for some wall-fed rads:-

Close the valves at either end to isolate the rad from the system (count the number of turns on the valves so you can put them back to the same state afterwards). If the CH system is pressurised (e.g. if you have a combi boiler) bleed the rad to de-pressurise it. Now find a support (e.g. a cardboard box, plastic stacker crate, that kind of thing) of approx. the same height as the feed pipes (the copper pipes that come up from the floor) and put this in front of the rad. Loosen the union nut on the radiator side of each valve by a half-turn or so - there'll be a dribble of water that comes out 'cos you have a radiator full of water and gravity does its thing, but not much because the rad's isolated from the rest of the system and not under pressure as it's been bled - and simply lift the rad off its brackets (there'll be enough play in the feed pipes) and let it rotate around the loosened valve unions until it comes to rest on the support. NB Take care not to put undue sideways pressure on the feed pipes - copper's a soft metal and a rad full of water's quite heavy. Once it's flat, you can tighten up the unions at either end to seal it up again. Obviously refitting is the same procedure in reverse.

Advantages of this method is that there's minimum disruption to the CH system, so no refilling the rad from scratch and bleeding the system, there's no carrying a rad full of mucky water through the house to drain outside, and that one person can generally do this on their own - though with a 4-metre rad you'll probably need a hand

Re. sash windows; they really need to be taken out to be painted successfully, but it's generally a job too far for most people/decorators - so they usually get painted in situ and just get gummed up over time. I make good money doing sash window refurbs

HTH, Pete

Really? I hope you're joking. Are we not supposed to change light fittings or anything now?

Mind you, I've never touched gas but then one of the guys who came to do our boiler check up shouldn't have either. I was sat in the living room and heard a huge bang followed by 'Oh, yeah, I forgot to put that back in'.

We have different plumbers now.

I would never work on gas, just do not feel safe doing it. Though I would change light switches but that is about my limit. Anything major I would get a professional in.

After plumbing and working with toxic and highly explosive gases in the lab, a little natural gas in the home is nothing to worry about.

When it comes to removing radiators, I just get my father-in-law to do it as he's a plumber.

Yup, a pet hate of mine. Two bloody screws and the light switch is out of the way, just how much of a friggin rush to you have to be in, or how fecking lazy must you be to avoid undoing two screws.

As far as radiators go, if you can't manage/can't be arsed to take them off, you can get small long-handled rollers that will reach behind them. Although, I find taking them off is generally easier - especially if you're papering.

I've always done my own electrical, plumbing, brickwork/concrete, woodwork, but I'd never even consider going near gas. Major electrical work, like anything that needs to be certified, warrants a sparky, but thats about it.

Things I hate:

Wallpaper - I hate how it looks, I loathe removing it and I utterly despise hanging it. Get a decent plasterer.
Metal fittings that aren't earthed
People who board over floor access hatches
Loft hatches that are waaaaaaaay out over the stairs.
**Wonky Pattresses**


Agreed.

They should find a new meaning of pain as they are cast into the pit of the mighty Sarlacc and slowly digested over a thousand years.

Agree 100%. We took down the wooden panelling from the ceiling, when we moved in and put up plaster board instead - the concrete was too uneven to paper over. We got a plasterer in to fill between the boards and then paper it, he was over 2M tall and, where we had to climb a ladder and do a small bit at a time, he had done about 50M² in under an hour, just by walking around with his arm over his head!


True, what I hate more are metal light fittings that are so darned fiddly, you don't stand a cat in hells chance of actually connecting the earth wire!


Ours isn't, just at the top of the stairs, with integrated ladder... But speaking of stairs, the previous owner put in hooks in the wall, where you can hang a metal rods and then lay specially cut board over them, then you can walk out over the stairs to paper and paint the walls!


Girlfriend's best friend is an apprentice electrician, so the 30 new power sockets we put in during renovations are all nice and solid.

Yup, Wallpaper is [LIFTED]. Handily, my stepfather-in-law is a plasterer, so I've got that covered too.

A couple of quick questions, given I know next to nothing about DIY stuff.

1. Drilling through an internal wall to put up a shelf, I got the expected red stuff, presumably plaster? But it was followed by some black stuff. What was this?

2. My parents painted the rooms a year ago and they used a cream coloured paint. Except the damn thing leaves a "dust mark" on my clothes if they brush against a wall. Complete PITA. What did they use and what should they have used?

1) Probably breeze block

2) Not cheap paint