What "man jobs" have you done today?

Participant said:
Oh I've heard that one before, just in a different context.

Anyway I had a good one tonight.

There has been this odd - and increasingly powerful over the recent warmer days - meaty fish smell from the hall. Wife had gone on the internet and discovered knowledge that dodgy electrics can apparently (and this is news to me) smell of fish.

I have recently fitted downlights to two bedrooms, so she asking if we're safe, should I check the wiring, are we all about to be incinerated, etc.

Other important information: we have a cat. Wife's idea.

Immediately thinking of the cat, I ask her if she's looked under the sideboard and boot bench to see if there's anything there. Oh yes, I've checked and there's nothing.

So I look just to be sure, and there's a rotting mouse carcass under the sideboard.

That's my DIY feedback; assuming my DIY skills are about to kill everyone rather than suspecting the cat.
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That's not a new thing, but I think it was more a case of a 100W incandescent in a fitting not rated for that much heat. I have had some bayonets that are plastic rather then metal and I always felt they were a bit cheap and nasty.
 
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The man job of all man jobs.

Decided to tidy up the work bench in garage and throw a lot of tat away.
Didn't go to plan -Took longer than I thought and managed to bin one bins worth of junk from under the bench.

Did clean it up and put new newspaper on bench so don't dirty up my bench protector. - Cleaned up battery chargers and batteries as they were sticky from grubby hands.
God help whoever has to clean the garage out -They will need a small skip. I just can't throw it away as it's all usefull junk.

PS - had another go and cleaned and polished pillar drill and bench grinder - scrapped all metal dust off wiped it all down with big wipes.

:D
 
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Fitted this shelf in my daughters room. The walls are more of a lilac than pink, not sure why they came out that colour.
 
During the course of rewiring this place I had to make about 6 access holes in the top floor. Flat roof means no loft access for wires, where other ceilings had floorboards above them to lift:


So having finally finished this floor's circuit pulls and made a decision on adding/moving lights in one bedroom, it was time to seal them all up and stop the weird smelly roof smells wandering in :)

Found my local timber merchant and bought a bit of softwood to fit the plasterboard squares I'd removed, on to:


Fitted backing strips to each square:



You may have noticed by now the ceilings are textured, joy. Fitted the patches:


And thoroughly gunged them into place, with some added finger painting to blend the artex (asbestos free thankfully) in a little bit:


I shall remove the screws and paint the area, and hopefully they'll be somewhat hidden. I'm planning to board/skim the ceiling before long anyway - and there's an outside chance I'll need to get to these access holes again if we change our mind on the wiring. So I'm fine with this finish given the rest of the house is equally "in-progress".
 
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LuckyBenski said:
During the course of rewiring this place I had to make about 6 access holes in the top floor. Flat roof means no loft access for wires, where other ceilings had floorboards above them to lift:


So having finally finished this floor's circuit pulls and made a decision on adding/moving lights in one bedroom, it was time to seal them all up and stop the weird smelly roof smells wandering in :)

Found my local timber merchant and bought a bit of softwood to fit the plasterboard squares I'd removed, on to:


Fitted backing strips to each square:



You may have noticed by now the ceilings are textured, joy. Fitted the patches:


And thoroughly gunged them into place, with some added finger painting to blend the artex (asbestos free thankfully) in a little bit:


I shall remove the screws and paint the area, and hopefully they'll be somewhat hidden. I'm planning to board/skim the ceiling before long anyway - and there's an outside chance I'll need to get to these access holes again if we change our mind on the wiring. So I'm fine with this finish given the rest of the house is equally "in-progress".
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I'd be tempted to leave the screws in but drive them deeper so they can't be seen.
 
I had been looking for over engineered under counter lights, ended up with a simpler govee setup but struggling to find a light I like (the hue ceiling light follows colour temp through the day/evening).

ThuFsce.jpeg


This spurred me on (get it?) to take the old cabinet light wiring and extend it to a socket above the units. It's only lighting cable so I'll put a warning/drop the fuse down to 3a.

Z0GzWun.jpeg


Perfect for the Alexa bucket install too.

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Just need to smash the led out of the fuse switch now lol.
 
CapitalOne said:
Sitting in the CLS redoing all the settings that have been wiped in the latest MB service. To an onlooker it appears I am sitting in the drivers seat but don't have a clue how to drive.
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What settings?

Start car - android auto :D

LuckyBenski said:
Nice idea! I do worry that Alexa is going to sound crap though. Our Google bits need a bit of room around them. They are also rubbish at hearing me if I tuck them away but I'm pretty sure my voice is withering away to nothing.
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Yeah I was once in Amazon's office and they have these shows in each meeting room. The guy was trying to demonstrate blinds closing and because he was standing out of field of view it just didn't catch his voice.

I guess the idea behind the show is your face onto it to see something. The original plan was to put it on my floating shelf but the wife insisted she didn't want to see it.

It seems totally fine tho, it's been up there a while. This job was just to hide the power.
 
dlockers said:
I had been looking for over engineered under counter lights, ended up with a simpler govee setup but struggling to find a light I like (the hue ceiling light follows colour temp through the day/evening).

[...IMG...]

This spurred me on (get it?) to take the old cabinet light wiring and extend it to a socket above the units. It's only lighting cable so I'll put a warning/drop the fuse down to 3a.

[...IMG...]

Perfect for the Alexa bucket install too.

[...IMG...]


Just need to smash the led out of the fuse switch now lol.
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Did a similar thing in my kitchen few years back. Fused spur off an existing socket to behind and above the cabinets, couple of sockets on the top, and used an Ikea Symfonisk for the sonos system, and a smart Ikea LED driver, which works with phillips hue. Works really well.
"Alexa, turn on the kitchen" and the under cabinet lights fade up on demand, or using a hue PIR [a black friday bargain] during the evening.
 
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skyripper said:
Did a similar thing in my kitchen few years back. Fused spur off an existing socket to behind and above the cabinets, couple of sockets on the top, and used an Ikea Symfonisk for the sonos system, and a smart Ikea LED driver, which works with phillips hue. Works really well.
"Alexa, turn on the kitchen" and the under cabinet lights fade up on demand, or using a hue PIR [a black friday bargain] during the evening.
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I still need to find a solution to the ceiling lights.. they're Hive [from before I got started on Hue], so 'smart', but the lightswitch also controls the boost on the constant air fan/extractor. So I need a way to leave the ceiling lights powered, but only have the fan on working speed when the lights are on high, as opposed to off/dimmed, when I'd want the fan at idling speed.
could probably do it with a zigbee smart light switch module, but then I need an override button... ugh. it can stay how it is. some jobs aint worth it
 
skyripper said:
I still need to find a solution to the ceiling lights.. they're Hive [from before I got started on Hue], so 'smart', but the lightswitch also controls the boost on the constant air fan/extractor. So I need a way to leave the ceiling lights powered, but only have the fan on working speed when the lights are on high, as opposed to off/dimmed, when I'd want the fan at idling speed.
could probably do it with a zigbee smart light switch module, but then I need an override button... ugh. it can stay how it is. some jobs aint worth it
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Just aside a small budget of 50-500 for problems like this :cry:
 
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