What "man jobs" have you done today?

Participant said:
I'm sure he was pricing in the risk of it unexpectedly being a very difficult job etc., but trades are really pricing themselves to encourage more and more people to just do it themselves. I'm glad I know some stuff as I must have saved myself tens of thousands in avoided labour costs over the years.

There are some things I won't do myself, like structural building and going on the roof, but on the whole, it's doable and often to a higher standard.
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I'm sure he was, I'd of gone £250 but £350 was just a step too far. The hardest bit was sizing the lead pipe to get the correct leadloc, could have just bought a couple but nowhere local sells them. Surprisingly easy to fit, I've always steered clear of messing with old lead pipes in the past.

Totally agree with the higher standard of work from doing it myself.
 
Fitted the door architrave and some tiles today. Got a ceramic "snap" cutter and cuts don't seem brilliant to be honest not sure if there's a knack to it (keeping straight cuts) they're relatively clean the cuts but tbh I can get it better with a grinder.


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Looks good - I am engineering every possible way so I can do my tile in a one-er. It drove me mad in the last place; for some reason I broke it up over about 6 weekends in the end :cry:
 
dlockers said:
Looks good - I am engineering every possible way so I can do my tile in a one-er. It drove me mad in the last place; for some reason I broke it up over about 6 weekends in the end :cry:
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Yeah to be honest going a bit slow..... Deffo could have done more and half the time is cleaning adhesive off of tools but I wanted to do other bits in the day and got up late :x

Advantage of doing it this way is it means the difficult cuts around the niche I know the "start point" for cutting it if you get me..
 
How viable do you reckon it is to fit a radiator yourself with 0% previous radiator experience? I'm relatively good at getting hands on with things but I've not had to get too involved with anything to do with radiators before. We had our entire boiler/heating system replaced in the last house so had a few radiators replaced at the same time.

Getting quoted 275-325 to get someone into fit it for us so I'm trying to work out if that cost is worth it.
 
t2na said:
How viable do you reckon it is to fit a radiator yourself with 0% previous radiator experience? I'm relatively good at getting hands on with things but I've not had to get too involved with anything to do with radiators before. We had our entire boiler/heating system replaced in the last house so had a few radiators replaced at the same time.

Getting quoted 275-325 to get someone into fit it for us so I'm trying to work out if that cost is worth it.
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It's not a particularly difficult job. Are you replacing an existing rad or fitting one in a new location?
 
t2na said:
How viable do you reckon it is to fit a radiator yourself with 0% previous radiator experience? I'm relatively good at getting hands on with things but I've not had to get too involved with anything to do with radiators before. We had our entire boiler/heating system replaced in the last house so had a few radiators replaced at the same time.

Getting quoted 275-325 to get someone into fit it for us so I'm trying to work out if that cost is worth it.
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Done a few myself, including relocating a couple.

Need to drain the system out, so do all changes you need at one time, the drain ported radiator will be one of the ground floor ones, probably front hallway one, will take about 30 mins to drain out

Get your wrench, rags fittings, couplers, flux solder gas bottle all in hand, last thing you want to do is go to screwfix mid job lol

If you're replacing like for like and in same position, just get the ptfe

Wall brackets might need replacing in a different position on the wall depending if the new rad is a different type / brand, if so then grab some wall filler

Watch a couple of vids online will always help

Then once done fill from the boiler and run the heating, bleed the valves ..keep that £275-300 in your pocket ;)
 
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Bathroom pull switch was starting to arc badly and make all the lights flicker. So replaced that with a new one. Wiring was a bit of a dogs dinner and the old switch was just screwed into the plaster so it took longer than expected.
 
Got the wiring done....managed to really hurt my thumb (broken or sprained tbc lol) so didn't get what I wanted done but almost there.

Plumber comes Friday to do the towel rail.

What I started with...
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There was a stitch drill to the room behind this, which was annoying...as it meant I'd have to fix the other side NOW otherwise I'd be scuppered when I do the bedroom.

Whacked two sockets on whilst I was there...left plenty to break the ring and add future sockets when this room becomes priority. This is temporary just to be clear lol.
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Put my RCD fuse spur isolator on the outside up by the door. Not really required but I liked the idea of isolating the whole room should I need to, and RCD was an extra few pence.
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I hit some mortar made by Hercules and the socket drill wobbled a bit so I have a bit more filling than I'd have liked but no probs really - future issue!

Need to....:
1. Run my spurs to defogging mirror and towel rad
2. Fill and paint the walls
3. Fix my broken thumb
4. Fill and paint the door
5. First fix plumbing
6. Lay insulation and floor
7. Overboard floor and fit bath
8. Finish false wall and toilet
9. Tile
 
t2na said:
How viable do you reckon it is to fit a radiator yourself with 0% previous radiator experience? I'm relatively good at getting hands on with things but I've not had to get too involved with anything to do with radiators before. We had our entire boiler/heating system replaced in the last house so had a few radiators replaced at the same time.

Getting quoted 275-325 to get someone into fit it for us so I'm trying to work out if that cost is worth it.
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Definitely worth doing this yourself. Once you have the knowledge, you'll feel very satisfied knowing that you don't have to pay anyone.

Hardest parts for me were

- Knowing how to drain down, what to switch off, attaching a hose to the best place, etc.
- It's soul destroying / annoying / boring if you refill the system and the joints leaks, especially if it's a cold day and your Mrs. / family are on your case about it :D

I've used compression joints if under carpet and never had any issues with adjusting the pipes under the boards etc.
 
If you are just replacing the radiator and not the valves, you don't need to drain down if the new radiator is a direct replacement for what is there already.

Close valve, crack the fittings, drain down the single rad, remove, replace, open valves, bleed, top up system if needed, job jobbed.
 
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Foghorn Leghorn said:
It's not a particularly difficult job. Are you replacing an existing rad or fitting one in a new location?
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It's not replacing - but it's not a new location (as odd as that sounds). There's existing pipes there already for a radiator, there just isn't one currently there to replace so no existing brackets etc.

Cheers for everyone's advice @Participant @b0rn2sk8 @maddness I reckon I'll just give it a go myself. It's a new house we've just bought so we're sorting a few things out before we move across. This 'missing radiator' is the room I'd be working from home in - but as we're still in our current place for a few more weeks I can't see the harm in me doing it myself and going from there.

I've had a watch of a few YouTube videos, I have about 90% of the stuff already so will do a Screwfix trip this week for the last few pieces and then sort it next weekend!
 
The chucks kept "escaping" (jumping onto the fence and hopping out).

Clipped their wings, still managing to hop out - it's quite high and wouldn't have believed it unless seeing it first hand, so .....

Lashed some.plastic posts to the waiting fence posts

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Then fixed another layer of mesh to take it about 40cm.higher than it was ...

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Tie-wrap-phobes look away ...

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:cry: :cry: :cry:

Don't worry

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I even trimmed the pipe insulation while I was at it

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@{SAS}TB your house/grounds always impress me. Fair play.

So since Friday, I've had an absolute mare! I bought some tablet salt for the water softener that was already here when we moved in, and decided to essentially service the thing considering the water inside amongst the salt didn't look clean. On one hand I'm glad I did because the water was filthy when extracting it and the overflow tube was a) completely blocked and b) not even through the wall to outside.

However, I had a if it ain't broke don't fix it. I took the top of the resin tank off as there was lots of mould over the inlet/outlet manifold and the inlet and outlet pipes. However, I didn't realise an o-ring had fell off the manifold and into the resin tank, so turning it on after putting it together left a massive leak with some of the small resin balls coming out.

Sorted that issue, but then had a leak on the outlet which was due to tension on the outlet pipe essentially causing the face of the 90° connector not being flush against the outlet pipe. I also noticed a leak where the flow pipes joined the bypass under the sink, the tension on the pipes were turning the plastic nuts undone to the stop valves.

I don't know if the mould was due to a small leak that I've hopefully sorted, or if it's due to condensation on the metal 90° bends as there's cold water obviously flowing through them.
 
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