UKC

Care to share your tips, other than get a man in to do the job?

I'm particularily interested in tips to shift wall paper, however any of your fave tips would prove an interesting read when I need to rest. And I will be resting quite a lot.

In reply to The Lemming:



Tear a tiny little corner of paper up - show the tear to the wife - Go to the pub.

When you come back the paper should be removed. Make sure you lock the doors to the other rooms in the house unless you want those stripping too.

In reply to The Lemming:

If working above the sink/bath - put the plug in.

Measure twice - cut once,


Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:


If working with anything heavy or sharp then put cardboard / old blanket / rug in the bath - surprisingly easy to destroy a bath or sink if you drop a hammer in it.

In reply to The Lemming:

1. If you're not sure, stop and have a cup of tea/coffee.

I am amazed the numbers of times this little pause for reflection has caused me to stop blundering on turning a '5 minute job' into week long project.

2. Mole grips and hammers are useful but can lead to some bad habits. Where possible try to use the right tool for the job.

3. Force is rarely the answer.

4. Never assume the person who previously owned/worked on the house possessed a scintilla of logic.

In reply to The Lemming:

When in doubt use a bigger hammer.

In reply to The Lemming:

For wall paper, hire a steamer from your local DIY shop. If it is hard to shift, score it (gently). Tool hire is a great way to save labour and time at reasonable cost. For the heavy lifting, digging foundations etc, useful to have a teenage son, daughter's boyfriend, son in law etc on hand while you project manage from a deckchair with a cup of tea.

In reply to The Lemming:

Rub a little candle wax on your saw blade to ensure smooth cutting.

In reply to The Lemming:
Don't trust that you have cut of the electrical supply to an area , just because you threw a switch labeled 'Kitchen' or whatever.
It might be on a spur from elsewhere !!
(or the label might be wrong)

In reply to Pekkie:

For the heavy lifting, digging foundations etc, useful to have a teenage son, daughter's boyfriend, son in law etc on hand while you project manage from a deckchair with a cup of tea.

Spot on advice.

In reply to The Lemming:

Don't start a complex job, or one your aren't sure of when all the DIY / tool shops are closed, or you don't have a car outside.

Know where your water stop tap is.

In reply to The Lemming:

When drilling use a folded post-it note*/piece of paper to collect the waste.

*Other brands available.

In reply to The Lemming:

Don't let my sister anywhere near a paint pot, unless you are wearing really old clothes.

Don't let either of your sisters buy a house that needs completely re-doing - one of them has done it twice!

Don't let either of your sisters sucker you into insulating and boarding their lofts (although the chap that subsequently came to service the heating said it was one of the best jobs he'd ever seen).

Tiling a bathroom takes a hell of a long time.

The amount of time you spend un-doing the mess from the last person that decorated the place will far exceed the amount of time you then spend actually doing what you started out to do.

In reply to The Lemming:

Top tip I discovered from Mr Youtube for removing paper is to use fabric conditioner at 1 part conditioner 4 parts hot water.

Score the paper as normal and then soak the paper with this lovely concoction. It works with and without a steamer.

Miss Lemming is not allowed to use the steamer as it's man stuff but she's doing almost as well sans-steamer.

Quality tip to use fabric conditioner.

In reply to The Lemming:

When nailing squeaky floorboards down, remove squeaky floorboards first, observe the pipes running under them, then take evasive action when adding new nails / screws.

In reply to The Lemming:

Oo...good tip.
Mine would be to let it soak and soak and soak before stripping. You can also buy spiky perforation rollers to put little hole in that's better than scoring but I like the fabric softener tip, I shall be giving that a go on the next big job...I say " I" I meant I'll tell the labourer about it.

In reply to The Lemming:
if it moves and it's not supposed to, use gaffa tape. if it doesn't move but it's supposed to, use WD40.

In reply to MrJared:

Or just get your teenage son to hold the hoover up against it whilst you drill/ saw

In reply to The Lemming:

Do not assume that because the circuit breakers say 'upstairs ring' 'downstairs ring' 'upstairs lights' 'downstairs lights' that this wiring is all separate.

Don't expect to hear the front door open when you're upstairs. Do not assume that a teenager won't flip a circuit breaker back on, assuming that a light bulb has blown somewhere. Don't expect them to show much remorse when you finally untangle yourself from the aluminium ladder and light fittings and remonstrate with them, after the numbness has gone.

Buy a little screwdriver current tester as a minimum, just to be sure.

If a very large floor tile doesn't want to come up, it won't unless you don't want it to. You can't do an invisible join on a large floor tile, but you can hide it under a bath mat.

Leaks that appear in a ceiling do not necessarily originate directly above the apparent drip.

Climbing ladders is easy, but climbing a ladder that's only just off the vertical is ill-advised, especially one-handed

When you need a set of drain rods you won't be able to get any - 5pm on Xmas eve, for example
Buy a set and keep them until you need them.

In reply to The Lemming:

Careful now.

In reply to nniff:

Was going to reply about the drain rods but realised this app,it's to ALL tools . Don't lend tools to anybody who doesn't live very close to you . They will have gone out climbing when you need them .

In reply to graeme jackson:


It depends how long you want it to move for, WD40 is NOT a lubricant.
If you have a stuck nut, that's fine (although I would use PlusGas), if you use it on your hinges they will squeak again within a week.

In reply to jimjimjim:


With the combination of the fabric softener and the scoring wheelie thing, you don't have to soak, soak and soak some more. Once you have gone from one side to the other with your wet tea towel and done it once more then you are good to get the scraper out and strip away.

The steamer is the icing on the cake. I have never had such an easy time as this, like ever.



Some top tips chaps

However the first tip on this op is probably the best and least labour intensive.

In reply to Dandan:


WD40 quite clearly is a lubricant by any reasonable measure, it's just not the best lubricant for most jobs.
jk

In reply to The Lemming:

Most jobs take 3.459 times longer than originally anticipated. Schedule accordingly.

Keep receipts from DIY stores..... you will inevitably have bought the wrong size/part.

In reply to jkarran:


Ok, fair enough, semantics aside, don't use WD40 anywhere that you should use grease or oil. How's that?

In reply to The Lemming:

Decorating (done properly!) is 75% preparation (stripping, repair, filling, sanding etc) and 25% application of decorative finish (paint, paper, tile etc...)

In reply to The Lemming:

Well after 20+ years as a painter and decorator there will be some instances where long soaking is the only way trust me. Ive used industrial steamers, scoring, stripping solution the lot. I like to put warm water and washing up liquid in a fence sprayer pump up thing to get tge wall wet on big jobs. Will deffo be trying the fabric softener though. Now days I tend to get some young lad to do it for me though.

In reply to The Lemming:

WD-40 and duct tape, if it cant be fixed with either of these two items, get someone else to do it.

In reply to C£ Chullain:


You forgot the hammer.

In reply to jkarran:

i think technically it's a degreaser and water repellent. The only reason people think it oils or lubricates is it breaks down the crud that stops things running smoothly and removing the dirt etc.. best to treat Wd40 as a cleaner, then very lightly oil afterwards, with the right lubricant for the job.

In reply to The Lemming:

"When all else fails use bloody great nails"

D.

In reply to The Lemming:

You must have/get the right tools for the job, trying to improvise rarely works and you finish up taking ten times as long and in a foul mood.

Don't persevere with a blunt masonry drill bit, it won't get any sharper.....

In reply to The Lemming:

Buy the best tools you can afford - they make life so much easier.

Free gift drill bits might as well be made of cheese.

In reply to summo:

It's basically kerosene, a light oil. It's slippery and can lubricate. What it's sold for is irrelevant. It's also good at lifting stains off porcelain but it's not sold as a stain remover.

In reply to The Lemming:

The old ways are best. Not.

In reply to The Lemming:

Drill bit seems blunt, hammer drill not very effective?
Don't complain that this wall is rather tough to drill into , check that the last time you used the drill to unscrew something you remembered to change it back!

In reply to The Lemming:

Wear safety glasses. I've lost count of the times in work i have had aluminium swarf and hydraulic fluid in my eyes. A month ago i was climbing a tree to tie a rope around the trunk and got an abrasion on my cornea from a conifer branch resulting in a trip to A&E and a week of eye cream.

In reply to The Lemming:

If you are doing a job requiring a lot of cutting buy a new saw, they are dirt cheap these days and make things so much easier.

In reply to The Lemming:
The slot or cross in the head of a screw is only there for when you need to take them out.

In reply to The Lemming:
Do not drill holes in line vertically above/below electrical fittings.

That's probably where the cable is.

In reply to Trangia:



What if I made a diy mini pyramid?
They are supposed to sharpen razor blades.

In reply to The Lemming:

Any wallpapering tips?

Like do I do the ceiling first then the walls?

And is it better to put the paste on the walls or putting it on the paper before aplication to the walls?

In reply to The Lemming:

Use a Graco spray machine to paint with. I did a 2 bed semi in 3 and a half hours. Such an amazing finish and very quick

In reply to The Lemming:

When using a steamer to remove wall paper don't over steam else you'll end up removing the wall paper and huge plates of plaster from beneath it and then you've got another job to do!

In reply to The Lemming:

Any wallpapering tips?
Like do I do the ceiling first then the walls?

Yes, don't wallpaper the ceiling!

In reply to The Lemming:

The living room ceiling was wallpapered when we moved into our house, it looked precisely as awful as you might imagine, and was a bugger to strip.

In reply to The Lemming:

Top tips, mostly learnt the hard way:

- Buy a voltage detector and test it on a known live cable every time you use it before relying on it to confirm you have correctly isolated something. Those little bulbs break

- Avoid isolating pipework when you are on your own and the diy shops are shut.

- Radiospares do a 1 hour delivery in some areas, 1 hour is still a long time to have your finger over a pipe.

- Assumed nothing when dealing with other people's wiring.

- Sawing off too much takes seconds, sticking it back on neatly takes ages.

- Acro props are the surprising alternative to supporting the ceiling with your head, always get one more than you think you will need.

- Small wooden or plastic wedges are possibly the most useful things you can get.

- You can flake off a surprisingly large bit of masonry by drilling through a wall with a 5kg sds hammer drill.

- Cutting out a door with an angle grinder will generate more dust than any extract system can cope with. Wear a mask and learn to work by touch

- Don't punch a hole in a can of expanding foam filler, definitely don't punch a hole in a can of expanding foam filler in your nearly finished bathroom.

- When working on a flat roof try to avoid falling through, although this is an effective way of finding rotten timbers.

- Never foot an aluminium ladder for a careless electrician.

In reply to summo:


No its a water repellent and light lubricant. It's innapropriate to use were a heavier lubricant is needed (bike chain), but this has led to confusion over what it is, usually spread by people in bike shops.

In reply to The Lemming:

Fill the void around your bath with pieces of loft insulation (you can buy bags of it in bits). Reduces noise and keeps the water warmer longer.

In reply to The Lemming:

Comedy tip I discovered yesterday. Don't leave a bucket of liquid at the bottom of your steps, as you may put your foot in it.

In reply to The Lemming:

Size does matter

In reply to MrJared:
I use an envelope stuck to the wall with masking tape to collect dust when drilling.

On the subject of holes, if you come across a stripped hole in chipboard or the like(where a screw will no longer hold or make purchase) pack the space out with cocktail sticks/matches(sans head) before screwing into it. This works equally well for holes in walls where the rawlplug has worked loose.