DIY thread...

[Dual]

My dad had a pretty bad leak somewhere in his heating/water system which made a part of his front room ceiling collapse. The council have fixed the leak but apparently the hole is his problem! He's waiting for it to finish drying out and then he thinks he'll just whack a bit of board or whatever up there and be done with it (he's not arsed about matching the textured wallpaper from when we moved here in 1988 that I'm not even sure is a thing anymore ). I was wondering if anyone had any insights on how much it would cost to get it fixed by a professional (the hole is 0.5sqm approximately).

If he was to do it himself I'd try and help him if I was about (he lives in London, I'm in Liverpool). My plan would be:
- straighten edges
- measure straight hole
- cut board
- nail into beams
- plaster, sand, paint

Does that sound about right or have I missed something?

Yeah it's a fairly straightforward. You'll need to make the hole bigger first so you're on the next joist as it looks like there's nothing to fix to on the left side? Use some pencil lines outside the hole on the good ceiling to mark where your ceiling joists are so you don't fire a scree into thin air and hit a cable or pipe. You could use a stipple/textured finish paint to patch the area once finished if your old man is not that bothered about matching up exactly. Would be easier than trying to wallpaper upside down.

My local DIY shop sells plasterboard offcuts very cheap which would be perfect for this. Try somewhere like that before going to b&q.

In terms of getting someone in its likely to be a few hundred quid. The issue you'll have is actually finding someone who's got availability because good tradespeople are all booked up atm. I would seriously suggest it's not worth the aggro and do it yourself.

EDIT: Just thinking as well - it's definitely textured wallpaper and not an applied finish? Be careful it's not Artex which is likely to contain Asbestos.

https://www.rbasbestos.co.uk/artex-ceiling-asbestos/

[Green Gecko]

Yeah use plasterboard.

You can tap with a hammer and listen to try and find the studs. Dull thud stud, echoic sound nothing.

You could use a stud finder to detect nails (good, means there's a stud) and wires/pipes (obviously bad).

It isnt wallpaper but artex type paint that is sculpted / stippled with a brush. Pre 1970s artex contained asbestos, post they changed the formula and you can still buy it but it's super expensive. And horrible anyway.

You could probably approximate it with swirls of quick mix plaster or even filler.

Edit: actually looks like it is texture paper going by the way it's torn. No problem then.

[Errkal]

Finally finished decorating the living room. At last the ancient horrid blue carpet is gone!!

[Knoyleo]

This isn't strictly a DIY question, but this seemed like a good place to ask where people might be able to advise.

We've had a new bathroom fitted by Wickes. While the old one had no extractor fan, we've asked to have one added to the new one. The fitter's said that it's not suitable to go through the wall, due to how far down the soffit/fascia under the eaves of the roof comes down, so they said it will need to go through the ceiling into the attic. I was under the impression that this would then be ducted out of the attic, because what's the point of an extractor fan that doesn't actually extract from the building, but the fitter says that the loft space is large enough and well ventilated enough that it can just vent into there and will be fine. He says this is standard practice, and I've heard similar from a couple of other places, but I've also read that venting into the attic space can also be a problem, both for the roof timber and anything we're storing up there.

Anybody on here got any experience of this? What would you recommend?

[Errkal]

That sounds like a crap idea.
It will vent a gooseberry fool load if moisture into a generally dry place made of wood.

There are usually options, so you can have a vent replaces a couple tiles, a tub that then vent downwards out of a vent cut into the soffit, in our case we had the fan fitted a but lower because the soffits are just above window height (about head height) as well we wanted the fan p, that was the lessst work and we didn’t give two gooseberry fools about a white square being a bit low on a wall.

[darksideby182]

This isn't strictly a DIY question, but this seemed like a good place to ask where people might be able to advise.

We've had a new bathroom fitted by Wickes. While the old one had no extractor fan, we've asked to have one added to the new one. The fitter's said that it's not suitable to go through the wall, due to how far down the soffit/fascia under the eaves of the roof comes down, so they said it will need to go through the ceiling into the attic. I was under the impression that this would then be ducted out of the attic, because what's the point of an extractor fan that doesn't actually extract from the building, but the fitter says that the loft space is large enough and well ventilated enough that it can just vent into there and will be fine. He says this is standard practice, and I've heard similar from a couple of other places, but I've also read that venting into the attic space can also be a problem, both for the roof timber and anything we're storing up there.

Anybody on here got any experience of this? What would you recommend?

Sounds gooseberry fool either duct it to a grill in your soffit or through a roof tile that is a grill.

As Errkal has put.

[Knoyleo]

I've had a further dig about in the loft, and there's currently no visible ventilation in there anyway, either grills in the tiles or in the soffits, so can't imagine it's going to be any good at all.

We've asked Wickes/the fitter to give us a quote for the additional work, because apparently ducting wasn't in the original agreement, only installation in the room and connecting it to the circuits, but honestly think it'd rather go get someone else to do it, or see if I can fit a soffit grill myself..