Cheryl was pleased with herself, getting the first load on just half an hour after walking in the door at home, but we were then dismayed to find horrible, brown gunk welling up in the washing machine.

I tried cleaning every part of it by hand, anywhere i could get to and did a rinse through, but still the problem persisted, so I eventually got on Amazon and found this Service-it Washing Machine Cleaner by DR.Bechmann, I bought it based on the Amazon reviews saying that it had worked, and indeed, I have just finished using it and it has also worked for us. A simple wash of the detergent tray and round the door seal and then pour the contents of the bottle into the detergent tray and run a 60 degree cycle.

Perfect, as one of the reviews on Amazon says, you can’t see what it has cleaned, but it smells fresh and really cleaned it out well. We will be using this regularly now, it is only £4.79 so not going to break the bank and it keeps things clean.

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You may or may not know the situation we are in, we have extended the back of the house and combined two rooms into one. In doing so we have demolished two previous extensions and made the whole thing into one. In terms of the under floor heating this meant that there were four sections to the floor, the original to the house, two parts from past extensions and one I fitted to the part we extended. This means that there were differing qualities of work. Really I should have scrapped the two floors from the previous extensions, but time and financial constraints meant that I had to make do.

The joists therefore did not match up in terms of their widths or where they run. This makes the planning of the underfloor heating rather difficult.

However, I am jumping ahead a little here, I started off by lifting all the old floor boards, some original and some chipboard.  We then cleared out all the debris from under the floor, debris that had been left from the build, by electricians and plumbers cutting things out. The purpose for this was two fold, if you have ever crawled under a floor you will know kneeling or laying on a broken brick is not something you want to do too regularly! and in addition the clearer your underfloor the better your air flow will be, especially if like us you are going to insulate under your floor it is critical to maintain a good airflow.

As I have just said we were insulating under the floor. The ideal way to do this is by cutting solid insulation such as 100mm kingspan to fit between the joists, this is a very costly exercise and would have cost us in the region of £650 just on insulation alone.

I therefore came up with my own variation on a solution that has been used by others, that was to use rockwool style insulation held up by chicken wire. Fortunately B&Q were (and still are I believe) running an offer on rockwool insulation where you can get it for £3 per roll. Using this offer the insulation cost me just £25 (les actually as I bought too much!)

The idea is that you tack chicken wire in a trough form between the joists, making use that you use enough fencing clouts to hold the chicken wire securely. Also making sure that there is no chance that the bottom of the trough will be anywhere near the ground under the floor thus maintaining an air gap.

We then laid the rockwool into this trough, and then covered the top of that insulation with foil backed bubble insulation. The purpose of this was not so much to insulate, although it does have some insulation properties its self, it was more to utilize the foil to reflect heat from the underfloor heating pipes back up into the room rather than having it carry on down into the insulation.

We taped the foil insulation together with aluminum foil tape, which if truth be told was a right pain as the tape we used was the stuff you have to peel the back off. Once adhered to the foil it is great but it can be frustrating getting the backing peeled off. We also used this tape to tape the insulation to the joists making, ensuing that we left a 20mm gap between the insulation and the top of the joists.

We chose the John Guest 30Sq Meter Hot water insulation pack from Screwfix. Mainly because John Guest is a well known make who we trusted, our research showed that people who fitted it were happy and the pack contained everything we needed to complete the job.

When the kit came, we found that the clips that come with the pack are designed for solid insulation, you twist them into the kingspan. This would be a very quick and simple way of securing the underfloor heating pipes, however, in our scenario with the insulation we used, these were no good, so I bought some normal pipe clips an we secured these to the joists.

The main problem when laying the underfloor heating pipes is the planning. Deciding what pattern the pipes should take, on a single room system there are two loops, these should be as close to the same size as possible. You also want to try and get the first run of the pipe, i.e. the hottest pipes across doors or windows, or in the areas where you will mostly be walking.

Once you have planned the layout, you will need to cut notches out of the joists to allow you to loop across each joist, we designed the system in such a way that we kept the notches to a minimum, basically one at each end of the room.

Laying the pipe is a very frustrating task, the pipe has been coiled since manufacture and all it wants to do is go back to its loop, so it really is a two man job if you can, once holding the reel and un-doing its coil action and the other laying and clipping the pipe in the desired pattern.

Once you have the pipes laid, they have to go into the manifold, you should consult a plumber to connect this into your central heating system. They will also need to add a room stat, this allows you to run the underfloor heating independently of the central heading in the rest of the house.

We then laid chipboard flooring over the top of the insulation and pipes, we made sure that we measured and marked the underfloor heating pipes so that we did not screw through them!

We have a 35Sq meter room, with one wall totally glass and the main part of the ceiling glass, the underfloor heating system copes very well with heating the area up. We have easily had it up to 25°C and I am sure that it will go higher, but I melt at those sort of temperatures so we keep it down to 20°C

All in all we are very pleased with the result, hopefully the insulation under the floor and the insulation in the walls and roof space will compensate for the glass wall and large orangery window we have in the roof.

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Since I wrote this review the switch on my drill failed, not surprising it has had 5 years of abuse. Anyway I bought a new switch and changed it with ease giving it a new lease of life. When I took the drill apart it’s quality was clear, very well made sort of modular construction, all heavy weight metal and well thought out design. Having done this I am even more of a fan of this drill and all Dewalt gear.

At this price why anyone would buy any other make of drill I have no idea.

I have reviewed several of my tools on this blog over the last few years, one which I have been meaning to talk about is my Dewalt 18v XRP hammer drill. A fantastic piece of kit which up until I got the Bosch GBH 26-2 DRE SDS drill I used for everything, even putting 20mm holes through double thickness walls.

Dewalt 18v XRP

I have been prompted today to write this review as Screwfix are currently doing an outstanding offer for the drill, you can now get it for just £124.99. Just to give you a comparison of what a bargain that is Amazon have it for sale for £249.99.

This is an outrageous price, bringing a professional standard drill well into the DIY price bracket. I can not understand why any serious DIYer or professional builder, plumber, joiner or electrician would would get themselves anything else.

This is a very impressive drill, with a huge amount of power and torque. The torque ratchet is very positive, you really feel like you have something quality when you click it round through the 22 torque settings. It has three speeds settings so that you have control, although i do find that on mine it is quite hard to change the speed setting, the slider stitch at the top, which I assume changes gears in the gearbox is very stiff, especially when it gets dust and grime in it, but this can be forgiven.

The electronic brake system that the drill has is a neat feature meaning that as soon as you take your finger off the trigger the drill stops. This is great for efficiency especially when you are trying to screw in a whole series of screws. As soon as you have finished one the drill is ready to be seated into the next, no waiting for it to spin down.

As with all Dewalt gear it is very well constructed and durable. I have had mine for three years and it is still going strong even with heavy use, the internals of the drill are also built to last, it has metal gears in the gearbox and not nylon like many cheaper makes. It is also well designed the balance is great, the rubber grip on the handle provides comfort and a non-slip grip.

Here are some of the statistics for this drill

Model No. DC988L1
Voltage 18 V
No Load Speed 0-500/0-1700rpm
Capacity In Steel 13 mm
Capacity In Wood 50 mm
No. Torque Settings 22
Drill Speed 3 Speed Variable
Chuck Type Keyless
Chuck Capacity 13mm
Weight (Incl. Batteries) 2.2 kg

If you are in the market for a new cordless drill I would really recommend this product from Dewalt. At this price is really is a no-brainer, you are getting a great deal of drill for your money.

Click here to got to view the Dewalt 18v XRP on Screwfix

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DIY Journal has been on my radar for some time. The potential of the site has never been realised. Indeed I have had a great project in mind for it for sometime now, but had just stuck an affiliate site on it until such time as I could find the time and resources to dedicate to it.

With the major DIY building project underway at home, it has brought the project back into mind.

I will not go into the specifics of what I am planning to do with the site, but, this post is to request anyone willing to do paid content writing in the DIY sector to contact me.

I am looking for writers who can write How to articles on DIY subjects from hanging a shelf to building a roof.

You should be knowledgeable about DIY or the building, joinery, plumbing, electrical trades. Have English as your first language and be able to write well formed articles.

I am willing to pay £1 per 100 words.

The minimum word length for an article should be 300 words and articles should provide images where relevant. Any images provided by you should not be copyrighted. Please confirm with me before writing more than 1000 words in any article.

Articles must pass a copyscape test and as such MUST be original content written solely for the purposes of DIY journal.

If anyone is interested please either post a comment on this blog or email me on office [at] digitalquill.co.uk

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The Harris Tight Squeeze Cleaner basically takes time out of that clean up. I used it today to clean my rollers, you sinply slide it over your roller and pull the rollder sleave through, while holding it all under the tap. As the name suggests it is a tight squeeze, but it does pull out the paint far quicker.

If you want more information have a look at the Harris Tight Squeeze Cleaner at B&Q

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The old boiler in the kitchen was a fairly recent upgrade, it has had a catalog of faults since its install and leaks inside had ruined all chances of it ever running correctly. During the install of that boiler, it seems that the fitters took several shortcuts meaning the that hot water circled round virtually the whole house before getting to the taps in the bathroom. Not great for efficiency and not great when you come to fit a new system and have to try and work out what is going on where.

In addition as the bathroom floor is tiled, the only access we had to the bathroom was from below, the good thing is that we have the plans for the kitchen so we could take down the ceiling in the kitchen to reveal under the bathroom. Although this looks a mess it really will not take too much to sort out. I will be plastering the whole room following the build anyway and I like me ceilings to be perfectly smooth with no artex which the old ceiling had.

While doing the boiler we did a good powerflush on the system, this took some time to do but it will have been well worth it. The amount of thick black debris that we removed from the system must have been impeding its performance and there is no way we wanted all that flowing through the new boiler.

When we took the old toilet and hand basin out of the downstairs toilet we uncovered the original parquet floor. This weekend I have sanded it back to the unfinished wood and it looks fantastic. I just not need to find something that will best seal the wood and then some form of lacquer to finish it.

The next step for the downstairs cloakroom is to find a suitable toilet and basin. I need to take care when finding these as we need to ensure that they fit into the space available. Then it is a case of a little tiled area and some painting.

Thanks to all who helped on this.

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CAD Drawing of the Orangery

We had our builder round last night to discuss a few things regarding our kitchen extension/orangery project. We needed to clarify some things and change some aspects of the design to ensure it is exactly what we want.

It was a very constructive meeting and we gave him the go-ahead to refer the project to his planner who will contact us and take us through the planning application process.

This is a big step for us, one that we should have taken several weeks ago, however, delays in getting quotes back from suppliers and work commitments have meant that things have got a little delayed. This is a problem for us as the planning application process could take up to 12 weeks meaning that the build might be starting in the first week of September.

Hopefully this will mean that we can get the building work done during September and fingers crossed the weather will hold out for us. Any later and the weather could become more changeable which would impact the build.

This is all assuming of course that the planning application a. takes 12 weeks and b. is passed, but we will face either of those if they happen to arise.

I am now in the process of updating my project plan, when things get a little more progressed I will update the chosen suppliers as to the expected time for delivery.

This starts the ball rolling, keeping everything in check will take a great deal of time and effort but the end result will be well worthwhile.

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1. Take one solid pine internal door from the reduced bin at B&Q and one sliding door tracking system.

   

2. Cut door to length
3. Split door in half on saw bench

   

4. Trim each half to the desired width, taking an equal amount off each half to keep it even
5. Install tracking system

Hey Presto a Bi-fold door for £10 rather than the £70 to buy off the shelf!

Well, maybe it was not that easy, but all in a weekends work! The problem with this is that you find modern doors are not made to the standards the once were, although the outer edges of the door we purchased were square, once we got back home, and I started to cut it up I soon found that the internal sections were not square to each other, this did cause some problems, but I think you will agree that the finished

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