Life with Nat - EP119: Tony talks #9 - DIY clinic

Episode Date: May 25, 2025

Spring bank hols means so many of us are getting the DIY jobs done, and Tony's here to help! Please subscribe, follow, and leave a review. xxx You can find us in all places here; https://podfollow.com/lifewithnat/view⁠⁠ INSTA: @natcass1 We're also on Facebook too: ⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/lifewithnatpod⁠⁠ A 'Keep It Light Media' Production Sales, advertising, and general enquiries: ⁠⁠[e-mail]⁠⁠ SHOW INFO: Life with Nat - it’s me! Natalie Cassidy and I’ll be chatting away to family, friends and most importantly YOU. I want to pick people's brains on the subjects that I care about- whether that’s where all the odd socks go, weight and food or kids on phones. Each week I will be letting you into my life as i chat about my week, share my thoughts on the mundane happenings as well as the serious. I have grown up in the public eye and have never changed because of it. Life with Nat is the podcast for proper people. Come join the community. ♥️ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to Life with Nat. As promised we've got a bank holiday DIY and building special with old Tony. I don't mean old. How you doing bro? I certainly feel old now. I could tell you that. Oh don't. Correct, adjective, old. Yeah, good. I'm not too bad.

Good. I wanted to thank everybody because we got a lot of birthday messages. Loads, yeah. Felt the love, beautiful. Really, really nice. Yeah, really, really good. Thank you everybody.

Thanks ever so much. Yeah, it was lovely. It was lovely. Sometimes you can't get back to everyone, but we read everything and we really appreciate it. We certainly do. Absolutely. So we've had so many messages, DIY related, building related, and as promised, we are

going to get straight on with them and you can all put this on low on your ASRM, whatever you call it, and you can just have Tony's voice as you drift off to sleep, even if you've got no building walls. Yeah. Scary. Scary.

Yeah. Right, Tom, loads. Yeah, before we start, just a couple of little hellos, if that's all right. Absolutely. So, mate of mine, Dean Barlow, it's his birthday, so happy birthday, Dean. We've just had a meal together together and I had to leg it.

Sorry, Dino, he's got better places to be. Not quite, but so apologies, Dean, but have a lovely birthday, mate. And then also Matt Oliver, who works for me and his lovely girlfriend, Hannah. Yes. They have just bought their first property together. Oh, that's great. About three or four weeks ago. I just want them to know that I'm very proud of them because it's no mean feat.

They've saved and saved and saved. They've really, really tried hard and they managed to get their first property together. So well done you two. That is amazing in this day and age. Absolutely brilliant. They've done fantastic. Congratulations.

Yeah. Absolutely amazing. Right. That's me done. So onto the many, many queries and questions we've got. We've got loads. Okay. We are going to start off with a question here from Tara.

Okay. And Tara says, what does Tony think about garden pods? I don't think she means a podcast in the garden. No, I think we were talking about garden buildings of various shapes and sizes. Yeah, she says any advice on what to consider or look for if buying buying and do they add any value to the property?

Okay, I've spoken to a friend of mine who's an estate agent about this before. So what garden buildings and garden pods do, they add space but not living space, not habitable space. Okay. So as such, you could spend quite a lot of money on one and not necessarily get that back when you sell it. It may make the house more saleable because you have a garden gym or you've got a kids playroom or

you've got a garden office, but you won't necessarily recoup what you've spent on it. Okay. So that's number one. That is anecdotal. That is not factual, but that's just me speaking to a friend of mine who sells a lot of property. In terms of the things like the buildings themselves, brilliant idea if you need some extra space, you know, you need an office working from home, you want a gym, you don't want to go to the gym, they go from everything from a basic large shed which you can insulate, stick electrical supply in, you know, maybe plasterboard it

or whatever to keep it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. We now build them, they're like four sided extensions. Yes. You know, so it's a chill out space. They have bars in them and we put toilets in them and all sorts. My mate Sophie, you know Sophie and Ant? Yes, yeah, yeah. They've had one at the bottom of their garden and it's exactly that bar. Yeah, yeah.

The kids have sleepovers down there. It's secure. It's lovely and warm. They've got a telly on the wall. Yeah. And it's their relaxing area. So they're a great idea. You can go from basic timber construction to a brick built, you know, four sided extension. There are companies now that do them, that just do these garden buildings, you know, with aluminium doors or whatever. There's been an explosion in it since COVID and since lockdown and the work from home culture. There's been a massive explosion in garden building. So if you need

extra space and you can't build up or out and you've got a big garden, it's fine. Be careful. You've got to be under 30 square meters in footprint, less than two and a half meters high. It mustn't be more than half the size of your garden. And then you don't need planning permission or building regulations. Okay. If you go over those sizes then you are going to need to look at building regs and potentially planning as well. So always check what you're doing with your local authority to make sure you're within the rules and you don't get any grief from neighbours. Can I ask you, what happens if you don't adhere to the rules? In usual circumstances, if someone

went over. It's a civil matter, so what can happen, it's a difficult one because it depends on the council and it depends on how they would enforce it. So some councils, they may have enough manpower to enforce, they may well come around and say, this is illegal, you shouldn't be building this, it's too big, it's too high, tear it down.

They can put an enforcement notice on it. Okay. So you can get yourself into a bit of a can of worms. Some people don't give a stuff. They just build them big, build them high, and then they'll fight anyone that comes near them. Okay. That's a personal choice.

So, sorry, a bit long-winded, but to answer the question, great idea, but don't expect to get all your money back on them. If you spend 60 grand on a garden building, it won't necessarily add that to the value of the property. If you was doing that with an extension or a loft conversion where you are building habitable space attached to the house, then you probably will get that money back and more. Fantastic. Right, we have got Lisa Lee here.

I don't think it's Lisa Lee from Steps. It could be. Well, you never know your luck. You just don't know, do you? No, that's true. But I am mates with H. So I thought she might do, you know, I thought she might do a hi-nat Lisa Lee.

Oh, she would do, wouldn't she? She wouldn't come in all, yeah, yeah, just a sort of message, which you know. So anyway. Yeah, okay. Lisa Lee. Hi, Lisa. Hey, Tony, hope all good.

My question is, convert conservatory to extension or move. Hi, Lisa. Hey, Tony. Hope all good. My question is convert conservatory to extension or move? Right, okay. Right, extensions and conservatory. So conservatory, people went mad in the 70s and 80s, they are classed as seasonal buildings. They do not require planning permission generally and do not require building regulations approval. So consequently, foundations for conservatories

tend to be quite shallow because it's a very lightweight building. The chances of converting it to a full blown extension are quite small. Normally we take them down and take all the foundations out and then build to regulations now. What you can do, because conservatories are cold in the winter and boiling hot in the summer,

you can put a solid insulated roof on top of them. Right. Which makes them far more usable. Okay. So they're not like greenhouses in the summer and igloos in the winter. Yep. Which, interestingly enough, I think we might have.

Well, funnily enough, you told me this earlier. Yes. Because you've done a little bit of homework, you're better than me. Well, we're just on these first few, not on all of them. Well, here we go. No, we're doing a lot off the hoof tonight. We are, we are.

But here we go. Hi Nat and Tony, Emma from Sitting Born here. So this ties in to the conservatory. Listen to your pod since the beginning and my first chat. I saw Tony's doing a bank holiday build special. We have a conservatory where we would like to change the glass roof to a tiled roof and do it ourselves within a decent budget Have you any suggestions how we can go about doing it? Thanks in advance

Continue being and doing what you are and who you are. You're all brilliant. Lots of love. Well, and thank you Sorry, Emma from sitting born Emma. Right. Hi Emma. Okay, so Taking a roof off of a conservatory and putting one back that's insulated isn't really a DIY task. It's quite a skilled job. It's not like, you know, stripping some wallpaper and stuff like that. So a few years ago, you would have needed a car meter and a this and a that and whatever, but I found a company online for you. The website is conservatriroofkits.co.uk and it's a company called Timberlite. And they do a DIY conservatory roof replacement service.

So what you do is you take the size of your conservatory, tell them the dimensions, and they will make you a custom built timber and insulated roof. How about this Emma? That they will then send to you and they will even do a video call with you to help show you how to fit it. Now you will still need might need some help in taking the old roof off and you certainly will need some help working from height. So I would suggest you might have to need like a little scaffold erected so that it's safe for you to do so. Please, please, please remember that's you're talking about here, some of these things that we're discussing, they're not really DIY things.

They are for the expert DIYer. They're not for a couple who've done a bit of painting or whatever. This is dangerous stuff. So what I'm saying is there is this company out there. Say it again, Tom, because it sounds super. The website is conservatriroofkits.co.uk. The company is Timberlite. They do a DIY roof replacement and their telephone number is 01482 609310. So you could give them a ring, have a chat to them,

and I'm pretty sure they'll put you straight. But please remember you must work safe at all times. You're good at this, Tom. Thanks. I've been doing it a long time. No, I know, but I'm sort of missing our banter, but quite enjoying being like listening. Well, this I mean, we've got, you know, this is, there's a point to this one, unfortunately, which is to try and get through all this lot, isn't it? It's really, really good. And sorry, it's so lovely. Did you actually do some research for Emma there? When Emma's message came in, it came in about a week ago, I think. I can't remember now, so we've had about 30 messages like this evening haven't we, which I've not even been able to read, but when Emma's one come in, I just,

I looked at it and thought, it is a difficult thing to do. It's not, you know, hand cutting a timber roof with angles and all the rest of it. I tell you what, I won't do that a Saturday, I'll be super at it. Go for it, it. I tell you what, I won't do that a Saturday. Yeah, I'll be super at it. Go for it. Absolutely. I'm going to get up there. It's a really specialist job. So I thought there must be someone somewhere.

Yeah. Because I know there are companies that come in and do this for you. They will come in and replace the roof, but you obviously pay a lot more money. So I thought, well, there's got to be someone somewhere that actually is going to help DIYers do it. Yes. I found this company for Emma. No, absolutely brilliant. Emma, I, there's got to be someone somewhere that actually is going to help DIYers do it. Yes. I found this company for Emma. No, absolutely brilliant. Emma, I hope that's good. Let us know please.

07788 2019. And let us know if you're happy with Tony's answers. I am. I know I haven't got a clue what you're talking about, but I think they're fantastic. Thank you. Now, Fijino. Yeah. Love listening to you together.

I'm converting my garage into a games room for my son. Any recommendations for sealing the rear wall that backs onto my neighbour's garden? Neighbour's land is higher on his side so the wall is prone to moisture. I just want to protect the garage brickwork as it's been standing for many many years. Any recommendations please? Oh, difficult one. So when you've got, if you've got high ground on one side of a wall, you're going to end up with rising damp of some sort. You just are. It's a classic fault or a classic symptom of rising damp is where you've got earth or you've got land built

up against the wall that would be above a damp course and above ground level. The proper answer is to get into the neighbor's garden and batter back the, basically try and cut back the earth or the ground. What if they don't get on? Well, I know. Well, I'll come into that. You could paint the wall with something like an R.I.W. tough seal, which is a product you can use, and then put some plastic down the back of it, and that would help protect it. The chances of that happening are probably zero, because people don't want you in their garden. So for me, you would be looking to seek a render, a waterproof render, the inside of

the wall. So what you're doing is you're holding back the damp from the outside coming in, and you would do that to probably, you'd want to go a meter above where the outside ground is. It's really not an ideal scenario it just isn't because you are introducing this this bridge and you're introducing wetness into that wall. So would you say to Fie, as much as she's sort of nostalgic about the building, is it worth sort of starting again almost? Well not really. No I mean you're talking the difference between sort of nostalgic about the building. Is it worth sort of starting again almost? Or not really?

No, I mean, you're talking, the difference between sort of putting some render on the wall and just trying to hold back the damp and starting again is you're talking, you know, huge amounts of money. It's difficult to say because you haven't got a picture and we can't see it, but if you were gonna do something in that room

and you were determined to turn it into a playroom or whatever, then I would definitely speak to a plasterer renderer and I would get that area and probably surrounding areas around it waterproof rendered using using a seeker additive or something similar. Or just take a little box of chocolates around to the neighbours and say do you mind if I dig your garden up? Do you mind if I pop in for eight hours and dig your garden up? Here's a packet of Maltesers. Thank you Fee for your question. Yeah great. We've got one here from Vicky. Yeah. She's done it in capital letters. She's serious. Question for Brother Tony! Massive letters. It's a shouty isn't it? Here we go. It's a shouty one. It's because she wants our attention and I understand. She's got it.

You've got it. I have a pea shingle patio, a patch of which approximately one meter by two meter had to be dug up and now I need to fill the patch. Expect there will be join lines, but any tips remixing and laying for a totally amateur DIYer who wants to do it herself because it's mostly under garden furniture anyway. Thank you. So that's from Vicki. That's fine so a little bit confusing this one so Vicki says she's got a pea shingle patio and then talks about matching it so it sounds to me like a pea shingle patio is basically concrete. I was just about to ask you what it is. Well pea shingle comes in bags you buy it in builders yards and you know where you walk up someone's path and it

all goes ksh ksh ksh. Like mine? Yeah, sorry what you've got. That's pea shingle. It's 10 mil stones and people just chuck it down to cover stuff up and it makes a noise so you can hear the burglars, right? Lovely. Won't sleep tonight, thanks.

That's all right. Well at least you'll be able to hear them when they're breaking in. Yeah, lovely. What I believe that Vicky's got is a resin bound product and people have gone mad on these resin bound drives and patios. So what it is, is you prepare the base, so you put some hardcore in, which is bricks and stones and stuff and tamp it down and then you concrete it so you get a good solid base and then you pour, it's about four millimeters of epoxy resin on it and then you put epoxy resin. Why is it epoxy? Epoxy. Oh sorry.

Come on. Sorry. It means it's a two part chemical resin as a catalyst to make it go hard. I've got to lighten it up a bit. Sorry. We haven't got about fifty to get through. You're getting through them but I've got to just add a little bit of something. Okay.

Because you know. Alright. Anyway, so we've got epoxy resin. Yes. Yeah. And then what you do is they put sort of very fine stones in it. And I think that's what Vicki might have. So resin bonded driveways and such, they are generally a professional finish. It's got to be done certain temperatures.

It can't be done in the rain. It's very, very specific how you lay them and how they work. Yeah. But on this occasion, again, I've looked into it a little bit, there is a company called Polybound and they do do-it-yourself resin kits and they help people on the DIY resin front. Their telephone number, Vicky's 01274044199

and they will be able to help you with what you're gonna need. What I do know is they've just come out with a brand new product called Polybound Pebble Glue. So if she's got a hole, she would have to fill it to within a couple of millimeters of the existing surface, probably with some sand and some ballast or some cement and ballast to make up some concrete or stuff. Again, this is a little bit over the normal DIY threshold, but let's go with it. And then Polybound can provide you with this pebble glue, which I believe is almost like a DIY

resin type sort of kit, if you like. Okay, yeah. That helps to stick down some stuff over what you've repaired. But my advice would be to give Polybound a ring, have a chat with them. They'll have a technical department and they may be able to help you in a little bit more detail. Absolutely beautiful. Ruth Munn has messaged in, Hey Nat and Tony, need to redo plastic roof on my porch, part brick then windows to top half. If I increase size at the same time, would I need to look into planning permission? Love all your pods, keep doing what you do.

Okay, Ruth. So porches, there are specific sizes that you're allowed without planning permission. Yep. Put simply, you could, she may be able to make it bigger, but you just have to check with the council. Well, she hasn't given us the measurements. No, but what you would do there is you would speak to your duty planning officer at the council or go onto the planning website, put a search in for polches and planning permission,

and it generally should be some rules to help you find out whether or not you can come out a bit bigger and a bit wider. So they might have some sort of measurements, regulations, that sort of thing? There are measurements and regulations. I'll be honest with you, I don't know exactly. I mean, we've just done a porch for a customer and we made it as big as we could make it. I think it was no deeper than two metres. I think it's something like that. I don't know the exact thing, but if you go onto a planning website or you go onto somewhere

that talks about planning and porches and stuff,'ll get an idea of it but the best thing to do is is to find out from your local planning office what is allowable because sometimes there are exceptions to all this planning stuff if you're in a conservation area then they are absolutely they will nail you to the floor and stuff yeah I know someone that wanted to just they wanted to put a wall up and they weren't allowed to that's what stuff. Yeah. I know someone that wanted to just, they wanted to put a wall up and they weren't allowed to, that's what picket fence up.

Yep. Because they're in a conservation area. So conservation areas do blow all of your general permitted development and planning rules out of the water. So just be a little bit careful. All right, fantastic. This is a message from Claire.

Okay. Hi Nat, long time listener, but first message. Love all your pods and listen on my runs. Question for Tony please. We have Artex ceilings in some of the rooms in our house which I wanna get rid of. Please can you settle a debate for me and my partner? I think we need to have them plastered over

before decorating, painting on the walls, new carpet, et cetera, but my partner wants to save money and do it last thing. Surely it will be messy. Thank you. I tell you what, Claire, we're all right here. We can do building work. We can't get into arguments. No, no, no. There's no marital...

No, listen, I would never ever take sides in such an argument, but Claire, you're bang on. LAUGHS You're absolutely bang on. I mean I can't put a chair together that comes in two parts and Claire even I know you can't put a new carpet down and get rid of Artex on the ceiling even I know that. I'm a moron. The plot thickens. Go on. Right Artex number one be very careful a lot of it contains asbestos. Okay. Right number two we never ever plaster, Artex number one be very careful a lot of it contains asbestos. Okay. Right, number two

we never ever plaster over Artex because the Artex can de-bond from the base whatever it was originally applied to, particularly when you put unibond and you put moisture into it. So I've seen people plaster over Artex thinking it's a great idea and it all falls off the ceiling or you get lumps falling off of it. Lovely. So what we would always do is we would number one get the RTX checked to make sure there's no asbestos in it which you can do with local councils do it but you can find asbestos testing people. I was going to say do they do sort of, I bet they do home testing kits now online. They do, you can take a little tiny bit off and put it in the bag and then you send it off.

I think it's the last time we had something tested it was 60 quid or whatever it was yeah so You can take a little tiny bit off and put it in a bag and then you send it off. Yep. I think it's the last time we had something tested it was 60 quid or whatever it was. So you can speak to there are testing companies, you can just look them up online. And what we tend to do, if you don't want to take the ceiling down, we would do what's called tacking over it. So we would plasterboard directly over the, if it's safe, we plasterboard directly over the Artex. And then plaster that.

And then plaster it. So what you do is you screw plasterboard onto the existing ceiling, go right through the lot, into the timbers that are above, the ceiling joists above, and that gives you a really firm, really good basis to do your plastering on. So some people say, oh well, it's a bit of a bodge.

It's not a bodge at all. What you're doing is you're encapsulating the problem and you're not spending a lot of money, wasting time taking down a perfectly good ceiling. As long as it's safe. As long as it's safe. You lose 12.5 millimetres on the height of the room, which you're never going to see. And once that's done, you can then plaster it and you know that that plaster is going

to be safe forever. And on no account would you do any of that with carpets down and paint on the walls. So sorry to Claire's partner. Wish I had his name. But you're absolutely gutted. I don't think Claire's going to let you listen to this pod. Should I say don't listen to Life of Nat anymore? It's gone right downhill. But thank you Claire for your message. And don't stalk me or send me some nasty messages please.

No. But yeah, you need to do the stuff in the right order otherwise you're going to end up spending money twice, which is no good. Hello, listen to all your episodes, think it's fab and you and your family are brilliant. Why when I do a DIY job that should take maybe a few hours, does it always turn into three days of trauma? I have rebuilt a bathroom, I've done fencing, fitted burglar alarms and decorated, so I'm quite handy.

But whenever a small job like changing a tap needs doing, it turns into a new tap, new sink, new worktop trauma. Keep on with the pod, I love it. Katie from Up North. Right, Katie from Up North. No, welcome to my world. Yeah, don't really know what to say about that one. Can I just say something on this one?

It's not a massive question, it's more of a, we're throwing it out there. I salute you, Katie. The things you do, because I'm rubbish and I don't even, it's not even about being rubbish at it, I'm lazy. I look at something and I leave it for Mark to do. So I just think how brilliant that you have done all of those DIY jobs yourself and you've put your mind to it and you've done it. Whether it's traumatic or not, you're having a go.

And that is quite amazing. Yeah, it is brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And she's done burglar alarms, which I can't do. So fair play to you. But what I would say is, I've had jobs like it myself. I think what it is with DIY is that people don't realise the potential outcomes of a situation. So I will look at a situation now, as an old boy that's been

in the industry 40 odd years and say, someone will say to me, I just want to change the tap on that sink and I'll look at it and say, look, the whole lot's knackered, it's leaking, the doors are falling off, the sink's cracked, I'm sorry, but really you need a whole new unit. Yep. Vanity unit, whatever. So I think experience tells you when you can get away with saving something and when you can't.

And I think that's the only thing about DIYs is that sometimes because you've not done it for as long as I have and you haven't been through the scenarios I've been through, then you don't necessarily realize what the outcome've been through, then you don't necessarily realise what the outcome could be, if that makes sense. Does that make sense? It does, yeah, because Mark started things here before. Yeah, and they just turn into a nightmare. It just turns into two days. It's no balls, yeah. It's no balls. Before you know it, he's got his tools out, the lathe's out, he's making something. I'll

go, you were only changing a bulb. He's taking a wall down. I know. I've seen it all. Yeah. We've got a question here from Evie, a name we like very much. Oh yes, definitely. I would like to remove a built-in wardrobe. Yeah. What is the best thing to do with the wall without getting a plaster in?

Something I can do myself, perhaps, i.e. panelling. Yeah. So built-in wardrobes, it's sort of, if you're lucky, if you take them out carefully, so you find all the screws and stuff and you take all the filler out and unscrew it all nicely, you might be lucky and find that the wall behind is decent and it just needs a little fill. It might have a bit of old wallpaper on it, which you could strip.

Again, without knowing the state of it, I mean, sometimes people take built-in wardrobes out and all the plaster falls off the wall. Yes. And then you are into, I'm afraid you are into a professional job then, you've got to get someone in to make it good properly. So I think once it comes out, see the state of the wall, if it's fairly sound and it's got some old stuff on it, you could strip it and you could put some lining paper on

it and paint it if you're happy with that. Panelling is an option but again you know it's with some of this stuff it's not just a question of buying some panelling and banging it on the wall particularly if you're going top to bottom you're not just doing the bottom half of the wall and stuff like that because everyone's gone mad on panelling you know day-to-rails all of a sudden. I've spent the last 20 years stripping the wall out and putting them in skips and now everyone wants them back on their walls. Mummy and Daddy love the day-to-day rail. They love the panel. They love the panel. Oh yes. Various different wallpapers inside the panels and stuff. So I think you've got to take it out gently and see what you've

got. And if it's sound and it's not all falling to bits, you might just be able to do a little bit of making good and painting yourself. If it is in a state, then you might need a bit of a professional job done on it. And the panelling thing's a great idea, but you do need loads of tools and saws and all the rest of it. So whether you've got that, Evie, I'm not sure,

but certainly it's an option if you feel like you're up for the job. Fantastic. It's a nightmare though, isn't it? Thinking it's gonna be a small job and then you take it out and you think, oh no, there's sort of a hole there. Yeah, yeah. We've discovered stuff, mad stuff, you know, you just, there's a little bit of boxing in and you find all these old pipes in it and they're running everywhere and you

can't do anything with it. No. Hundreds of pounds sort of trying to reroute pipes and all that. We've discovered loads of stuff like this. So yeah. This is from Hayley. Okay. Hi Nat, hope you're really well.

I'm sat in my usual spot by the Marine Lake in Cleveland listening to this week's episode with Tony. You're talking about positivity and confidence and how sometimes a self doubt creeps in. Crumbs, this could not be more relevant to me right now. I'm having a lot of self-doubt at work. I won't go into the details and I'm really feeling that I need to dust myself off

and search for the positive opportunities ahead instead of worrying that I'm not good enough. I heard a quote that said, worrying today doesn't take away tomorrow's problems. It only ruins the here and now. I am a person who struggles with worrying and also feelings of being out of control, so your chat with Tone today has really helped me focus on the positives and the here and now. Thank you as always for your brilliant chats with your family and

sharing those with all of us. Your words of wisdom resonate so much and really can change the course of the day for so many of us. Take care and speak soon. And sorry, I know that isn't a question, but that came through and I just think how fantastic and thank you so much, Hayley. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, really just lovely sentiments and I think we're both so pleased that if we can cheer any one person up, just makes our day doesn't it? Absolutely and I do think just a little halfway point if you like. Yeah. We've both had our birthday. Yes we have. We just turned a year older a couple of weeks ago and I just feel quite privileged to still be here, honestly.

I know I've said it before and I'll say it again, but you know there are children that aren't well. It's half glass full, half empty, okay? And you go, oh I can't believe it, I'm another year older, oh it's terrible. Or you can go, I'm so lucky to have done another year on earth and what's the next year gonna bring or the next week because I could get run over so who knows but every day you've got to get up and you've got to be positive and I really really appreciate your messages when you tell us that the podcast makes

a difference to your day yeah and it makes you feel good yeah because that's why we're doing it absolutely so. So thank you, Haley. Thanks, Haley. Hey, it's Kate from Suffolk. Huge fan of the pod and it helps to keep me sane in this crazy thing we call life. In regards to building chat, I have just got a really basic question. We live in a fairly new build house, 2005, and our curtain pole has been ripped out of the wall on several occasions thanks to my wonderful boys, three and six. I have brought the raw plug that makes a wider area to hold on to, but they even rip through the plaster.

What do you recommend we do? Thanks for everything. Well, before Tony starts a professional answer answer Kate, I'd give him a little wallop around the legs. No, I wouldn't really. No, that's not allowed is it? No, it's not allowed. It's illegal. I don't mean that. But perhaps have a little word with them and tell them to stop being little monkeys. Sorry Tony, you can be serious now. And then what you can then do is do what our mum used to do and shout up the chimney to talk to Father Christmas and say you're not having any presents.

That's good. If they're naughty. Yeah. Okay, so new build house, probably all dry lined with plaster balls, so not much in the way of solid walls. Often what we'll do with this is we'll put up some sort of pelmet. So it will be just a simple four by one piece of timber. So the length of just past your curtain pole and what you can do is you can screw and glue that in multiple places. You're not relying on the curtain pole just being fixed in

one place with raw plugs to plasterboard. Okay. Because it sounds like what you've done is they've just ripped it all out and there's nothing left to fix into. Can I ask you a question? Sorry, I've got to ask. How could they keep continuously ripping out the ball by hanging on the curtains? Because they're not up on the pole are they? No, no, hanging on the curtains. They're hanging. Yeah, or they're pulling the curtains or they're going behind the curtains and playing hide and seek and whatever it might be. And the problem is that if you don't use very specific fixings first time, if you just use

raw plugs, they will hold it to a certain extent, but if you've got any sort of weight on them, you need a specific plasterboard fixing. Yeah, and maybe we can talk about this another time, I don't know, but there are all different types. There are toggle bolts and there are these twist ones that was on Dragon's Den and they all do different things, but the whole point of them is they support the fixing behind the board and they cannot pull out. Obviously, unfortunately, Kate hasn't got this. So for me, it would be to put a helmet up. So let's say it's

the window is six foot long, I would get a piece of timber which is 100 mil wide by maybe 18 mil thick, yeah, and make it six inches wider than the window opening and then you can screw and glue that and get some decent fixings in certain places and then put some like a polymer modified glue behind it to help hold it onto the wall something like a CT1 or a sticks like it's a special glue that's available everywhere now it's a very strong adhesive that would help to hold that on the wall and then what you're then doing is you're spreading the load if you like. There's not a point load on that fixing on that current pole that's going to pull out. So that would be my advice for that one.

Fantastic. Because I would imagine also with a raw plug, like you say, it's such a specific area and I would imagine if it keeps coming out and you're putting the set, it's weak, isn't it? It's weak yeah because it's only plasterboard so that's the thing. You're going to end up with virtually no strength at all in the area. There are other ways around it. You can cut the plasterboard out, you can put timber behind it, put some plasterboard back, but again you're then looking at you've got to make stuff good and all the rest of it. So you've got to strengthen that area and the easiest way is to just plant some timber on top of

it, paint it white and put your curtain pole on that. Fantastic. Now we've had a little photo here. I am looking at a back garden. Right, okay. How would you describe it, Tone? I'm not very good with descriptions of houses. It's a red brick back garden. Looks like it's had a bit of work done and something's been bricked in, I think. Is that right? Possibly. We've got a small patio area of about two and a half metres. Something like that, yeah.

And some grass. Yeah. This is from Katie in North Wales. She says, can Tony help us work out how to improve the look of the bricks under the window? We used these to brick up a door and got the bricks off an old wall as they are the same brick as our house. The builder used acid on them and it made them even worse. The whiteness won't wash off,

it won't brush off or anything. Help! Thank you. Right so quick one on this Katie if you look for a company that does brick colouring there are companies out there that will specifically come and colour and match new bricks or different bricks to existing bricks and if so if you really want to make it look better brick colouring is probably the way to go. You can't render it. Other than taking them out and redoing them, which is going to be very expensive, I would look for a brick matching and brick colouring company to come around and give you a quote to touch them in. They literally paint them in almost.

It's very clever what they do. Can I ask you a question? Of course you can. Why did the builder put them in acid? Because he sounds like a moron. No, I think what he was trying to... If they've come off a wall and have got paint on them and all the rest of it.

So they could have come out of a wall where they were painted. Oh, I see. Possibly, or they were dirty. Okay. So he's probably used an acid brick cleaner. I understand. Yeah, and it is a good idea in principle,

the acid's probably too strong. So it's stripped them. Very difficult to tell. So what the acid's done is it's marked the bricks. Right, fair enough. So I think a brick ass is done is it's marked the bricks. So I think a brick colouring company would help you on that one. Fantastic. Hi Natalie and Tony, I think you should do classes for people to learn how to do basic DIY skills. Well I can't do one.

But you could if I showed you. No I need to come to the class. I'm a 47 year old single woman and I would love to have the confidence and skill to do simple things like put a picture up or drill a bracket to the wall in the garden. I'm with you. I'm so with you. Yeah, do you know what? There's so much stuff online and it's all about tradesmen showing off to each other and how brilliant they are and all the rest of it. You need someone to say, this is a raw plug. This is the size it is.

This is the drill you need to drill this raw plug. I need you to talk to me like a three year old. No, I'm going to be accused of mansplaining in a minute. But with certain stuff, there's nothing really, people don't like asking stupid questions and there's no such thing as a stupid question. There isn't, not when we're doing this. Absolutely.

And the most basic of stuff, you'll be amazed at the most basic of stuff. I mean, I've had people saying to me that they're proficient in DIY and they're using raw plugs to fix into timber, which you just don't do. You don't need to because the screw goes straight into it. So there is definitely, I agree, there is a place for a very, very oversimplified,

right, I've got no idea, I've got no experience, I've got no tools, I want to put a hanging basket bracket on a wall, how do I do it? Definitely. I would watch it, I would absolutely do it. Well no, you'll have to be in it, I'd have to show you how to do it. You would show me. Or we'd do it together. If you showed me and I did it, then I promise you, if I can do it, anyone can do it. Yeah, that's the thing to do.

I completely agree. So something we might look at in the future if there's enough people interested in it. Fantastic. Samantha said, I'm really looking forward to your special episode with Tony. I'm getting ready to replace my front and back doors.

Does he recommend avoiding the big national companies and going for someone local? Obviously I want quality doors and I'd like fitting at the best possible price. Thank you. Once again, love the pod Sam. Right okay. Well Sam in simple terms if you want the best quality product for your budget then you do need to look for local companies. I'm a firm believer in that. I think big multinational massive companies have huge overheads, have enormous advertising campaigns. They're on the telly and they're on the, and this, all this stuff's got to be paid for. So it depends what you're looking for. I don't know if you're looking for a UPVC door,

a composite door or timber doors. There's all different types. Timber's the most expensive. Composite doors, which are a mixture of UPVC and aluminium with polyurethane cores in them to make them stiff and to insulate them. They can be very, very good value for money. And so if you wanted a door like that,

you would go to sort of a local double glazing stroke, you know, sort of conservatory stroke door company and two or three, go to a couple of those and get a couple of prices to make sure you're not getting taken on as it were. If you're going for timber, that's a completely different kettle of fish. I mean, you know, good quality solid timber front doors are fortunes these days. I mean, you know, good quality solid timber, front doors are fortunes these days. I mean, I know people that pay five grand for a door. It's ridiculous, but that's what they cost to be handmade, hand sprayed, you know, and hand finished and hand installed. Little window in there.

Yeah, little window. Yeah, potentially side panel if you know, sometimes. So yeah, I would, I'm not a lover of the big multinational companies. I don't want to get sued, but I'm not. They charge a lot of money for products that are available for less cost, just because the smaller companies and low companies will have much smaller overheads. Fantastic. Hi Nat and Tony. I'm hoping Tony would be able to give me some advice on leaking guttering. The gutter is metal and looks like it's rotten at the end. I can't afford to's rotten at the end.

I can't afford to replace it at the moment. Is there anything that would reliably fill the hole until I get the finances to replace? Much love, Rach. Blimey. Yeah. There are products out there now sort of for roof repairs and stuff that they're sort stuff, they do fiberglass mesh and waterproof

sort of bitumen type paints and stuff. That might be a possibility for Rachel. Without seeing it, it's really difficult to know. If the end is completely rusted away, then you'd need some sort of roofer, stroke handymanman stroke somebody to have a look at it and try and Bodge it up. Basically, that's all you can do. Could you excuse me for asking because again, I'm asking that's fine Joe blocks If you were to go on Amazon for instance Could you get kind of an end piece to sort of bodge on there? You might do but it depends if if it's metal, is it metal? It is, isn't it? Yes.

Yeah, it's metal. So metal gutters are quite unusual. It might be cast iron, it might be, well, if it's rotten, it's not gonna be aluminiums. It might be cast iron or something similar. And they tend to be a certain type of extrusion. They're not a sort of half round, like most gutters or whatever.

So it sounds like it's something that was made of its time, is now at the end of its useful life. And it's about finding somebody that can literally slap something over it, paint it on a bit of plastic and a bit of mesh and a bit of bitumen or a bit of one of these coatings that you can buy.

If it's low level, if this is at ground level, say up a little step ladder, you can have a play with it. But if it's at first floor level, not a DIY job at all. No. Hi Nat, hi Tony. It's my first time messaging in. Just a quick question really. My husband seems to think that our house is dropping because of certain cracks and things moving away from walls. Could we just have some reassurance that it's not this? There doesn't seem to be any other problems in the house. I'll send some pictures across.

Thank you guys, keep up the good work, love you lots. Oh, thank you so much. She sounds really worried. What do you think? Well, our cracks and houses, massive subject really. First things first, I think what she's alluding to is potential subsidence which is very rare, number one. It is very rare subsidence. I mean, I've only

come across a handful of properties. What is subsidence? I don't know. It's where the foundations of the existing house are compromised. That could be through tree roots and trees taking moisture out. A lot of the time it happens in areas like where we live in North London, there's what's called a seam of London clay. So clay is very sort of, it's like plasticizer. If you get wet London clay, it's like proper clay that you would make plates out of. If you have very dry summers and a lot of moisture disappears from the groundwater and the water table reduces

massively, then that clay will dry out and desiccate and become, and it will shrink. Then you've got voids around where that clay was pressing against your foundations and your structure. Voids open up in that, which means the structure can move. That's one of the reasons for it. So it tends to happen in high clay areas in very dry conditions, but there are other reasons for it as well. And what it basically means is that if you've got a house that's got subsidence, the foundations it's built on are for whatever reason inadequate for that property now. And the foundations start to move and the house starts to move. And you get big cracks and such like. So I've worked on a property recently where they had huge issues with trees on an existing

extension. And I walked into there when I first viewed it about four or five years ago and their kitchen, on their kitchen wall there was a crack you could put your hand in. Wow. But it was scary. This thing was falling into the garden. That's the most extreme I've ever seen. I mean, they had a 400 year old oak tree about 30 feet away from their back wall.

So that was what was causing the problem. But anyway, so that's what happens when you have that particular issue of subsidence. So as a general rule, we've always been told by structural engineers that if in a property there are cracks that are larger than two millimeters, if you can get a two P piece in the crack, then it is considered to be structurally significant. But there are millions of properties, particularly, you know, properties of a certain age, Edwardian, Victorian, that have all got cracks. My house has got cracks, you've got cracks here, we've all got cracks. So my advice would be if you are really, really worried, you might want to think about insurance and that sort of thing, whether you would

tell your insurers, your building insurers first that you think you might have a problem. That might be something you'd want to do just to put them on alert. But certainly a local structure engineer, qualified structure engineer would happily come around and do a survey. I've done it on various properties. I've had customers that have been worried about stuff and they've had a crack in a wall and whatever. Is that expensive? It might be 200 or 300 quid. One of the sort of key things about cracking, particularly if you do have a major

problem is you will get cracks diagonally through brickwork. You'll get large openings at windows and doors. You will get doors that don't shut. You will know about structural movement because you will see it and feel it. Right. So if, for instance, you had a window that used to open and it no longer opens, then that might be the sign of something that's a little bit nastier than just your general movement drying out, buildings move, all that type of thing.

So I think what I would say is if you are really concerned, go to a professional and get some advice. And if they think there's a problem, they may well then say, look, we think there might be an issue, speak to your insurers, and then you would then look at how you would monitor the cracks and see whether they're getting bigger and see whether they are changing and stuff like that. So don't want to be taught too alarmist,

but if you are worried about it, definitely get someone who has the experience in these matters to have a look at it, to put your mind at rest. It's quite a scary thing that, because I think you'll find a lot of listeners possibly could have that. And out of being frightened, not having the finances or the know-how, you sort of leave it. So my question to you, regarding that question, what if you ignore

a really large crap that you can possibly get three two-pences through? What happens? Well, it may be that that crack occurred in the first 10 years of the life of that house. So for instance, we work on properties in central London, Victorian properties, and they are built on mud. They are built on 12 inches of brick slip foundation. And some of these are four and five stories in Highgate. They're literally built on nothing.

And they have some large cracks in them that probably happened when they were first built. Right. It's settled and it's never gone anywhere else. So you see big cracks between the brickwork and the window and stuff like that. That's what I'm saying to you. It's such a huge subject. It's very difficult. Even if we could see it, I wouldn't be able to diagnose it. I would say, I'll give you an example, bay windows at ground level are a bit of a classic for a bit of subsidence. They are actually.

It's not so much subsidence, but are a class particularly in Victorian properties they're a bit of a classic for deciding they want to go somewhere they shouldn't. Yeah. Right so I've seen quite a lot of that stuff where you take the bay down, you take the footings out, you put deeper footings in and rebuild the bay. A lot of that is a consequence of poor building in the first place. A lot of this can be the fact that you know regulations in 1898 certainly aren't what they are now. So their idea of what was structurally sound then is different to ours. There would not be a house built today using their rules and regs and codes. Let's say that. There's loads of stuff that's still standing and will be forever,

but a lot of it does have its problem. So it's a huge subject. And I would always say, if one of them knows a local builder or something, or has got a friend of a friend who knows, get them to, before you go down the structural engineer route, just get someone local who knows his stuff, just come around and have a look and say, well, actually, I don't think that's too much. I can't see any diagonal cracking.

I can't see any massive gaps. I can't see any massive gaps, I can't see walls pulling away from windows, and that would put their mind at rest. If they're still concerned or they can't find anyone to do that, it might be worth just spending a little bit of money or speaking to their insurance company and saying, look, we think we might have an issue

and they may well send a surveyor down the insurance company. It depends on your insurance, it depends what cover you've got on the rest of it. So that might be another option. I think whatever, if they're concerned, you need to get a specialist of some sort to look at it first to see if they think there's a real issue. And if there is, then you speak to your insurers and you go down the route of how you're going to monitor it and potentially solve it. But I will say again that subsidence and major structural failure is very rare.

That's good. Well, there we go. I've fingers crossed for you. Yeah, fingers crossed. And let us know you get on. I'd be really interested to know. So we don't even know where the house is. That's the thing. It can be, you know, it depends a lot of time. It depends where you are in the country as well. You know, it's all that sort of stuff. So. Fantastic. Well, listen, how brilliant was that? Yeah, really enjoyed it. We ain't got for everything, no, but... Well, we will carry on. We'll do another one.

We'll have another go at some point. We absolutely will. We can't go on all night, but it was really, really good to hear all of your research and questions and how passionate you are really about it. Well, I think what it is is that I like fucking help I can help people I will and I do it locally as well. At times when I can't do jobs, I'll give people half an hour of my time just to help them on their way and help them to get some stuff done and give them some advice on what you do. I've been in industry a long time. I have got a lot of experience. I don't know everything, but I've got a lot of experience in a lot of different areas and I'm not an expert anywhere, but I do know a little bit about most things, which means that you can normally help people with that. So if I can give a bit of knowledge

out, if I can allay some fears, give some advice and help people get some stuff done and more than happy to do it. Oh, it's absolutely brilliant. I hope you've really enjoyed our bank holiday DIY special. You might have been painting a wall, clearing out a wardrobe, it might have given you a little bit of advice along the way. 0778 20 1919. As I say, we've not got through everything, so I'm sure we'll do one in the future. And as you've heard today, it could be anything.

It could be about painting a wall and cutting in, it could be about proper building, marking extensions. Tony's here and he can give you a little bit of advice and help. Absolutely. Tony, thanks so much. It's been a pleasure, I really enjoyed it. Really, really good. We'll come back and talk some bollocks soon though, yeah? Yeah, great, I love bollocks, yeah. Fantastic.

See you later. See you, bye.