OK sorry Mad but lets leave it, and hope CC can enjoy his decorating.

Back on thread......

I pay people to do everything.......I'm shit at DIY.


I'm very good at haematology and rugby, but can't put a shelf up.


anyone got a thalassaemia?

By a strange coincidence, I have Beta-Thalassaemia trait, odd considering my celtic heritage. Incidentally, I did my final year Bachelor's project on Treatments for Thalassaemia. Went to the 'CING' in Nicosia to study Cyprus's highly successful prevention scheme.


Back on topic, my first job will be to strip, sand and repaint the woodwork in the front room.
I tried to persuade my better half that staining was the way to go, but she's having none of it; she know's what she likes and it's white, white, white (to paraphrase a Hovis advert).

I've bought a Bosch Heat Gun (2 settings, hot and very hot) and some scrapers to strip the skirts. I will then move onto the windows, for which I've got a heat deflector nozzle for the heat gun and some triangular scrapers.

Any tips?
Should I need to sand once I've stripped the paint or is it unnecessary?
If so, is it worth investing in a sander (belt / delta)?

Ta

Can i ask why you would want to strip the paintwork off inside your house.It's messy,time consuming,makes your house smell and is potentially painful and dangerous.
Unless the paintwork is really bad i would concentrate all my energy on rubbing it down(like a babys bottom),filling holes and chips and then painting it(u/coat followed by gloss).

on the flip side this will create paint dust everywhere! Still just as time consuming as well, even if you are using a belt sander.

who's the bird BTW?

I'm with TheStick on this one. While SYL is right about the smell both methods are messy, but that's the nature of the job!
The problem with sanding off gloss paint is that the heat from the rubbing can cause the paint to melt. The result is a wasted belt-sander strip, clogged with re-hardened old paint.

I would use the heat gun whenever suitable.
Is your flat old? Could the old paint contain lead? If so, buy suitable breathing protection.
Even if it isn't old, wear a face mask ALWAYS when using the gun and keep the area fully ventilated!
Also, always put down an old sheet or newspaper to protect the carpet/flooring BUT beware of the risk of fire from the stripped paint pieces!

Buy proper stripping tools (Wickes's is usually cheapest of the megastores for tools, but if you have time, shop around) - a wide, straight blade and a detail scaper (these come in left and right handed and it is worth having one of each to ensure you have the right curve or angle for the job) and buy a pack of replacement blades for the large scraper while you are there, plus a pair of heavy-duty work gloves - as you say, the heat-gun gets very hot!

Work a small area at a time with the gun. The paint should become a sticky goo and should lift off with little effort. Be careful not to scar the woodwork with the scrapper blades, esp. when they are new and razor sharp.

Re: the window frames .... you might want to consider buying a tin of paint stripper and take the chemical route rather than risking cracking a large, expensive pane of glass with the heat-gun.

Having stripped the woodwork use your sander where you can, and hand-sand any areas of detail. Even a little rough patch will look terrible later if you don't smooth it now.

Then, fill any chips or divots and sand them down once dry.

I repeat: wear a face mask at all times up to this point.

Next, prime any knots with a bleed-stopper then use an undercoat.

Undercoats save time and money and give a superior final result.

When dry apply two to three coats of quality gloss/satin paint. Don't buy cheap paint (if you are going to be in this place long) as it runs more easily on application, takes more coats (thereby wasting time and any money you think you've saved) and yellows more swiftly (does cheap yellow paint go white? ).

Make sure you let Mrs.CC have a go at the (paint) stripping so she appreciates what a crappy job it is and how good you are to do it.

Finally, reward yourself with your drug of choice, sit back and smile the smile of the smugly self-satisfied.
Job's a good'un!

If the paintwork is old and has multiple coats of paint on it,then burning it off would be the right thing to do.If its new then i wouldn't bother.Flymans advice is excellent.If you follow those tips,you will get a first class job.I'm just a bit lazy i suppose .Can't stand the smell of burning paint either.



The bird is Schapelle Corby.She is serving a very long sentence(20 years i think) in a Indonesian prison for trying to smuggle a large amount of Weed into Bali.She was big news here in Australia,mainly because she is young,attractive ect.I have a bit of a crush!

nothing particularly new to add to the excellent advice already here, so i'll just leave then.

no, was going to say that a more expensive, better quality paint that lasts longer is also beneficial for the resale value of the place (presuming you own it). it won't have to be redone for x+ number of years and will retain superior appearance for future buyers.

furthermore, not sure what specific tax laws are in britain but you might be able to claim on the materials/tools purchased when/if you do move or beforehand as home improvements so keep receipts.

also i suggest having a practice run with the chemical stripper and/or paint gun on a spare 'nothing' piece of wood beforehand to familiarise yourself with how they work if you've not done it before or are rusty. unless you do these things every day/week, you can often easily notice the job you did when you started vs. how you improved along the way.

and definitely get mrs. cc to have a go too.
and congrats to you both.
hope the stag do went well.

and 'yes' from me for a diy and gardening forum.

Three nuggets of advice from an amateur with experience...

A) Be very wary of Electrics - You can't see it and you can't smell it.
B) Never touch a job that involves Gas - Get a man in.
C) Don't bodge your plumbing - it's harder than you might think. Get a man in.

PS

NEVER eat yellow snow.

Thanks for all the advice, chaps.
To flesh out the detail a bit, the house is about 110 years old. Bottom floor garden flat in a period conversion.
The woodwork is caked with layer upon layer of cheap gloss, by the looks of things it hasn't been done properly in years. We intend on staying here for about 4 years to start with, then see how things are re family size, money etc. Certainly I want to make a decent stab at it, partly because it's our first home and we're both quite proud, partly because it's actually a lovely flat and would come up really well with some care, and partly because we're both novices and both looking forward to the challenge of learning how to do DIY and decorating. Neither of us are bodge-it merchants, and we'd rather take time and do a quality job than just slap another coat of paint on the existing stuff. It would just niggle away at me if it looked crap when I'd finished, but I guess I'm a bit anal like that.

Flyman, Mrs CC is certainly going to get the feel of my hot gun in her hands, she can't wait. One of the things I love about her is that she's not a prissy lass, she likes to get stuck in and get her hands dirty with some graft.
Having said that, I fully imagine that after about 30 minutes of sanding she'll promote herself to a supervisory role with occasional cameo appearances with the stripper.

Regards the gear, I've bought us both some gloves and dust masks and goggles (I'm paranoid about my eyes since having laser surgery about 3 years ago). I don't know the proper terms but I've bought a flat scraper (looks like a regular wallpaper scraper) and one with an equilateral triangle end. Is there some other kit I need to do odd shaped bits? A "detail scraper" sounds like the one I've seen that looks like a triangle with bits cut out of it. A hyperlink would be great so I know what I'm looking for when I go shopping and don't come back with a load of chisels.

I've not bought a sander yet, but we've got some money aside for tools, so I'm in the market for one if it would be useful for the job. Should I be looking for a belt sander or a delta sander for sanding skirts, windows, doors? How many spare replacement strips will I get through sanding a door and skirts in one room (as you can tell, I have no reference point).

Thanks for the tip about the windows; the Father-in-Law suggested chems rather than heat too. We have sliding sash windows so I'm not keen on damaging the wood or the glass as it can be expensive to fix.

Why not get your doors dipped... cheap to do and zero elbow grease required on your part... other than getting them to the place that's going to do it for you.

....and some people thought a DIY forum would be dull

Some smashing advice coming through from everybody.

Dixie's suggestion of getting the doors dipped is a good one if there is somewhere local to you. Sadly, not so for me in Lewis.
He's right about the electrics and gas, too. Gas is stictly off limits to amateurs but you can still do your own L.X. if you are up to it but must, by law (in Britain), get it checked by a qualified electrician soon after.

I disagree with DD, though, about plumbing. It's simply all about gravity and tight nuts.

viddle is right about familiarising yourself with the tools. Start on the inside of a cupboard door or somewhere non-too obvious to get your eye in.

SYL is quite right about treating a newish paint job with a sanding over and new coat, but you situation requires greater effort.

CC, don't buy the new paints before you've stripped some woodwork back - you may find you prefer the natural wood and can talk Mrs.CC into agreeing, esp. skirting boards and door frames.
CC wrote:
Yes, that's the chap. You'll need this if, as I suspect, your skirting and doors have molding with curves. As I said, get both the L & R handed tools as this refers to the 'cuts' on the triangle, not you own dexterity. One tool is the mirror image of the other. While this isn't essential it makes life easier to have the correct angle/curve for the job.
(I've had a quick look for a pic with no luck - but you know what tool I mean, anyway.)

Re: The sander: Get a belt sander plus a couple of metres of medium grain sandpaper for it. Tbh, I'd go for a cheap, propriety brand like Nu-Tool. It's not something you'll use a great deal or demand a lot of as you'll do most of the hard work with the stripper. £20 should get you something functional that'll smooth the rough spots down nicely.

Again, same with the detail sander. Perfectly good cheap makes out there (always avoid Black & Decker. They've been living off the name for years now).
You may be able to find both types in a cheap boxed set if you look around, but if you buy just one I'd go for the belt sander. Detail stuff you can do by hand if nec., but large areas are best faced with a power tool.

You are wise to wear googles, esp. when sanding, but things hot up when using the heat gun and you may get a bit misty in there.
Good luck!

Probably easier to buy new skirting & architrave and putting 3 coats on before fitting ,then I put a finishing coat on i always use seakins.

Totally agree with that one. Inexpensive as well. Little jemmy, Chopsaw, Tape measure, Nails, Hammer, bit of caulk. Sooo much easier, sod all that stripping and filling and sanding - you'll soon get fed up of that.

yeah but didnt cc say his house was 110 years old? brand spanking new architrave probably woudnt look right.

A mate of mine did take all of the architrave off his victorian house's doorframes and had them dipped. This worked really well but you have to make sure you label them so they go back in the right place (the dipping bloke should take care of this though if he comes round to your house)

In a new build one's plumbing should be sorted... if it isn't then one should never have bought the place.

This is an old house that the cat has bought.... I would still insist that unless he's an experienced plumber then he should leave it to an expert. It's worth it in the long run... imho.

A very wet pandora's box could burst into his face.

Depends what type of plumbing it is, if its changing taps etc then these days its not that hard, but anything to do with boilers then get a plumber in.
One of the first things in my view you should do when moving into a new house is find out how to turn of water supply at source and same with gas and electricity, water makes a lot of mess very quickly and sooner you can shut it of the better

Strangely, we have a few Celtic families here on the IOM with beta-thal trait. There are theories about Mediterranean settlers in days gone past, but it's puzzling.


Have you done your family tree?


Admin.....do we need a separate forum for haemoglobinopathies?

Well, let's say it's horses for courses, Dixie. I learnt the basics from an old friend and was surprised how easy I found it. I've since put in a couple of bathroom suites, a kitchen and replaced a header tank and found each job straght forward enough.

It really does help if there's someone you can talk the job through with when you're in doubt, though, and there are still jobs I wouldn't handle myself like connecting a new sewage outlet to an old pipe, for instance.

I've heard a Spanish Armada shipwreck suggestion for the odd prevalence of some haemoglobinopathies in Ireland, although who knows. My aunty did a family trace, with some results going back as far at the mid 18th century. No Garcia's or Lopez's in Mayo, as far as she found.

I helped the father-in-law fit his downstairs loo. This involved removing the old sink, toilet bowl and cistern (spelling?), cutting of plastic pipes, and refitting the new stuff. Plastic makes it miles easier than copper (or even alum).
We also froze the radiator pipes, cut them, moved the rad and replaced it with a new one. This was the messiest job but by no means particularly tricky or dangerous. Helped to have the F-i-L present to explain what we were doing at each stage.
There's a couple of plumbing jobs I'm going to try to tackle in the house. Drilling through the kitchen wall into the adjoining outhouse so I can place the washing machine in there (and thus fit a dishwasher in the vacated space). This seems straight-forward enough so long as I take my time, enlist the help of the F-i-L and plan it well so I don't end up without water all weekend. The bathroom thankfully doesn't need any plumbing work for the tmie being, although should we eventually get a new suite, I'd consider fitting it myself.
I agree about avoiding any boiler related plumbing work though, although mostly on grounds of needing a corgi-registered guy to deal with the gas element of the work. I'm probably going to have to bite the bullet and pay for the boiler to be serviced this summer, but I don't mind as it'll probably pay in the long run, and it's not something that a novice can really consider.

Good stuff, Cheshire Cat! Having a mentor is a major asset.
I bought a couple of pipe cutters which are much easier and more precise when cutting copper than using a hacksaw.
While it can all be tiresome I actually enjoy it a lot of the time. I'm not up to using heat-soldered joints, just compression connections which are pricier but simpler.

Re: the washing machine job; It is now necessary to fit isolating valves to any newly plumbed article. They're pretty cheap things (under a fiver each) and allow you to shut off any and every inflow.
Put one on the hot & cold pipes to the washing machine as soon as you've T'd off the supply in the kitchen, then you can turn the water to the flat back on immediately and carry on with the job at your own pace.
You should probably lag the pipes in the outhouse, just in case.

One good thing about being on the ground floor ...... there's no one to flood out below you!

Btw, Suzykins makes a valid point - it may be less work to strip out the old woodwork and replace with new stuff you've already painted. It won't be cheaper but you have to balance that against the greater time spent stripping and also consider whether you can replace the original wood with something similar - if you are concerned about the aesthetics of your old place, that is.

We thought about replacing the skirts wholesale, but stripping is a cheaper option and since we're only on day 19 of the Big Marriage house and we've got to buy smoe furniture then we're saving money where we can.
Plus the fact that I'm quite looking forward to doing my own stripping and sanding in my own place. Perhaps a little naive and perhaps it'll be the first and last time I do it, but there's no rush, so we can just take our time and try to enjoy the journey

Good call on the lagging Flyman, don't want my pipes freezing in the outhouse.
Which reminds me, do you know anything about rendering?
The outhouse has some peeling and needs touching up.
The boiler is in there so I want to make sure there's no leak or damp (and that it doesn't collapse). It doesn't look in too bad condition, but it's one of the jobs I'll be looking at in the next couple of months.

Sorry, CC, the only rendering I ever do is when I render myself incapable.