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  • EADD Moderators: axe battler

EADD Plumbing and DIY Thread v. Screwing Some Old Boiler Up Against the Wall

Well, it didn't kill me ..... But I got it covered up pretty sharpish. Also, the modern stuff probably isn't as dangerous as the older stuff (which mine was).

Ack ok, thank you <3 the job is indeed being done superfast.

So when you have all that insulation covered up by hard wood in the loft - is it a safe environment is it to be around lets say daily?
 
Julie, someone? How toxic is roof insulation?

The man is up there doing his thing and our new funky loft ladder system he installed means there's exposure not only to him but down stairs. Is this something I should be worried about.

He say's he's wearing a mask...but you know men :\

Do you mean the rolls of itchy yellow shit? It's pretty benign stuff these days as its made out of rock wool - literally molten rock spun into fibres. However, although it's non toxic and non carcinogenic it can be irritating to skin and lungs so its advisable to wear gloves and some sort of mask.
 
Do you mean the rolls of itchy yellow shit? It's pretty benign stuff these days as its made out of rock wool - literally molten rock spun into fibres. However, although it's non toxic and non carcinogenic it can be irritating to skin and lungs so its advisable to wear gloves and some sort of mask.

Thanks Mr Fu for reassuring me, it is indeed that stuff <3
 
Rockwool cubes ftw.

I never said that either. I have no idea what a rock wool cube is. None at all.
 
Break time.

God almighty, all I said was "it might be an idea to keep these potatoes & onions somewhere else in the meantime while the loft hatch is open..." ;)

I am wearing gloves as always (like the oil industry safety-conscious pansy that I am) as well as a facemask. However, the face masks are shitty Poundland ones whose elastic keep snapping almost every time I take them off. Might invest in something proper.

Aw don't worry, he will deal with it asbestos he can

*golf clap*

(Sorry, no clapping allowed ;))
 
Tbh Felix, just tying a bandana over your nose and mouth should be sufficient to keep the worst out (breathing a little dust in won't hurt - it'll be expelled before long) and is much more comfortable to wear than those bloody dust masks.
 
Tbh Felix, just tying a bandana over your nose and mouth should be sufficient to keep the worst out (breathing a little dust in won't hurt - it'll be expelled before long) and is much more comfortable to wear than those bloody dust masks.

Well, we have a nice selection of cat bandanas. Maybe I'll try one of them. %)

I'm more annoyed that I've fucking broken my quick change pilot drill bit. From this set:

RAK22QCx600.jpg


Now I have to replace it, or go back to shitty little non-quick-change ones like a fucking barbarian. :!
 
You really need two cordless drills for this job. One with a combined pilot drill / countersinker ("self-countersinking" screws are great in softwood and particle board, but they don't self-countersink at all well in hardwood), and the other with a screwdriver bit (remembering that Phillips drivers will knacker Posidriv screws, and Phillips screws will knacker Posidriv bits). And two batteries for each one. That way, you don't have to keep turning the torque dial up to drill and countersink, and down to screw .....

If you had a pin chuck with a 6.3 hex shank (which I can thoroughly recommend), you could put the broken end of your drill bit in that. But you'd still have to swap it out with the countersinking bit. Which itself should have a 6.3 hex shank, of course.
 
Well, thanks for that Julie, it's all nice but not really relevant.

I'm nailing these mahogany boards down - not screwing - and I don't have a cordless drill at the moment. I need a replacement one of these in 2mm:

DOWNiQQ.jpg


... but I'm fucked if I can find them on the B&Q or Screwfix websites right now. If someone could post a link that would be appreciated, ta. :D
 
Ah. Well, I screwed my boards down in preference to nailing on account of the effect of the hammer blows on the ceiling below (the plaster already being held in place mainly by a good half-centimetre of successive layers of wallpaper and paint). Montoya Mansions is insured for more than it would cost to rebuild anyway, considering that I'd already own a plot of land with planning permission for a dwelling house and enough reclaimed bricks to recreate at least the façade if it did fall down, but I'm still not tempting fate.

I do have a little mains drill, somewhere; but I confess to hardly having used it since I got my SDS rotary hammer. Think shoving a red-hot poker into a block of ice cream. That's what it's like using "Big Bertha" to drill masonry (and that includes a 12 mm. hole through a good half-metre of natural stone). And for pure-rotary applications, I've a "Parkside" (Lidl special!) 18 volt cordless with torque control. Must be ten years old if it's a day, and still going strong. And no power leads to get in the way, or be just a few millimetres too short for the drill bit to reach the spot where you need the hole to be .....
 
Both of our cordless drills gave up the ghost a while ago, so I've reverted to my corded ones + extension leads. Which is not as much of a pain in the arse as expected, cos I don't need to worry about charging and you just can't beat the power of 240V.

Anyway, Screwfix to the rescue! Got myself a decent dust mask, replacement hex-drill bits, and a 5-pack of hardwood jigsaw blades for £12.47.

And to make some profit out of this job, I am selling these "Rustic Mahogany Coasters" on Etsy for £25 each.

JmRAeVK.jpg


(Sadie has #1 in the collection) ;)
 
Both of our cordless drills gave up the ghost a while ago, so I've reverted to my corded ones + extension leads. Which is not as much of a pain in the arse as expected, cos I don't need to worry about charging and you just can't beat the power of 240V.
I think I just got extremely lucky with my cordless, especially in comparison to other people I've seen who have done theirs in with less drilling than mine. No hammer action (but then again, I have Big Bertha™) but it makes up for that with a multi-step torque control (I built some pine shelving, using twin-thread self-countersinking woodscrews straight through and into end grain, without even drilling a pilot hole; just turn up the torque till the screw goes as deep as you want, and leave it on that setting).
Anyway, Screwfix to the rescue! Got myself a decent dust mask, replacement hex-drill bits, and a 5-pack of hardwood jigsaw blades for £12.47.

And to make some profit out of this job, I am selling these "Rustic Mahogany Coasters" on Etsy for £25 each.
(Sadie has #1 in the collection) ;)
If you have a router, you could monogram them and charge extra .....

Anyway, I'm giving myself ideas now about donning a crop top, some skimpy dunga-shorts and safety boots, and posing tastefully with my power tools for a series of private photographs ......
 
Dunga-shorts? Hah. :D I'm just about to put on my red Bob the Builder dungarees. I love them.

I would of course love to have another cordless drill, but finances prohibit such an investment at the moment. I reckon it's the charger that's on the blink on my Black & Decker cordless, as opposed to the battery or drill itself, which is fucking annoying cos a replacement charger costs as much as an entirely new drill complete with charger & battery. :!

Here is my drill, which was in perfect working order before the charger packed up:

dtStm8u.jpg


The transformer on the charger:

BZZzzS2.jpg


I've taken the charger base to bits to check for loose connections, but it all looks fine. The transformer is a sealed unit. Dunno what else I can do with it but I'd appreciate any advice. :)
 
Uhmmm... yes. :D

90% cocoa whatever, with a free nail thrown in. Iron is good for you. ;)
 
Dunga-shorts? Hah. :D I'm just about to put on my red Bob the Builder dungarees. I love them.

I would of course love to have another cordless drill, but finances prohibit such an investment at the moment. I reckon it's the charger that's on the blink on my Black & Decker cordless, as opposed to the battery or drill itself, which is fucking annoying cos a replacement charger costs as much as an entirely new drill complete with charger & battery. :!

Here is my drill, which was in perfect working order before the charger packed up:

dtStm8u.jpg


The transformer on the charger:

BZZzzS2.jpg


I've taken the charger base to bits to check for loose connections, but it all looks fine. The transformer is a sealed unit. Dunno what else I can do with it but I'd appreciate any advice. :)

If you can find a power supply of a similar rating for something else, you could splice its cable onto your base unit cable - just make sure the wires with a white stripe or dashes are attached together. It doesn't even have to be exactly the same rating, a little higher will be fine (e.g. 18v/500mA) but don't get a lower rated one as that would be like trying to make water flow uphill. The power supply is simply a transformer, the clever stuff is controlled by the protection circuits inside the li-ion battery itself.
 
Probe across the output with a multimeter (200V DC range; it says 17.4, but the figure probably will be higher with no load, and you don't want to overload the meter). With any luck it will be nothing more than a break in the wire from the transformer to the base unit (have an assistant wiggle the wires while you hold the probes) that can be cut around and soldered.

The best thing for charging random batteries is a bench power supply with current limiting. This is the one I've got; but it's not on promo anymore, so maybe look for a used example on eBay. It must have current limiting and ideally you want at least one meter switchable for volts / milliamps, if not two. Short-circuit the output and set the current to give a ten-hour charge rate (i.e., 180 mA for a 1800 mAh battery). Then turn the voltage up to 1.5x the battery voltage (or as high as it will go), and connect to the battery (ignore the "T" terminal: that is used for a temperature sensor inside the battery pack, which tells the proper charger base to reduce the charging current in the event of overheating). Give it twelve hours, to get around the pesky second law of thermodynamics.

If you feel especially daring, you can crank up the current for a one-hour charge; but do not let the thing out of your sight like that, and keep checking it isn't getting hotter. And never, ever try to charge a sealed lead-acid battery at anything more than ten-hour rate. (You can charge vented lead-acid batteries hard, if you loosen the filler caps to let the explosive mixture of hydrogen and oxygen escape; but cut the power at once if you smell sulphur, unless it's the very first charge of a freshly filled battery, in which case a little odour is to be expected. You will need to top up the cells; but it's Summer, so you should have access to plenty of air-conditioner runoff, which is an acceptable substitute for de-ionised water.)
 
Probe across the output with a multimeter (200V DC range; it says 17.4, but the figure probably will be higher with no load, and you don't want to overload the meter). With any luck it will be nothing more than a break in the wire from the transformer to the base unit

Aye, I did that a while back with my Fluke and there was nothing. Today I snipped the wires very close to the transformer and managed to establish that there's no break in them. I plugged in the transformer with about 6cm of wires sticking out, and it's dead.

If you can find a power supply of a similar rating for something else, you could splice its cable onto your base unit cable - just make sure the wires with a white stripe or dashes are attached together. It doesn't even have to be exactly the same rating, a little higher will be fine (e.g. 18v/500mA) but don't get a lower rated one as that would be like trying to make water flow uphill. The power supply is simply a transformer, the clever stuff is controlled by the protection circuits inside the li-ion battery itself.

I was thinking something along those lines, but there's nothing in the house like that to spare.

Hmmm... maybe I should look around charity shops for electrical equipment with a similar voltage. It really fucking annoys me that I might have to buy an entire new drill because of this; I hate wasting perfectly good stuff.

Thanks for your advice & moral support, folks. :)
 
Before you lash up an alternative power supply, check, double-check and triple-check which of the wires goes to the positive battery terminal (possibly via a resistance of a few tens of ohms) and which goes to the negative (even if there are any fancy electronics in there -- which I doubt, given the 200mA rating of the wall-wart and the fact that the battery pack looks like it would hold about 2000 mAh -- one or other of the wires should be joined straight through).

This is vitally important, and you cannot afford to make any assumptions. Some manufacturers use the striped lead for negative, and some use the striped lead for positive.

By the way, in case you need to persuade anyone to authorise the purchase of a current-limited bench PSU ;) they can also be used for electro-plating home-made jewellery, or to power a pyrography tool for burning patterns into wood.
 
I'll bear that in mind, thanks.

Anyway. Despite my eco-warrior/tight-fisted protestations, we had a board meeting and the CFO has approved the purchase of a new cordless drill. Pretty much the same as the old one, except it has the hammer option and two fucking batteries, plus a nice case. Brand new old stock from Argos via eBay, £28.99, total no-brainer.

As for the loft job - I've spent the entire day moving the final tranche of floorboards from the car park to our back passage for drying purposes. That was another 100 boards to be brushed off/de-nailed/etc. and they'll be coming up three flights of stairs over the next couple of weeks.

My fucking back. :!
 
FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELIX please come to gibs...... we need you!

Evey
 
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