DIY Tips?

[Fjgrogan]

Do any of you wise people out there know a quick and easy and preferably safe way of removing polystyrene tiles from a ceiling? They are very well stuck directly onto the plasterboard. Attempts at scraping just seem to chew up the edges. I am getting desperate enough to consider using a blowtorch, but I am well aware that would either produce toxic fumes or burn the house down. The plan is to replace them with cladding, and I did suggest leaving the tiles and cladding over them, as insulation, although not sure whether this might be a fire risk. The friend who is doing the cladding said 'No way - I need to be able to see where the rafters are.' At the speed I am progressing it will take me a week just to strip the ceiling, but there is a long list of other jobs that I am hoping to get through by next weekend.

[englishangel]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/pro ... tiles.html

Unfortunately it appears that your tiles were applied with diligence and lots of adhesive.

[Fjgrogan]

Thanks for that, englishangel - how do you manage always to find these things, I wonder?! This has to have been one of the very few occasions when my husband actually applied due diligence to any job! My mother was always reminding us of the fire hazard of these tiles, which unfortunately we have in four bedrooms and the bathroom. The bedroom ones are in good condition and will stay as they are for the time being, unless we ever decide to sell. It is even more of a fire hazard apparently to paint them, because then in a fire they would drop in a flaming sheet, instead of blobs. The bathroom ones are chewed round the edges anyway and are going to be replaced with cladding. To my shame, I gave up trying to remove the tiles and decided to concentrate instead on washing down filthy paintwork. In the middle of all that my builder friend phoned to say that he was popping in to pick up some stuff he had left, so I told him about my problem. He shinned up the ladder and with one swipe of the scraper removed two tiles! The answer is clearly brute force - I must try harder! I was rather hoping that there was some way of dissolving them. However, given what sugar soap has just done to my rubber gloves, perhaps it would make short work of polystyrene tiles? I'll try that. but watch this space ....... I am bound to come up with all sorts of other queries during the week, and would welcome advice from anyone with relevant experience.

[lonelymom]

He shinned up the ladder and with one swipe of the scraper removed two tiles!

Get him to do it then! Or, try betting him that he couldn't do the whole room in an hour, he might fall for it Or, offer to do something in exchange, like wash and valet his van, while he gets the tiles off for you

[Fjgrogan]

Nice thought, but I am was trying to keep the cost of the whole job down by doing the boring mundane bits myself and just leaving the 'technical' stuff to him! However he did say that if I didn't manage to do it, he would - it will just slow things down a bit. The builder is a workmate of my husband's who came to build us a shed/workshop originally; then I discovered that he can turn his hand to all sorts of other things and is eager to earn some extra money. I told him I could keep him fully occupied for the next six months. My husband is currently in Finland, visiting the grandchildren and watching the Tall Ships, not necessarily in that order. So I thought I would try to get as much as possible done round the house before he gets back, in the hope that he would then feel inspired to continue the good work - probably a forlorn hope! Since we are no longer paying a mortgage or running a car, I am trying to plough some of that money into the house, which has experienced very little in the way of general maintenance or decorating in the thirty years we have lived here. Chris the builder, however, has a full-time 'proper' job, so is only available after work and at weekends, but he manages to do more in a week than my husband can achieve in a year!

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

In the interests of Matrimonial Stability -------

Leave something for the absent Husband to do --- no=one likes to feel superfluous !

[mvgrogan]

oh Neill... you just don't know my Dad! the reason this is all being done now while he's here getting to know his first grandson, is that he hasn't done it himself for the last 30 years!

but believe me when I say there's plenty left to do when he gets back... we're just hoping this gets him inspired!

[englishangel]

Frances, I would pay the man to do it. You will do one day's work and won't be able to move for a week, up a ladder with your arms above your head, just think about it. I hope you buy Radox and Deep Heat in bulk.

[Fjgrogan]

Very true. I have had another try and admitted defeat, and got on with scrubbing paintwork instead. The trouble with waiting for Chris-the-builder to do it is really that it will delay everything and I really want to have at least one room complete before my husband gets back late next Sunday. Don't worry there is a complete house to be finished off - I am trying to ensure that the bits that are left are the bits that my husband is capable of doing. We have just had a new shed/workshop built and I suspect when he returns his first thought will be to go and 'play' in 'his' shed - to test drive it, so I am trying to line up possible and useful projects to keep him occupied out there! I notice that the doors on the shed can only be locked from the outside, so I could always lock him in. At the moment two rooms of the house (at least) are like a cross between a storage unit and Steptoe's back yard, filled with tools, materials of various kinds, stuff bought to do projects which never happened, pots of paint etc (I know it sounds unlikely, but I am sure Maria will confirm it!) In theory this will all be transferred into the shed and we will have those two rooms back. It would be good if we could have all that done by Christmas, so that there is room for everyone to come here, but I am not holding my breath. By then there will be three grandchildren (Kirri is expecting to go into labour at any minute!) so the house needs to be not just clear and clean but childproof. And strangely enough, as englishangel surmises, I am not as good up a ladder as I used to be (I once single-handedly Sandtexed the entire back of the house). It is all very well stocking up on Radox etc, but I first need to clear access to the bath1 Actually, I moved the entire contents of the bathroom out onto the landing, because the floor is also going to be done (cork tiles - after the ceiling) and then I needed to use the loo and remembered too late that the toilet paper was at the far end of the corridor - fotunately there was nobody else in the house at the time!!

Why is it that Edwardian houses had so much fancy woodwork round every door and window? To look at ours you would think that an army of heavy smokers had been camped in the bathroom doorway for several years - it looks as though it is nicotine-stained - at least it did until I went mad with sugar soap. As instructed, I started at the bottom, and by the time I realised that I needed the ladder to reach the top I also realised that I was probably too tired to go up a ladder. And so to bed .........

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

I am now at the Computer, for the second time this day 11 am.
My Study is the only safe place --- the Lounge floor has had polish applied, and has been highly polished, with a noisy polisher, as has the Dining Room, The Kitchen floor has been washed, and is drying out, I was forced to use the Upstairs Loo, asthe Downstairs Bathroom was being sterilised, and I noticed that the bed had been stripped, ready for clean Duvet and Linen.----- at this moment I can hear the sound of the Vacuum Cleaner roaring upstairs ---------

Sometimes I could wish for a little Chaos !

[Fjgrogan]

Neill, is all this activity being carried out by the Blessed Anne? if so, I find it difficult to believe that she is not a Hertford Old Girl! Thanks to the training received there (and I have recently said this elsewhere on the forum, I think) my attitude to housework is 'all or nothing' - either a complete and utter blitz or just leave it, no quick flick round with a duster allowed. Most of the time we therefore live in squalor, until there is a reason to leap into action, for example the 'threat' of having to 'host' Christmas; I know that Christmas is months away yet but that is how long it will take - probably longer, once my husband returns from Finland and starts messing it all up again. In order to lay laminate flooring in the living room we pretty well had to empty the room, so all the clutter that had been dumped on every available surface was removed, mostly onto his bed. I am gradually replacing the things which are in constant use, but I am not sure where he plans to sleep when he returns, late on Sunday nght!! The bathroom seems to have ground to a halt because I physically cannot shift the well-stuck ceiling tiles, and the contents are spread along the corridor and landing, but we have spotless woodwork, which I dare not start painting because I just know that the moment I do the builder will reappear and start showering my wet paint with polystyrene dust from the ceiling. To be fair the woodwork could probably have waited, but as soon as the ceiling is done there are cork tiles to go down on the floor (currently bare chipboard, since we took up the lino to floor the shed) and knowing that I am a messy painter it seemed to make sense to paint the skirtings first. There always seems to be a complicated chain of what to do before what, and one little delay can bring everything grinding to a halt. Somehow in the process of shifting furniture around we seem to have disconnected the telephone - BT assure me that the line in OK, and the handsets are showing all the right lights, and broadband is obviously working to the computer, but the phone line has been dead since Thursday evening. In desperation I have replaced the very expensive batteries, which I was fairly sure were not the problem, and I was right! and I have of course checked every connection in the house, but still nothing, so I can only assume that there is a wire loose somewhere inside a socket and I am loathe to pay a fortune to a BT engineer to reconnect it! what i need is a gadget to tell me exactly where the 'gap' is! Fortunately I do have a mobile phone in working order, which I normally never use, but it is now fully charged and topped up - I cannot afford be out of contact at the moment with grandchild number 3 overdue by 4 days! So back into the work gear, and on with the undercoating - that should ensure that the builder arrives today!

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

OH Fjgrogan, and Maria, what sadness !
Actually, the Blessed Anne was educated at Allendale Grammer School Sheffield, until 15, and then when her Father (Spectrographic analysis) was posted by his steel company to Dorset, she went to Parkstone Grammer, Poole.
However --- she trained as a Nurse at Charing Cross Hospital, Southampton Hospital and Bristol for Midwifery, before going to Bible College, and becoming a Missionary in Thailand, on the Burma border, looking after Lepers and Karen Tribespeople for 5 years -- hence speaks Thai.
All this has induced an overdeveloped sense of DUTY --- and what must be done -- IS !
She also, on return, to look after her dying Mother, rejoined the NHS and ran Intensive Care, in Poole Hospital, until -------- 35 yars ago, she was wooed by a disreputable divorced, Diver, and Boat Owner ---
( "Come aboard my yacht m'dear " --- better than an E type Jag !)
She was warned against me by most of her friends and collegues -------- but I prevailed

And we still adore each other !!!!!!!!
Sorry about the Life History --- but she is a bit special --- and still a "Looker" at 70 !

[Fjgrogan]

Neill you are a very lucky man, and it is good to know that you appreciate that fact. Long(er) life and happiness to you and the Blessed Anne!

[Ajarn Philip]

oh Neill... you just don't know my Dad! the reason this is all being done now while he's here getting to know his first grandson, is that he hasn't done it himself for the last 30 years!

I'm with your Dad all the way, Mary. When I was in my mid-late 20s I lived in a beautiful, old, large house on the clifftops between Dover and Folkestone. The drawback was that it was a typical 'Forth Bridge' case - you were never finished with the DIY (not my forte, to be honest... ). I had destroyed the bathroom a few months before going off to work in Pakistan. Fortunately, there wasn't time to reconstruct the bathroom of the century before the whole house was completely destroyed by the 'Great Storm' in 1987. And that was my lesson. Never mind the DIY, just make sure you're well insured!

Bizarrely, I did a quick google search and came up with a photo of my house here...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/content/image ... ry.shtml?6

... the rest of the roof is upside down in the back garden, along with half of the back wall. If you cross the road, there is about 8 yards of grass to the cliff edge looking down on the beached ferry... http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/content/image ... ry.shtml?4

[Fjgrogan]

I thought I would re-cap this thread. Would you believe it? I am still struggling with the bathroom! the ceiling was done by Chris-the-builder and looked beautiful while it was bare timber cladding - I'd have liked to keep it bare, but being a bathroom it needed some form of protection; I toyed with the idea of yacht varnish, which presumably would have been water/steam proof and kept the look, but for some reason I went for white satin quick dry emulsion. It looked good, except that my husband did the first coat and managed to go over the edge of the masking tape and leave lines around the top of the wallpaper which I cannot remove because the paper is 'padded' and dissolves under the influence of white spirit (Kirri says try lighter fuel?). I did the second coat and stayed well clear of the edges. I made sure all the gloss woodwork was finished before embarking on new cork tiles on the floor, because I know that I am liable to drip paint. Then I departed to Kirri's following the birth of new grand-daughter Millie. On my return my husband was in the middle of laying cork tiles - Hurrah, I thought, until a few days later I realised that he had slopped cork adhesive onto the newly painted skirting boards and that it was gradually darkening as it dried. Attempts to scrape or sand it off were not entirely successful; nor were attempts to just repaint the stained bits, so in the end I had to give all the paintwork a second coat of gloss, this time masking the new cork tiles (which was exactly what I had been trying to avoid by painting before the tiles were laid!) I finally finished that yesterday. Now I notice that the ceiling cladding is pulling apart slightly in places - not enough to be a major problem but enough to leave bare gaps in the paintwork, so I need to get up a ladder yet again and repaint the gaps, without dripping onto the cork tiles, which still need to be sealed. When they are sealed the bathroom will be out of action for at least a day, so I need to time that carefully. There is also a bit of bath seal that needs replacing, but I am worried that if I remove the old mouldy stuff and then cannot get the new stuff in I shall not be able to use the shower. Theoretically it should be easy with one of those cartridge gun thingies, but the gap behind the taps is too narrow and my hand is not steady ......... Then I need to replace all the 'furniture', which is still on the landing; I bought a new freestanding shelf unit for towels and even remembered to get those little plastic protectors so the the legs don't sink into the cork tiles. It will be touch and go whether I manage to get it set up in the bathroom before my husband decides to move in the television - he has tried once and I removed it to clear the floor! So it has taken nearly 3 months to not finish one small bathroom. What hope is there of getting the rest of the house done by Christmas. By the way, when husband returned from Finland in the summer he decided that the shed needed to be lined with plasterboard, with insulation stuffed behind it; he is still doing that, very slowly, usually when I have just asked him to do something else. So much for clearing the two 'storage unit' rooms into the shed.

Believe me, Neill, I would be more than happy to be married to TBA who would go through the entire house in a whirlwind, rather than living for ever with the mess. Next weekend I am off to Kirri's again because they are moving house from Aylesbury to the Medway; I was originally told that the most useful thing I could do was stay out of the way, but now Kirri has realised that she would prefer not to drive all that way alone with new baby in the car, so apparently I do have my uses! Maria says I should leave a very specific list for Husband of what he should do in my absence - I doubt if it will be worth the effort!! Am I allowed to cancel Christmas? Or can I find contact details for Nick Knowles' DIY SOS programme?