Beyond Blue Home Improvement Thread

[geoff]

Hi everyone. I'm Geoff and have been a dedicated Volunteer on the forums for 13 years. I am proud to have stopped some of the stigmas that are associated with mental health as well as doing my best to help others too

Before my health went south I was a builder in all aspects of home construction and renovation. If you don't have a handyman around I hope I can offer you some tips that may be of help. I have had many years of experience in home renovation and will do my best to help you out if you are stuck and need some advice

I hope my experience may be of help to the people on Beyond Blue and make their life a little bit better. Even if you need help with the most basic painting job or putting up a shelf I can help there too with some tips

I will do my best to get back to anyone that has a question when I can as this is social yet important thread

Geoff

[Guest_1584]

Hiya mf , forgot to tell ya , l've actually got one of those saws as back up , also use another one but anyway that ones been a tough little saw so far , it's done a lot of stuff, so hopefully you get lots of use out of it.

Gday Geoff. Nah l built the whole fireplace base out of the pavers , looks good too, just need to cut one for the last edge.

The tiles are only going along the front as a bit extra and looks.

Cheers

[Guest_1584]

Might get two of these can't find the first one.

Hiya mf , forgot to tell ya l've actually got one of those saws as l often use two with different blades and it's been a good little back up too, the other ones a more expensive one but that ones been a tough little saw so far , done a lot of stuff with it , so hopefully should do you well but eh , one lesson l've learned, keep your receipts with any tools these days.

Gday Geoff and thanks mate. l built the base for the wood stove with pavers , looks good too, the tiles run along the front.

Cheers

[geoff]

Hi MF, I forgot to say that I bought my son an Ozito drop saw a while ago and it's still in the box and RX a tile shop will also cut those pavers at a cost.

Best wishes.

Geoff.

[Birdy77]

Hi Geoff, rx, MF and everyone

Geoff, I have a cracked tile in the corner of my kitchen. It is a whole tile (ie, it isn't one that has been reduced to fit in the space) and I do have a dozen or so spares sitting in the garage.

I am wondering if I can fix this myself?

Should I lever all the pieces out and clean around the surrounding grout, vacuum up the grit ... and then ? Do I buy some kind of glue or grout or do I just place the new tile in the vacant spot? And then fill the grouty bits around the tile with ????

The tiles are 450 x 450mm .

Thank you so much for your help.

🌻birdy

[geoff]

Hello Birdy, absolutely you can do this yourself and as it's in the corner makes it easier for you to do.

Try and lever the tile out from the middle of the crack, or maybe you could try and break it into 4 pieces, then remove it from the middle of the tile.

If you try and get the tile out by leveraging on any existing tile, you may chip it, that's why trying to get it out from the middle will stop this from happening.

The grout should fall away and clean away any old glue otherwise the new tile will stick out from the others.

You can buy small tubes of tile glue and when you glue it on the wall put a matchstick between the new tile and the existing tile, this will stop the 2 tiles meeting each other so there won't be any 'grout' area.

Try not to put too much glue on the tile so that it sticks out further than the existing tiles, this may still happen as it has for me many times, this can't be helped because it's different when you are glueing 20 tiles at the same time.

Do you have any grout left over and if not, you could put some 'no-gaps' in to replace the grout but it's not the same as grout.

Ask around, someone else may have some grout.

You can do it and please let me know.

Geoff.

[Birdy77]

Dear Geoff

Thank you so much for your help and your encouragement!

The tile that needs replacing is a floor tile, and has cracked nicely so that it's already in 5 pieces. I will lever the pieces from the middle like you said.

Does the tile glue come in a tube I can get from the hardware or does it need to be mixed like a mortar?

I don't have any grout, but there is a plumbing place very close by, is it something they'd have lying around? Otherwise I might use no more gaps, but I guess the colour will be different.

You're a legend, thanks again Geoff. I will definitely let you know how I get on -
shame we can't post pictures, I shall be quite proud!

🌻birdy

[Music_Freak]

Hi Geoff,

I bought some mini ripple corrugated iron for the bottom of my garden beds and I don't think they quite fit (I haven't screwed it to the timber yet). There is maybe a 2 cm gap on each side where the iron doesn't cover the timber frame I made. The garden beds are 1200mm x 900mm and it seems that the iron is 1200x860, give or take. Do you know of a cheap option to protect this gap of timber from the elements (paint, varnish etc), if I can't get it to fit completely? I don't really want to have to buy any more iron to fill the 1-3cm, I can if there is no other option though, it will just take me a little time.

[geoff]

Hi Birdy, the glue can be either, but the mortar type glue seems to be a thicker type glue which I've used for glueing slate as well as pavers, check out the prices and whether you may need it sometime later.

Grout maybe better as it's on the floor, no-gaps doesn't like being cleaned much, unless it's on vertical surfaces and painted.

Small bags of grout were not cheap, especially when you just need a bit, but if you do buy a small bag, try and make sure the rest of the grout is sealed properly, otherwise over time the air will get to it and it will go hard.

Good luck.

Hi MF, I know what you are saying, paint or vanish won't last that long, do you have any old oil from your car or go to your mechanic and ask them if you can have 4 l, then paint the timber a few times.

Another option after painting it with old oil, is get to get some treated pine or hardwood decking whatever length you need and paint that with oil, it's timber but will take a long time to rot to fill the gap, and you cover or wrap some garbage bags around it, as long as you won't be digging there.

Sometimes a plastic shop may have some broken l-shape plastic they want to get rid of or a junk bin.

See how you go.

Best wishes.

Geoff.

[Guest_663]

Hi Geoff

I've noticed that your thread is all about home improvement.

So kind of you to help those who need it!

Does it also apply to cars? or do know of anyone who can give me some advice?

Thanks.

Mikalah

[Music_Freak]

Hi Geoff,

Just another few questions...how thick can timber and metal be at the most for jigsaws to cut through it?

I think I might have some metal to use for the garden beds, but I wonder if it's too thick for the jigsaw to get through.

Also, what should I do when I'm cutting timber with a timber blade and hit metal? Change to a metal blade?