Kitchen, Bathroom and General Building

Hints & Tips

Rothwell James would like to help the diy'ers out there so we have offered a number of hints and tips below to get you started!

Feel free to request more information or suggest your own hints through the Contact Us page

New Bathroom

Always measure and draw out your new bathroom – use graph paper
Check where the soil stack/pipe is
Try and find out which way do the floor joists run
Knowing all these things will help plan/design a great bathroom and keeps the costs down

Don’t just visit your local DIY stores, check out your local independent show rooms
Look at on-line show rooms
Check out your usual Sunday paper or Magazine

Thermostatic showers will automatically maintain the chosen temperature, even when other household appliances are being used.

Instantaneous electric shower; a shower that electrically heats the water as the water flows through it. There is no pump involved, so the amount of water you get through will depend on your mains water pressure.
The performance of an instantaneous electric shower depends on the power rating of the shower itself which is usually between 7 and 10.4 kilowatts, with a larger wattage, the higher the temperature rise obtainable for a given flow of water.
Power shower; a shower using a pump to boost the flow of water to give a powerful shower spray. Generally used where there is insufficient water pressure on gravity fed water supplies. They can only be installed on low pressure, tank fed systems. The cold water tank should be no less than 50 gallons if supplies many outlets, a 25 gallon cold tank is acceptable for the shower alone. A dedicated hot and cold supply is necessary.

Pumps can be installed into gravity fed systems to boost water pressure if required.

No, a combi boiler runs directly from the mains, you cannot pump mains pressure, a typical combi boiler operates at 80,000 btu, if you want more power than your combi boiler needs upgrading.

Make sure you know where your stop cock is, there are two, one outside your home, usually on the edge of your property or if your property is terraced, it may be shared and located in the near vicinity.
The other stock cock is usually under your kitchen sink, make sure you check and look at this tap every six months to ensure there is no corrosion or build up of lime scale and turn it, so you can be sure it is not stuck.
Isolation valves help with the servicing or changing of taps/bath taps and ensure you have one on cold water feed into each toilet – many leaks can be prevented by having the ability to switch off this valve.