mending things

Well a few weeks ago my Dyson DC14 stopped . The motor stopped working and there was a bit of a burning smell. I left it for a while, thinking it might be a cut out due to overheating and would restart, but after a day, it was still dead. I've had this Dyson for over 10 years and its been pretty good, have repaired a few things and replaced the odd part, but its still in good shape. I sort of assumed that if the motor had failed this was akin to the engine in a car and likely to be expensive to repair, so was pondering getting a new cleaner. However looking on ebay I found that replacement motors were about £16, so not much at all. So I got one, and also figure I needed a new filter for the motor. this is the purple and white filter unit which fits below the dirt container, and is accessed via a hatch. The old filter was black with what I assume was fine carbon dust, perhaps from the motor brushes ? Before I started I watched this video on YouTube, which is excellent and cl...

In the UK  most houses appear to use some form of modular plastic guttering. It comes in different colours and cross sections. Pieces are held up using brackets. Where sections join together a connecting pice is used which clamps beneath the two sections  coupling them together, and an outer clip piece binds both pieces together with a rubber seal as the filling in this sandwich.  The rubber seal consist of a length of rubber strip which sits in a groove in the juntion piece. In the picture above you can see a corner section, below you see a mid section join between two longer lengths. I routinely find persistent drips from these junction points. This is not great as where the water lands you get splashing, which over time can soak the walls close to the splash point. It can also start to damage wooden paint work. if your in a room  nearby a persistent drip-drip-drip is also annoying. So dripping gutters are a bad thing. I have repaired gutters in 3 house...