Julian Cassell's DIY Blog

Planting a hedge is a great way of creating a boundary, whether it be around the edge of your land, or, between you and your neighbour, or even as a decorative division between different parts of your garden. Box hedges, as shown below, are very easy to plant and maintain, and can be trimmed to stay small for a more a decorative option, or allowed to grow much higher in order to create a larger boundary feature. read more »

Mythic Paint is a relatively new player in the UK market, and they offer a selection of water-based paints for both the interior and exterior of your home. Okay, nothing too exciting in that introduction, but where my interest certainly began to perk up was when I noticed that all their paints contains zero VOCs (nasty chemicals), zero carcinogens (very nasty chemicals), are completely non-toxic, and have literally no smell. Now, there are other ‘user-friendly’ paints around, but none that have stirred up this amount of interest in the ‘trade’ marketplace. read more »

Having a compost heap and making compost is becoming an increasingly popular DIY activity. Why? Well it just makes so much sense for all the eco reasons, but also in terms of being a practical solution for getting rid of all manner of organic waste. It is also one of the easiest DIY projects that you can possibly do because there’s certainly no need to have any practical skills, and you can be up and running in half an hour – especially if you opt for one of the purpose made compost bins such as the one shown below. read more »

Fitting a water butt and diverter kit to a suitable downpipe is one of the simplest ways of saving water and making use of the thousands of litres of rainwater that runs off the average roof each year. A plastic downpipe is shown here, which is the easiest type to cut into. You can still fit a diverter if you have metal or cast iron guttering – see ‘Rainwater diverter for metal downpipe’. read more »

The Guardian, Saturday 18 December 2010

We have metal guttering and want to trap rainwater in a butt, but can’t find a company that supplies kit for metal. Can you help?

“A diverter kit fitted into a downpipe is what you need,” says DIY guru Julian Cassell. “Wickes has a plastic diverter that fits metal downpipes (£3.99). For something more heavy-duty, try the droughtbuster kit, £14.90, from doctorenergy.co.uk. At £33.60, a cast-iron diverter is steep (from combinedharvesters.co.uk), but it would be most in keeping with your pipes. Remember, you’ll also need a hacksaw to cut through the downpipe and brackets to support the pipe above and below the diverter.”