Hi, just a few questions

Hi everybody,

What a useful place this is. I’ve been lurking for a day or two now reading lots of posts and I have adjusted some of my original intentions as a result. I would say I’m a fairly good DIY guy and able to tackle most jobs after some thought and research. My forte is making the end result look brilliant despite what’s holding everything together out of sight. Not being a tradesman I don’t always have the right bit of kit for the job but manage it some other way, and when I put something up it stays up.

Having spent ages opening draws and doors, looking and feeling under the front of showroom worktops, I found many finished almost flush leaving the drip strip sitting directly over the top of the door and draw edges. I never gave a thought to the possibility of spillages ending up inside my units, and only being able to afford cheaper stuff has cost me two sink unit doors. The suggested 4cm overhang puts the drip strip on my off cuts just in front of my remaining economy conscious doors, wish I’d found this forum earlier.

I’m confident that I can fit worktops correctly and make a good looking job of it first time and so I’m finally biting the bullet and installing some this coming week. Thanks to Wickes, some holiday pay and e-bay the finance committee (missus) and I can now afford some tops and reasonable quality unused tools after an age using some off cuts sitting across the units.

I just have a couple of questions for anyone who cares to offer advice, I can see the reason for using silicone sealant adhesive rather than ‘Colorfill’ but, no mention of a brand or supplier, and so for textured matt black speckled tops I’m thinking of using a black, marine silicone sealant adhesive, would this be OK? Is it also OK to run a wet fingertip along this sealant where an upstand meets the worktop like sealing around a bath or is it enough to push it into place so that it is watertight but with no sealant showing?

Also concerning sealant, when tightening joints, roughly how many or how thick a bead is required to ensure that it does ooze out the entire length of the join on top and underneath, and should the bead be towards the edges or middle?

I have had to buy a biscuit jointer for another job and was wondering if biscuit joints would help get an exact alignment between worktops or are they unnecessary? If they would help, where should they be positioned, between bolts or directly above them as I have seen while surfing around for tips?

We have a condensing boiler so lots of ugly pipe work and a filling loop to conceal, and I was thinking of making a free standing shroud with the board finished in the same way as the wall just not fixed to anything, so does anyone have an easier or nifty solution?

Sorry about so many questions but I need to get a grip on it ASAP. Thanks a lot.