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If you have been looking for how to replace window sealant, there is a fair chance the part you need is not sealant at all. Three quite different things get called sealant; they fail in different ways, and only one of them is a part you can push into place yourself in ten minutes. Here's the tricky bit. All three produce similar symptoms, so a cold draught or a damp sill tells you something has gone wrong, but not what. This guide sorts out which is which, so you order the right thing the first …

Working out the type of uPVC door hinges you have is the job standing between you and a repair that takes ten minutes. Get it right, and the replacement drops into the same fixing holes. Get it wrong, and you're left with a door propped open on a kitchen chair, a hinge that won't line up or some other headache. Here's the tricky bit. uPVC and composite doors have carried several different hinge patterns over the several decades, and almost none of them are stamped anywhere you can see without ta …

Knowing how to measure window hinges properly is the difference between a stay that drops straight into the existing track and a parcel you have to send back. Window hinges, or friction stays as the trade calls them, look far more interchangeable than they are, and three windows in the same house can easily take three different sizes. Here's something that catches people out: the length of the stay isn't the only measurement that matters, and it isn't even the one that most often causes a wrong …

If you know how to adjust uPVC door hinges, most of the faults that make a door feel past its best turn out to be a five-minute job with a tool like a hex key. A door that catches on the frame, drags at the bottom corner, needs a shove to lock, or whistles on a windy night is usually a door that has moved a few millimetres out of position, not a door that needs replacing. The good news? Almost every uPVC and composite door hinge fitted in the last twenty years was designed to be adjusted in plac …

Period property hardware gets talked about as if every old house needs the same thing, whilst new-builds barely get talked about at all. This guide takes the two ends of the spectrum together: the Edwardian home with a century of character to protect, and the new-build where the developer's hardware budget ran out at the front door. Different houses, same buying logic. For more information on other home types, check out our Victorian homes and 1930s semis guides in the series here. Edwardian Hom …