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Hi….I recently painted my external window surrounds with a relatively expensive white satin water based paint. I painted all the window surrounds to the front and back of the house. The window surrounds we’re not too bad to start with ie there wasn’t too much flaking or peeling so I decided to just do a quick hand sanding of the surrounds and then put a new coat or two on the existing paint. Unfortunately I’ve noticed recently that some of the new paint seems to be peeling off or flaking. This seems to have occurred to the front of the house window surrounds which generally takes the most wind and rain. The peeling and flaking really hasn’t got too far at the moment so I was hoping somebody could recommend to me something tha could salvage the situation. The window surrounds are wood and the paint I used was water based ( but recommended for external use). I have a suspicion that the existing paint which I painted on top off was oiled based and I have read somewhere online that water based and oil based paint don’t bind well together so this might be the cause of the problem. Anyway I would welcome any helpful suggestions as I really hope I don’t have to do the whole lot again. Is there some sort of sealer that I could use to stop the peeling for instance and which I could just paint over the white paint for instance?

We have a 2m laurel hedge that is wholly within our front boundary border and does not encroach onto our neighbours land/border. However this has been "butchered" by our neighbour (misguided belief it does encroach) to the point that it no longer provides real privacy as there are gaping holes in it. To resolve we wanted to replace with a fence to the same height. The wording in our Title deed of Transfer states....(referring to the front) ...keep all parts of the garden neat, tidy and to maintain in the position erected by the Transferor any Boundary structure (together with any garden hedge fence and wall not forming the boundary with and adjoining plot on the estate) in good condition repairing and renewed to their original specification as far as possible provided that where a hedge has been planted it will be maintained so as not to exceed 2m in height" My question would be as the hedge is 2m and permittable - can the fence be 2m? Many thanks

Hi, we've a dark blue wall that we want to change to dark green. Have been advised to use a grey undercoat over the blue to help block it out. We were sold dulux trade undercoat in grey but it says for use on wood/metal before high gloss paint. Is that ok as an undercoat? It's a Lick paint we intend to use. Many thanks.