The story before
The saga so far!
Monday, June 1, 2009
Monday, April 6, 2009
Bathroom projects, and the improving weather
We finally got the money together to get the soil pipe done. I had two friends over, Paul and Lau, to help dig up the concrete where the existing soil pipe is. With the right tools it took us a day to dig the trench down the soil pipe. It turns out it's a clay pipe which had been repaired a couple of times over the years. This is now not up to regulations anyway, so the builders replaced the soil pipe with a plastic one, and ran the new soil stack up the side of the house. They've also installed a pipe leading into the new bathroom so the toilet can be fitted, with the waste for the bath and basin also leading into it. We're a little concerned the pipe is too high though and we might have some trouble with water back flushing into the bath! Time will tell. However, no more has happened in the bathroom as I've been waiting until April to get my new allocation of annual leave before I can tackle some of the larger problems.
In the mean time the weather has improved dramatically. We no longer feel the need for a fire in the living room in the evening, and we've dialled back the central heating in the evening. The veggie plot has been dug over a couple of times to remove as many of the weeds as possible - and the damn things keep growing back. Never mind! We've seeded some onions, brussel sprouts and cauliflowers. Our next door neighbours have given us some garlic. So we have the beginnings of our veggie garden.
On the weekend, I dug over the area by the shed and found some potatoes growing, so I've re-planted and spaced them out a little, whilst mixing in some compost for good measure. I hope they continue to germinate. I also dug over the area that was becoming infested with ground elder, which now has strawberries growing in it. I'm told strawberries are very good at fighting off ground elder. Time will tell :)
We've also discovered that concrete path round the house was being rather successfully encroached upon by the grass either side. So we've got a much clearer path now, free of weeds and grass. I also dug up the area that was being used as a fire pit - conveniently placed in the middle of the lawn! Having spent a not inconsiderable amount of time digging the ground over, and removing quite a lot of broken tiles and other rubbish, we've now got a big hole. We're doing a bit of an experiment. We were going to turf the patch, but the local B&Q had run out, despite them having an entire trolley the day before. So we've used the turf from the path on a small patch of lawn that only had moss growing in it, and we're going to sow grass seed in the larger patch to see which one works better. Time will tell.
My wife had some hanging baskets left over from one of her business ventures, so we've put them up at the front of the house. We've just got to remember to water the darn things! The house faces south, so they will get sun all day every day. With the recent good weather, I wonder how long it will be before we forget to water the pansies and they die :(
Finally, I've managed to install one of the water butts on the side of the house, so we can water the front garden without drawing on mains water. This is hooked up to the drain pipe on the side of the house, though I'm going to have to remove the extensive plants from the guttering before that will be effective!
In the mean time the weather has improved dramatically. We no longer feel the need for a fire in the living room in the evening, and we've dialled back the central heating in the evening. The veggie plot has been dug over a couple of times to remove as many of the weeds as possible - and the damn things keep growing back. Never mind! We've seeded some onions, brussel sprouts and cauliflowers. Our next door neighbours have given us some garlic. So we have the beginnings of our veggie garden.
On the weekend, I dug over the area by the shed and found some potatoes growing, so I've re-planted and spaced them out a little, whilst mixing in some compost for good measure. I hope they continue to germinate. I also dug over the area that was becoming infested with ground elder, which now has strawberries growing in it. I'm told strawberries are very good at fighting off ground elder. Time will tell :)
We've also discovered that concrete path round the house was being rather successfully encroached upon by the grass either side. So we've got a much clearer path now, free of weeds and grass. I also dug up the area that was being used as a fire pit - conveniently placed in the middle of the lawn! Having spent a not inconsiderable amount of time digging the ground over, and removing quite a lot of broken tiles and other rubbish, we've now got a big hole. We're doing a bit of an experiment. We were going to turf the patch, but the local B&Q had run out, despite them having an entire trolley the day before. So we've used the turf from the path on a small patch of lawn that only had moss growing in it, and we're going to sow grass seed in the larger patch to see which one works better. Time will tell.
My wife had some hanging baskets left over from one of her business ventures, so we've put them up at the front of the house. We've just got to remember to water the darn things! The house faces south, so they will get sun all day every day. With the recent good weather, I wonder how long it will be before we forget to water the pansies and they die :(
Finally, I've managed to install one of the water butts on the side of the house, so we can water the front garden without drawing on mains water. This is hooked up to the drain pipe on the side of the house, though I'm going to have to remove the extensive plants from the guttering before that will be effective!
Friday, February 20, 2009
Advice from a professional
We finally bit the bullet, and decided to get a professional round to have a look at the bathroom project. He agreed that we were in a difficult situation with the ceiling, and also that we had the right idea with regards the direction of the bath over the joists.
However, he has said that any spark who looks at our electrics will suddenly develop the 2mm gap between his front teeth for making that whistling sound when he draws breath upon seeing something he doesn't like. To install an electric shower, we would need to get a spark in to install the power ring for it - and that would have meant replacing the consumer unit. The whole thing would spiral out of control and we'd end up having to have the whole building re-wired. We can't afford that. Personally I'd like to have got the bank we bought the house from to do the wiring to bring it up to scratch. But there you have it. So it looks like the nice easy job of putting an electric shower in is not going to happen.
The plumber we had round instead suggested installing a power shower instead. They are probably twice the price, and will involve a lot more plumbing. You have to use cold water from the tank, rather than cold from the mains. And I'm going to have to plumb the hot water straight off the tank, rather than off the 15mm pipe that runs conveniently past my bath and basin.
These guys describe the system far better than I can:
DIY Doctor: Powershowers
In the mean time I'm going to continue to fit the bath and basin, so we can fit the shower when we've got the money etc together to do the work.
Our professional also advised us to get a builder to do the soil pipes for the toilets. It's a messy job, and it's all got to be done to building regulations. What we have at the moment may not even be legal, as there's supposed to be an air vent - which we don't have.
Worryingly, he also suggested that the downpipe from the guttering was currently being directed straight into the ground, meaning all the rain water would end up in the foundations.
However, he has said that any spark who looks at our electrics will suddenly develop the 2mm gap between his front teeth for making that whistling sound when he draws breath upon seeing something he doesn't like. To install an electric shower, we would need to get a spark in to install the power ring for it - and that would have meant replacing the consumer unit. The whole thing would spiral out of control and we'd end up having to have the whole building re-wired. We can't afford that. Personally I'd like to have got the bank we bought the house from to do the wiring to bring it up to scratch. But there you have it. So it looks like the nice easy job of putting an electric shower in is not going to happen.
The plumber we had round instead suggested installing a power shower instead. They are probably twice the price, and will involve a lot more plumbing. You have to use cold water from the tank, rather than cold from the mains. And I'm going to have to plumb the hot water straight off the tank, rather than off the 15mm pipe that runs conveniently past my bath and basin.
These guys describe the system far better than I can:
DIY Doctor: Powershowers
In the mean time I'm going to continue to fit the bath and basin, so we can fit the shower when we've got the money etc together to do the work.
Our professional also advised us to get a builder to do the soil pipes for the toilets. It's a messy job, and it's all got to be done to building regulations. What we have at the moment may not even be legal, as there's supposed to be an air vent - which we don't have.
Worryingly, he also suggested that the downpipe from the guttering was currently being directed straight into the ground, meaning all the rain water would end up in the foundations.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Cookers
Oh and before I forget:
Thanks to the guys over at Meon Gas who came out and fixed out cooker! The only bit that's now not working fully (and we're not fussed about this) is the middle ring won't light from the built in ignition system.
Turns out the oven thermostat had died - probably from all the grease etc all over it, and the heating element for the fan oven had died too. At a cost of £170 we now have a fully functional cooker, which would probably have cost us well over £600 to replace. To add to that, we'd pretty much built the kitchen round the cooker. It's a weird 700mm size - so we'd have ended up buying one that was only 600mm and had a big, very odd looking gap down the sides of the cooker. Good result
Thanks to the guys over at Meon Gas who came out and fixed out cooker! The only bit that's now not working fully (and we're not fussed about this) is the middle ring won't light from the built in ignition system.
Turns out the oven thermostat had died - probably from all the grease etc all over it, and the heating element for the fan oven had died too. At a cost of £170 we now have a fully functional cooker, which would probably have cost us well over £600 to replace. To add to that, we'd pretty much built the kitchen round the cooker. It's a weird 700mm size - so we'd have ended up buying one that was only 600mm and had a big, very odd looking gap down the sides of the cooker. Good result
Bathrooms - a long road ahead
The bathroom is an interesting challenge. For some reason the roof is constructed in a funny way, resulting in a partially sloped ceiling in all of the rooms. Some would say because it was fashionable at the time, others (myself included) would say it was because it's cheaper to build them this way - you need less bricks to build up the walls. This is particularly irritating for several reasons:
I've disabled and hidden one of the power points, which would have been under the bath. The other I'm leaving for now so I've got access to power, but that too will have to disappear beneath the floorboards. I've worked out which is the hot and cold pipes, added tee pieces off them and run the pipes up to the wall. I've learnt how to bend pipes without kinking them too much. The idea is that you put a steel, dense spring down the middle of the tube to stop it from collapsing. You can then bend it over your knee or put it in a pipe bender. If I were a professional plumber I'd definitely invest in a pipe bender. It's a machine with a long lever and a gentle curved groove allowing you to bend pipes with relative ease and produce nice, good looking pipe work with a degree of accuracy I struggled to achieve by bending the pipe over my knee. Or you can cheat and buy solder ring obtuse angles - a piece of copper pipe moulded to 135 degrees. If I'd had a disaster with bending the pipes, I'd have probably gone over to using obtuse angle pieces. But the two I've bent worked out fine - so two successes :) The only problems occured when one of the pipes was a little too long so the bend was too close to the wall. But that was just a case of cutting the pipe a little shorter. I've added some ball taps to cut off the water to the bath/shower/basin supply in case in the future I need to change a washer or something - saves having to drain the whole system down. It also means I can pause with the development of the bathroom, without having to leave the whole house without hot or cold water.
We're stopping for until today to get a bathroom fitter in. Several things have occurred to us:
- The loft space is smaller, both in height and width.
- If I were to ever try and stand up in the area at the head of my bed, I'll bash my head on the ceiling (fortunately won't ever happen :)
- It makes locating the bath upstairs very difficult.
We can't put the bath along the wall I wanted to put it on, because the ceiling invades the space. We could build a box cupboard at the head of the bath, but then the foot of the bath would stick out too far and into the space where the stud wall is going to go. We can't put it along the wall where the stud wall will go, there's not enough space for the door and the bath. We can't put it along the other wall - there's a window there. Not too keen about the idea of showering by a window, even if we are eventually planning to block that window off. Leaving us with the last wall - and a slight crazy plan to build a long box cupboard along that wall the length of the bath. This has the added advantage that the bath will then be supported by three joists, close to the load bearing wall. So we're less worried about the bath crashing through the floor as my wife fills it with water. Don't laugh - apparently in some older houses it's been a problem!
Anyway - finally got the room cleared, and some floor boards up. Conveniently some of the boards have already been cut so its easy to see where pipes for some things are. But not all of them. I managed to break a few getting them up, which is annoying. I started on the plumbing and had a couple of disasters, and a couple of successes. We've decided to take the rather large (and very nice) towel radiator out of the toilet downstairs and move it upstairs, and move the radiator points out of the toilet and into the downstairs bathroom. There's a corner sink in the bathroom at the moment, which we're going to move into the toilet. This will free up some space in the bathroom for when we convert it into a study. The start of the disasters occurred first when I forgot to put flux on the pipe coming up into floor space from the new location for the radiator, resulting in a dry joint. So I had to take it all apart and resolder it, wasting half an hour or so.I've disabled and hidden one of the power points, which would have been under the bath. The other I'm leaving for now so I've got access to power, but that too will have to disappear beneath the floorboards. I've worked out which is the hot and cold pipes, added tee pieces off them and run the pipes up to the wall. I've learnt how to bend pipes without kinking them too much. The idea is that you put a steel, dense spring down the middle of the tube to stop it from collapsing. You can then bend it over your knee or put it in a pipe bender. If I were a professional plumber I'd definitely invest in a pipe bender. It's a machine with a long lever and a gentle curved groove allowing you to bend pipes with relative ease and produce nice, good looking pipe work with a degree of accuracy I struggled to achieve by bending the pipe over my knee. Or you can cheat and buy solder ring obtuse angles - a piece of copper pipe moulded to 135 degrees. If I'd had a disaster with bending the pipes, I'd have probably gone over to using obtuse angle pieces. But the two I've bent worked out fine - so two successes :) The only problems occured when one of the pipes was a little too long so the bend was too close to the wall. But that was just a case of cutting the pipe a little shorter. I've added some ball taps to cut off the water to the bath/shower/basin supply in case in the future I need to change a washer or something - saves having to drain the whole system down. It also means I can pause with the development of the bathroom, without having to leave the whole house without hot or cold water.
We're stopping for until today to get a bathroom fitter in. Several things have occurred to us:
- The bath will be directly over where the consumer panel is - and all the power to the rest of the house comes up right where the bath is. If there's a leak it'll drip down onto the live electrics. I need to know if that's going to be a problem!
- The plan is to put an electric shower in. But electric showers draw a LOT of current and therefore must be on their own fuse in the consumer panel. We can do this one of two ways:
- Use the only space free which is currently labelled as the cooker ring - not that we use the cooker ring, we have a gas hob and electric oven. No need for a seperate ring
- We replace the consumer panel to include more fuses
- We also need to know about the soil stack for the toilet. Where can we put it? etc. The toilet has to go on the back wall. Otherwise, when we build the extension, we'll have to move it.
- I need to get my friend Lau over at some point as I need to hire and use a power tool I've not used before - a diamond edged core drill designed to cut holes in walls so we can run the drains from the bath and basin. It's a rather expensive tool, which we're going to have to hire at the cost of £50 or so per day.
In other news, my wife and I have decided to put some decking off the kitchen. It's a rather large area, but it gets very little sun as it's a south facing house. The grass and other plants don't do very well round there, not helped we think by four teenaged boys living there before us! It has the added advantage that when we finally build the conservatory, we can always move the decking to another part of the garden.
And finally, we dug over the veggie patch yesterday afternoon. It's the first weekend when it's not been very frosty, snowing or raining. It was actually a pleasant afternoon - though my right shoulder and hands are feeling the effects this morning. At some point I'm going to have to install the replacement water butt. The current one (which is 210 litres) is full - we've have that much rain. So when I saw one in Wickes for £99 - at 700 litres I figured I might as well do the upgrade and move the 210 l one down to the house. When I got to the check out, I found out they'd further reduced it down to £49. Nice work if you can get it! Now I've just got to build a stand to put it on. The ground behind the shed is very sloped and when the water butt is full, I'm worried it will damage the shed by leaning on it!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Final stages of the kitchen ... and then the bathroom
The kitchen floor is almost finished. My wife finished the last few awkward tiles, and has now grouted the floor. It's a black tile floor, with grey grout. It looks fantastic when it's finished, but there is a problem. The grey grout takes months to wash off. The very fine cement it's made of shows up very well on the jet black tiles.
This weekend we start work on the upstairs bathroom. We've got to clear the room out first, take up the floorboards and see where the pipes etc are. There's a little electrical work to do - mainly taking out old electric points. And we've got a stud wall to fit. Got to get the bathroom suite delivered before we put the stud wall in though - I can just see us putting something through our nice shiny new plasterboard wall!
This weekend we start work on the upstairs bathroom. We've got to clear the room out first, take up the floorboards and see where the pipes etc are. There's a little electrical work to do - mainly taking out old electric points. And we've got a stud wall to fit. Got to get the bathroom suite delivered before we put the stud wall in though - I can just see us putting something through our nice shiny new plasterboard wall!
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Sheds and laser guided power tools
Finally put the finishing touches on the roof of the shed yesterday. The roofing felt is all battoned down, and the guttering is fixed so it will start collecting rainwater for the veggie patch.
I'd seen an advert for a pillar drill on the internet from the supermarket Aldi (along with adverts for power winches - that shop sells the weirdest things!). No true workshop is complete without a pillar drill and a lathe. Well for £41 I figured I might as well get one of the boxes ticked. I went over there on Wednesday, only to discover that they weren't going to be available until Thursday. I was going out on Thursday evening, and Friday I was on an extended shift - so I wasn't going to be able to pick one up till yesterday (Saturday). So I went back over there in the morning - and they'd sold out and they weren't going to be getting any more in.
So I consoled myself by going to buy a new powered mitre saw. The other one had served me well. I'd put the kitchen together with it, and quite a lot of my wife's shop was put together with it. But it was on its last legs. The catch that pulled the blade guard up had broken off in the last throws of putting the kitchen together. Since then I had to make do with pulling the guard up by hand before making the cut. This struck me as being a rather dangerous situation. I'd seen first hand (pun intended!) what can happen if someone missuses one of these things. I figured it was time for an upgraded anyway, so I trotted over to the nearest B&Q, and bought a new one. One of the problems I'd had with previous incarnations of the mitre saw was that it was limited in how thick or wide a piece you could cut. You will always have some limitations - and they can easily be overcome with a handsaw. But I use the mitre saw so much, I figured why not kill two birds and get one with a bigger range of movement. And I have to say it's a pleasure to use. I bought the MacAllister £68 one, which has the blade gantry mounted on two sliding rails. One of the bugbears of previous mitre saws has been the difficulty with changing the angles the blade comes in at. They both had rather twiddly little knobs to lock down the turntable with. I either over tightened which made it difficult to loosen, or under tightened in which case the angle of the blade could change just as I was going to make the cut. Neither a great situation. The new mitre saw has a much larger handle right at the front, and the range of movement of the gantry is much wider - going out to 50 degrees where previously it would only go as far as 45. In addition it has a laser guide on it. Now I've always viewed laser guidance on powertools to be a bit of a gimmick which you could (or should) probably ignore. I retract that - at least with regards to the mitre saw. It has two laser lights, which I think need adjusting a little. But never the less it was considerably easier to build the new garden gate as a result of the lasers. The oblique strut supports had some odd angles, and it was reassuring to know exactly where the blade would fall as soon as I started. All in all - a good result.
Still want a pillar drill though.
I'd seen an advert for a pillar drill on the internet from the supermarket Aldi (along with adverts for power winches - that shop sells the weirdest things!). No true workshop is complete without a pillar drill and a lathe. Well for £41 I figured I might as well get one of the boxes ticked. I went over there on Wednesday, only to discover that they weren't going to be available until Thursday. I was going out on Thursday evening, and Friday I was on an extended shift - so I wasn't going to be able to pick one up till yesterday (Saturday). So I went back over there in the morning - and they'd sold out and they weren't going to be getting any more in.
So I consoled myself by going to buy a new powered mitre saw. The other one had served me well. I'd put the kitchen together with it, and quite a lot of my wife's shop was put together with it. But it was on its last legs. The catch that pulled the blade guard up had broken off in the last throws of putting the kitchen together. Since then I had to make do with pulling the guard up by hand before making the cut. This struck me as being a rather dangerous situation. I'd seen first hand (pun intended!) what can happen if someone missuses one of these things. I figured it was time for an upgraded anyway, so I trotted over to the nearest B&Q, and bought a new one. One of the problems I'd had with previous incarnations of the mitre saw was that it was limited in how thick or wide a piece you could cut. You will always have some limitations - and they can easily be overcome with a handsaw. But I use the mitre saw so much, I figured why not kill two birds and get one with a bigger range of movement. And I have to say it's a pleasure to use. I bought the MacAllister £68 one, which has the blade gantry mounted on two sliding rails. One of the bugbears of previous mitre saws has been the difficulty with changing the angles the blade comes in at. They both had rather twiddly little knobs to lock down the turntable with. I either over tightened which made it difficult to loosen, or under tightened in which case the angle of the blade could change just as I was going to make the cut. Neither a great situation. The new mitre saw has a much larger handle right at the front, and the range of movement of the gantry is much wider - going out to 50 degrees where previously it would only go as far as 45. In addition it has a laser guide on it. Now I've always viewed laser guidance on powertools to be a bit of a gimmick which you could (or should) probably ignore. I retract that - at least with regards to the mitre saw. It has two laser lights, which I think need adjusting a little. But never the less it was considerably easier to build the new garden gate as a result of the lasers. The oblique strut supports had some odd angles, and it was reassuring to know exactly where the blade would fall as soon as I started. All in all - a good result.
Still want a pillar drill though.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Sheds and bad weather
Having finished putting the roofing felt on the new shed, but not quite finished battoning it down as it was getting dark I made the fatal mistake of thinking the job was done for now. But no. The english weather has conspired against me, and tore off some of the brand new felt. So I was fixing that back on, and doubling the number of nails I've used. Unfortunately it's meant I've had to over lap where the tear was. Which means the felt might not reach as far as the battoning will allow. Time will tell.
On the plus side, I have found some time to start outfitting the workshop. We managed to keep the old kitchen worktop intact and relatively unaffected by the weather etc. I've put to beams along the wall just under the window, with the worktop on top of that. I've only put a couple of legs in. The worktop is in two parts, originally to go round the corner of the kitchen. I'm going to straighten that out, but it does mean an extension to the horizontal beams I've put in as they aren't quite long enough. Not a major problem really - just another trip to B&Q. The worktop will extend most of the way to the back of the shed, so I'm going to put some shelving in so it extends all the way down. I've also got some of the carcuses from the old wall cupboards, which I'm going to hang, probably on the back wall of the shed.
Next stop the power systems. To permenantly run a power cable out to the shed is going to be expensive. I'd need to change the consumer unit in the house, and add a fuse - then run the cable down. At some point we're going to have to change the consumer unit anyway, but not just yet. So I'm going to get a 12 volt leisure battery - like you get on boats - some solar panels to recharge it, some 12 volt florescent bulbs, perhaps even a motion sensor and a light detector so it will switch itself on and off appropriately. That will provide lighting.
I'm also considering getting an 2kw inverter so I can run my tools off the 12v battery. A couple are rated above 1kw, so I'm going to go for a 2kw inverter - should be more than enough and allow for more powerful tools later on. I'm going to set it up so when the battery goes flat and can't power the inverter anymore, I can just unplug the shed from the battery and plug it into an extension cord coming from the house.
On the plus side, I have found some time to start outfitting the workshop. We managed to keep the old kitchen worktop intact and relatively unaffected by the weather etc. I've put to beams along the wall just under the window, with the worktop on top of that. I've only put a couple of legs in. The worktop is in two parts, originally to go round the corner of the kitchen. I'm going to straighten that out, but it does mean an extension to the horizontal beams I've put in as they aren't quite long enough. Not a major problem really - just another trip to B&Q. The worktop will extend most of the way to the back of the shed, so I'm going to put some shelving in so it extends all the way down. I've also got some of the carcuses from the old wall cupboards, which I'm going to hang, probably on the back wall of the shed.
Next stop the power systems. To permenantly run a power cable out to the shed is going to be expensive. I'd need to change the consumer unit in the house, and add a fuse - then run the cable down. At some point we're going to have to change the consumer unit anyway, but not just yet. So I'm going to get a 12 volt leisure battery - like you get on boats - some solar panels to recharge it, some 12 volt florescent bulbs, perhaps even a motion sensor and a light detector so it will switch itself on and off appropriately. That will provide lighting.
I'm also considering getting an 2kw inverter so I can run my tools off the 12v battery. A couple are rated above 1kw, so I'm going to go for a 2kw inverter - should be more than enough and allow for more powerful tools later on. I'm going to set it up so when the battery goes flat and can't power the inverter anymore, I can just unplug the shed from the battery and plug it into an extension cord coming from the house.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
More on Chimneys and sheds
We had a fire lit for the third time on Monday. We'd been advised to get a CO monitor for the bedroom. It's right above the living room and used to have a fireplace in it, but there's no guarentee that when they bricked it up, they did the job sufficiently to prevent CO from coming back down the chimney and poisoning us. As they are £5 for two in B&Q at the moment, I figured that wasn't an issue as I wanted one for the kitchen anyway. The fire took a couple of hours to get going, but when it did it was so hot I was down to my t-shirt for the first time!
The roof is now on the shed - with a bit of a patchwork of roofing felt on it. The felt that came with it was so brittle it was damaged in transit. Unfortunately several of the planks which made up the roof were rotten, as were the battons which supported them. This is not entirely unsurprising give the age of the shed! So a quick trip to B&Q, and I've bought some new sheet material. I've also taken the slightly brave step of modifying the shed a little. Being 6ft 1, I would have cracked my head on the horizontal support beam. So I've put some more leaning supports in, with some horizontal beams higher up. The only problem with this approach is that the original horizontal beam was preventing the walls from bowing outwards under the weight of the roof. Time will tell if my approach is too detrimental. It certainly will be less detrimental to my head!
The roof is now on the shed - with a bit of a patchwork of roofing felt on it. The felt that came with it was so brittle it was damaged in transit. Unfortunately several of the planks which made up the roof were rotten, as were the battons which supported them. This is not entirely unsurprising give the age of the shed! So a quick trip to B&Q, and I've bought some new sheet material. I've also taken the slightly brave step of modifying the shed a little. Being 6ft 1, I would have cracked my head on the horizontal support beam. So I've put some more leaning supports in, with some horizontal beams higher up. The only problem with this approach is that the original horizontal beam was preventing the walls from bowing outwards under the weight of the roof. Time will tell if my approach is too detrimental. It certainly will be less detrimental to my head!
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sheds and Chimneys
Had some friends over yesterday to try again to put up the shed. We've got the sides on which is a feat in of itself - especially the side with the glass windows which was incredibly heavy. And all this with the wind starting to pick up! Now all I've got to do is put the roof on which is going to be problematic. It's incredibly heavy as each part of the pitched roof is ship lapped planking screwed to the support beams. Some of the planks need replacing because they are rotten - though fortunately they are the end planks so shouldn't be too difficult. I am however, contemplating replacing the roof with some kind of fibre boards, sealed then with roofing felt.
We've also had a bit of a blow with the chimney. We had the sweep round to look at the chimney to try and workout why the smoke is back flowing. Oh dear. To start with there was a huge birds nest in the chimney. Melody had a bin bag full of twigs come down as soon as they started. Apparently the company have been out to the house a number of times in the past, and even recall putting a bird cage on the chimney before! Then as he was sweeping, a brick fell down the chimney which gave them both more than a bit of a fright. This might turn out to be a more serious issue, and we've been advised not to light a fire in the grate. Lucky we've got the central heating working. Unfortunately when the sweep checked the chimney with a smoke flare, we were still getting back flush, which implies a more serious problem. So they are going to come back and have a look down the chimney from the top, and perhaps at the same time fit a bird cage to stop more nests being built.
And finally, apparently we will need to line the chimney before we can use the woodburning stove. Although it's apparently a relatively quick procedure but will cost over £1000, and then we'll need to adapt the stove to suit the chimney. So I guess we won't be getting the wood burning stove up and running any time soon!
We've also had a bit of a blow with the chimney. We had the sweep round to look at the chimney to try and workout why the smoke is back flowing. Oh dear. To start with there was a huge birds nest in the chimney. Melody had a bin bag full of twigs come down as soon as they started. Apparently the company have been out to the house a number of times in the past, and even recall putting a bird cage on the chimney before! Then as he was sweeping, a brick fell down the chimney which gave them both more than a bit of a fright. This might turn out to be a more serious issue, and we've been advised not to light a fire in the grate. Lucky we've got the central heating working. Unfortunately when the sweep checked the chimney with a smoke flare, we were still getting back flush, which implies a more serious problem. So they are going to come back and have a look down the chimney from the top, and perhaps at the same time fit a bird cage to stop more nests being built.
And finally, apparently we will need to line the chimney before we can use the woodburning stove. Although it's apparently a relatively quick procedure but will cost over £1000, and then we'll need to adapt the stove to suit the chimney. So I guess we won't be getting the wood burning stove up and running any time soon!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The gas man returneth
We've finally got the gas meter changed over from the pre-paid meter to a proper meter. No more messing around with having to go to the local co-op to get buy more gas.
The plumber also returned last night to fix the boiler. It turns out our cat had better instincts than the plumber. For weeks our cat has been going outside and staring intently at the flue for the gas boiler. One time, we even found her on top of the boiler in the kitchen. We couldn't for the life of us, work out why. There was no obvious sign that there was a nest in there and we'd not seen any birds flying in or out of the flue. Turns out the reason the boiler wasn't working was because at some point a bird had got in and out of the boiler, but had obviously spent some time there as some of the air intake was blocked up with bird poo! So a bit of cleaning later, and we have a fully functional boiler and a warm house at last. Melody is ecstatic.
We've also finish the TV cabinet in the living room - pictures coming soon :)
The plumber also returned last night to fix the boiler. It turns out our cat had better instincts than the plumber. For weeks our cat has been going outside and staring intently at the flue for the gas boiler. One time, we even found her on top of the boiler in the kitchen. We couldn't for the life of us, work out why. There was no obvious sign that there was a nest in there and we'd not seen any birds flying in or out of the flue. Turns out the reason the boiler wasn't working was because at some point a bird had got in and out of the boiler, but had obviously spent some time there as some of the air intake was blocked up with bird poo! So a bit of cleaning later, and we have a fully functional boiler and a warm house at last. Melody is ecstatic.
We've also finish the TV cabinet in the living room - pictures coming soon :)
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Heating
The immersion heater element is installed, and it didn't blow a fuse straight away which is a good thing. Waiting to see now if it actually heats the water!
The gas man arrived, and checked out the boiler. Looks like one of the parts which detects air flow is faulty. The heater works ok which is a relief, and the gas man's coming back to replace the faulty part tomorrow.
The gas man arrived, and checked out the boiler. Looks like one of the parts which detects air flow is faulty. The heater works ok which is a relief, and the gas man's coming back to replace the faulty part tomorrow.
The Gas man cometh
We've got the gas man coming over later on today to see if he can resurrect our boiler. I don't mess around with gas - too easy to blow up your house that way! We'll see how that goes.
Immersion Heaters
So it would seem replacing an immersion heater element is remarkably simple - provided you have the right tools. The Ultimate Handyman website lays it all out for you. I would however strongly suggest paying out the £3 for the immersion heater element spanner (or borrow mine now I've bought it!). My father lent me a chain link spanner, but I couldn't put enough force behind it to get the element undone, and I didn't want to break the spanner by tapping it with a hammer. So £3 in B&Q later (lucky we got LOTS of B&Q vouchers for Christmas this year) and 5 minutes with a hammer later and the element is out. There was a lot of corrosion and limescale on the element, and the electrics at the top were obviously burnt out. Glad it's nothing too serious. I am going to have to buy a new bit of cable for it, as that's burnt out too.
There is some very sound advice on the above website, which I'm glad I took heed of. When you're unscrewing the element take care not to try too hard with the spanner - use a hammer and a bit of WD40 or similar oil. The tank is made of very thin and soft copper, much softer than the element or the fittings around it and it's very easy to sheer the threaded part off your tank. All you can do then is replace the tank. So your task which would cost you £20 could suddenly cost you £200! Not to mention ending up with 120 litres or so of water spilt all over your airing cupboard.
Turns out there are only 2 sizes of elements realistically used in the UK - 11inch and 27 inch. Screwfix sell two of each of the types - one for hard water areas, and one for softer water. I have no idea what the difference is, aside from the cost. One word of warning from the Screwfix website - don't forget to remove the shipping clips from the heating element before you install it.
There is some very sound advice on the above website, which I'm glad I took heed of. When you're unscrewing the element take care not to try too hard with the spanner - use a hammer and a bit of WD40 or similar oil. The tank is made of very thin and soft copper, much softer than the element or the fittings around it and it's very easy to sheer the threaded part off your tank. All you can do then is replace the tank. So your task which would cost you £20 could suddenly cost you £200! Not to mention ending up with 120 litres or so of water spilt all over your airing cupboard.
Turns out there are only 2 sizes of elements realistically used in the UK - 11inch and 27 inch. Screwfix sell two of each of the types - one for hard water areas, and one for softer water. I have no idea what the difference is, aside from the cost. One word of warning from the Screwfix website - don't forget to remove the shipping clips from the heating element before you install it.
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