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.

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!

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!

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 :)

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 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.

More updates!

So many updates, so little time!

• Our immersion heater has died, and our boiler is still not working. So we don't have any hot water :( Our kettle is boiling over time!
• We now have a (mostly) functional cooker. The oven has always worked, although it doesn't seem to cook at the right temperature and the fan at the back is very noisy. The two maybe related. The rings are gas powered, and until recently weren't connected. We were on our last canister of gas when the gas man came back to put the cooker on. We now have three rings out of five, and the other two should just need a bit of a clean with a wire brush. At least we can now use gas to heat the water.
• We've booked the gas company to come and swap out the old pre-paid gas meter for a normal meter. The electric meter is already a normal meter. Why would anyone want a pre-paid meter except in a rented house?
• Next we want to move the electricity meter so it's in a much more convenient place.
• The TV unit is almost finished and even though I say so myself, I'm very proud. It's a dream given form! All I've got to do is put the doors on and all the messy computers, broadband kit and TV will be hidden from view. Pictures to follow!
• We've fitted dimmer switches in the living room and bedroom
• The bedroom, living room and kitchen now have black metal chandeliers - which came out of the shop when Melody shut.

I feel like we're really making head way, but we've got a long way to go. I feel like I can relax after a hard day at the hospital without having to worry so much about the state of the place!

Sheds

So we had some friends over yesterday to try and put up the shed (which is only 12ft by 8 - my bad). We're putting it up on pylons to prevent damp from collecting underneath. What I didn't realise is that the back of the vegetable patch where we're putting the shed, is about a foot higher at the back than it is at the front. So we've got substantially more paving slabs at the front than at the back. And at near £2 a pop, that's rather expensive. And we're now going to have to build steps to get into the shed :( We took so long getting the base level that it got dark before we could put the sides and the roof on. At least now the parts of the shed aren't going to kill the grass - we've stacked the parts on base out of the way. That's going to have to wait for another day.

Broadband

YAY! We've got broadband at the house AT LAST!

Too much stuff!

A bit of a frustrating day yesterday for Melody. She wanted to put more time into the kitchen to try and finish up some more of the decorative facias and so on, but couldn't find any of the door handles. She's spent half of this morning clearing out the cupboard under the stairs looking for them. At least it meant when I got home last night there was a lot more space in the living room as she'd gone through many boxes looking for them, and putting things away as she went. It didn't feel quite like we had the sofas on one side and a wall of boxes on the other with a narrow walk way between to get through to the kitchen.

We put up the other chandelier in the kitchen last night. It's the same as the one in the living room - black metal, which goes very well with the black floor and black worktops. Hmm - do we have a thing for black or what? The only problem with the chandeliers are they give off a phenominal amount of light. We're going to have to use up lighters in the corners of the room if we want to use energy saving lightbulbs, or be wreckless with the environment and install dimmer switches. Come to think of it, I'm not sure if you can get two-way dimmer switches.

Updates galore revisited

Melody had a productive day yesterday and achieved the impossible! The cupboards on the walls in kitchen are now all square. Today she will probably be hanging the remaining doors. Then all we have to do is add the cornices and fascias and we'll almost be done. The end of the kitchen project is in sight! Jobs left to do:

• Re-jig the pipework behind the washing machine, as it's currently pointing in the wrong direction, causing the washing machine to stick out into the kitchen.


• Tile in front of and around the washing machine


• Add the fascias and cornices, and sealant to the bottom of the kitchen units


• Tile round the back of the kitchen units


• Put up the cooker hood

But at least at the moment we can put away all the plates and cups without getting brick dust and plaster all over them :) We need to get the gas man back in to re-connect the cooker and test it is working, as the camping stove we're using is running out of gas, and we're finding it more than a little frustrating cooking on just the one ring.

I've got the lads coming over on Saturday to help put up the enormous garden shed my parents gave me. 12ft by 14ft should give me quite a lot of space to store all the stuff associated with hobbies, and still give me some space to do woodworking etc. It is going to take quite a chunk out of the vegetable patch though, so I can see us extending the vegetable patch to reclaim some of that lost space. At some point I want to put a greenhouse in, which is going to lose yet more space either to the garden, or the veggie patch. It would be helpful to have the two close together so they can share the guttering for the waterbutt.

Updates galore

I've not posted in nearly two weeks now as we've not got 'net access at the new house - how have we survived? So many updates, I keep on having to go back to see what I've already written about.


When you buy a repossession house, first thing you should do is change your telephone number! It's taken two weeks to get the number changed, and during that change over time most Internet Service Providers won't touch you with a barge pole. We've had to change the number as we're still getting phone calls from aggressive debt collection agencies for the previous owners, and we're just not interested! We don't have contact details for them, and frankly we don't want them either.


I've had two weeks off work to do all the DIY, but it's wrecked my hands. I can barely feel anything at the moment with either index finger, and the skin is so dry the industrial strength skill moisturiser I use at work just soaks in - which is unusual as I normally need to wipe a fine layer off my hands. Lesson learnt: Wear thicker gloves, not just the latex ones!


What else has been going on? Well:

• The ground level kitchen units are down. The doors and facials are on most of the kitchen units, although a little more work is needed on the cupboard that houses the dishwasher
• The work tops are on the kitchen units - which was nerve wracking (more below)
• The floor in the kitchen is mostly tiled. There's a couple of extra bits to do and then it needs grouting. It's mostly square, although there are a couple which are on the pi$$ a bit.
• We've discovered the walls aren't in anyway shape or form square. This is particularly difficult when you're trying to hang cupboards on them. Currently all none of the cupboards are level in both directs - there are big steps. We might have to take them off the wall again, bolt them together and then but them back. Hmmmm - not sure that's going to work either :(

Lessons learned:

When you buy waste pipes, and attempt to fit them using 'solvent welding', make sure you use pipes that are designed for it - it won't work otherwise! Solvent welding is a quick, cheap and easy way of getting waste pipes to fit. You apply a very smelly solvent to the surfaces that you need to join and then push them together. After a few minutes the solvent will have evaporated leaving a water tight seal (in theory). But only if you buy pipe which is compatible with solvent welding. Without realising the differences, I had bought the type of pipe you can't solvent weld, and then wondered why it wasn't working. Fortunately you can buy push fit joints as well, which are quite difficult to use - much harder than solvent welding. So if you can stand the smell of the solvent - buy the solvent, pipes and joints. You can also buy compression joints, which are very easy to use but cost 3 or 4 times as much.

Worktops

So when the £450 bill for your worktop arrives (or more - it's a very expensive piece of your kitchen), you think great - a major part of your kitchen arrives. Then it slowly dawns on you that you've got to cut great big chunks out of it. One corner of the kitchen has a support pillar running through it, and of course there's the kitchen sink to cut too. I did the corner cut first, and spent over 2 hours doing some templates to try and do the cut right. In the end, it came out ok, but it's lucky we're tiling and putting some sealant round that corner as the wall's crooked. (No surprise here).

Then there's the sink. The template that came with the sink didn't match the sink we'd bought. So it was kinda lucky my Father insisted we measure up the sink to make sure! And make sure you have enough play on the flexy hoses coming out of the water system to go into your nice new taps. I suspect we'd have had problems even if I had put enough copper pipe in, as I wouldn't have been able to reach up past the sink. I ended up adding an extra bit of flexy pipe onto the plumbing so we had enough maneuverability. All in all, not a terrible job, though a professional would have had it done twice as quick and probably wouldn't have such a large gap down the back of the worktop. Still, we can correct most of that when we tile the splashback - when we finally get round to it!

The bedroom is mostly sorted out - realistically we just need to put up the curtain pole and we're all done in there. YAY!

I've spent a few days putting floorboards in the loft. At approximately £5/square metre, they are not cheap. But it's all down now - just in time for Melody to shut her shop and move all the remaining stock up there.

More updates soon!

Floor Sanding

That floor sander was a lot of fun - and incredibly effective. We got ours from Brandon Tool Hire. The guys there were very helpful, and even though they didn't have one at the centre I went to, they phoned round and found somewhere that did. When I got to the place to pick up the unit, they talked me through loading the belts on. The belts and dust bags are all sale or return, so it doesn't matter if you've not used one before and don't know how much you're going to need. The varnish we're using suggested using P120 sandpaper on the floor, so we got a bunch of belts at P120 grade, and some more at P80 for the more stubborn bits round the edges. You need to remove all the old varnish, and that can clog up the P120 belts really easily. The sander has three wheels, two at the back and the roller/sander at the front.

Lessons learnt:

• When you switch it on, pull down on the handle so the drum isn't on the floor. If you're not holding on tight, it'll run away from you
• Don't leave the sander in the same place for too long, it *will* cut a divot out of your floor!

The rosewood varnish my wife selected looks great - although I'm quite glad I didn't gloss the skirting boards yet!

Kitchens - revisited

With the screed now dry, it has become obvious that the pipes are leaking because the screed doesn't look dry under the pipes. They are also too close to the wall for the new units, which means when we finish installing the new units, the pipework will be behind the units. So I'm going to have to learn how to do soldering too. We're also going to have to do a little work in the electrics, move one of the points further up the wall so the fridge freezer can be powered, and a spur hanging off one of the other points so we can power the washing machine and dishwasher.

The units are coming along nicely. The plans Wickes gave us aren't quite right - they've sold us too many units. There's an annoying pillar in one corner of the kitchen. Wickes suggested a 800mm unit for that corner, and then cutting the corner out of the unit. On reflection, there are two better alternatives. It's a 600mm gap or there abouts. So you could put in a 600mm unit and have it flush with the wall, and hang a 400mm door off it. Or you can put a 400mm unit in the corner. As we don't have a spare 600mm unit with a 400mm door, but we do have 400mm unit - we're doing that. We're hoping we can return the 800mm unit Wickes sold us, and get some money back. They aren't cheap!

We've also noticed Wickes have sold us a larder door, which we think is supposed to go in the corner covering the electricity meter. But the door is clearly designed to go floor to ceiling. Does that mean we're going to have to cut the door in half? I don't think so.

We're going to have to put the kitchen on the back burner for a day though as we've still got the floor sander, but it's got to go back on Monday.

Screed, carpets and more helping hands

Thanks to my Father, who came down last night and helped out some more today. My parents have given us a carpet to go in one of the rooms.

With the kitchen floor now bare, there is a lot of dust and it's not at all level. There's still remnants of the old adhesive, and there are quite a lot of different levels to the floor. So last night we bought some screed/leveling compound to put on the floor. It's kinda like very liquid concrete. It's a non-newtonian liquid though so it's liquid until you put pressure on it, which makes spreading it more difficult but it will still flow into the nooks and crannies. I didn't buy enough though so my Father and Melody will have to add some more today. I wasn't sure how much to buy and at £7ish per bag, it's rather expensive. The second bag does mean we'll be able to finish the floor, and apply some more in one corner in particular. Hopefully by tomorrow we can lay the floor tiles. When it says on the bag to lay a small amount it really means it. I put far too much down and had trouble reaching to the back of the patch I was applying. And it was rather hard work on the wrist, as it is a non-newtonian liquid it becomes stiffer when you apply pressure on it. Hopefully we'll have some photos showing the finished product. Should look good and the finished product will make it easier to lay the tiles because it should be flatter!

My Father also laid the carpet in one of the bedrooms. We've already had to move boxes from one room to another. I think I'm going got have to finish the bedroom off just so we can move house. Lucky all I really need to do is plane/sand the floor and put three coats of varnish on it.

Today, my Father and Melody took delivery of the kitchen. The bathroom turned up seperately. I got a phone call around 7.45 this morning from a delivery man from Wickes. Turns out it was the bathroom, but as we've not moved in yet we weren't there to sign for it! At the time of writing, Melody has only unwrapped the sink as it's ceramic and easily damaged in transit. The rest of the units are awaiting unpacking and putting in place. With the carpet now fitted in the small bedroom, that leaves it available to put things in to clear the way for the new bathroom. That's going to be a major undertaking in of itself. I don't have any idea how to fit a bathroom. I've got some basic plumbing skills, but I've never even soldered a pipe joint before - limiting myself to the easy to fit and use, but expensive compression joints.

Compression joints are great! You measure up the pipe and get it in position. Put the nut over the pipe, followed by a 'olive' - a brass ring with a slight bulge. Then fit the rest of the threaded joint on and tighten the nut up. Water tight in minutes! This was very useful when I was taking the sink off the wall in the kitchen. I was able to usefully put a tap in under the sink - meaning I can turn off the water to the sink without having to drain the whole system.

(Oops - forgot to publish this. Should have gone out on the 13/11/08!)

Biting of more than you can chew

With the imminent arrival of the kitchen, I decided to look at the tiles on the floor. Many of them were cracked, and some were loose. So I pulled one of the loose ones up, and had a look underneath. As I did so, one of the tiles that I thought was secure next to it came up too. Which opened a can of worms - and now we don't have any tiles on the floor because 90% of them turned out to be loose only held in place by the tile next to it and the 'grout'. The 'adhesive' (a term I use loosely here) wasn't put on thick enough, nor scared deep enough and was used as grout. To compound the problem, where the backdoor is warped and damaged by the rain, the water has leaked in and under the tiles. This has compounded the problem of the tiles being loose.

So we've stripped the old tiles off the floor, and the adhesive. We're a day behind on our schedule now. I'll be happier that I'm putting the kitchen in on a solid foundation. We're not going to use the existing grey tiles, as a couple of them got broken in the process - and anyway they don't cover the whole area. Damp had set in underneath the tiles because of the back door (which we're replacing) and the area under the sink wasn't covered in tiles and there was significant evidence of the pipes leaking under the sink. We do have some very nice black ones which are left over from another project - lets hope we've got enough of them!

Many small jobs

With a Saturday night shift to do, we decided to do as many small light jobs as possible. Melody was working Saturday so I was left to get on with it.

Put a lock on the front door. I still need to work on the bottom lock as the door has to be left partially open to lock it. Not only is that not very secure, it also allows a rather hefty draft through! The trouble is the frame is made of glass re-enforced plastic. It's horrible to work with because it chips off too easily. Eventually we're going to have to replace it when we have some money, but it'll do for now.

Put the first coat of paint on the top half new stable door for the back door. We're both rather excited by the idea of a stable door actually. In a sense it's one of those 'living in the country' feels we're looking for. It's very slow going through. The panes of glass are quite intricate at the top and the surface is rather rough and seems to repell the paint. The bottom half will be much easier as there's no glass in that half. I hate seeing sloppy paint work on glass so I'm taking my time with it. We'll need to put a coat of paint on the front door, but we'll need to wait for better weather for that!

Started to sand the floor in the living room, but it's incredibly slow work. Started using the power planer and it was MUCH faster. However I've destroyed the blade on it. Two replacement blades from B&Q - £15! But it's MUCH quicker than the sander, and cheaper than renting a floor sander for a day. Two blades should cover it, but I bought four just in case.

More painting and plastering

We continue to be impressed with Wickes 'One Coat' plaster which dried in a couple of days so we put the second layer of plaster on last night. Now all we have to do is fill in the areas where the wall wobbles and flatten off and we'll be all good. Lets just hope it stays on the wall!


If you ever go into B&Q looking for cheap white emulsion because - lets say - you have a large area of walls and ceilings to paint, don't fall for the large 10 litre buckets of trade 'emulsion'. They sit there on the shelf - white and gleaming with the bright orange lids calling you. JUST SAY NO! I think I managed to get more on me and the floor than I did on the ceiling. It's just too thin. It didn't quite spray off the roller, but it did drip a LOT. When you buy emulsion, it's the last thing you expect it to do. The only plus side I can think of is that it didn't stink the entire room out.

Plastering and Painting

A productive couple of evenings work. We've got to grips with Wickes 'One Coat' plaster - we hope. Only time will tell. 1 pint of water to 2 pints of dry plaster seemed about right. The mechanical mixer made the whole process much easier, although it took some practise to make sure the drill was running slowly enough that it didn't spray plaster/water all over the place! To complicate things a little, as the plaster thickens, we needed more power to the drill to make it turn faster, but the trigger isn't very sensitve. But we got there in the end.

Painting is coming along. The walls in the living room are now mostly green, and the wooden cladding and skirting boards are mostly reglossed. Thankfully the old paint had turned a little grey, so it wasn't too difficult to spot where we'd left off. It looks so much better now. Just a little more of the glossing and green on the walls - then we can start on the floor! The plan is to sand the floor boards, and then varnish them. Can't do that until after the painting is finished.