Thursday evening working on the fire
Spent Thursday evening working on the fire.
I had had the conversion kit (the one to turn it from a woodburner to a multi-fuel burner) sitting in its packaging for a number of weeks now. Despite a conversation with a chap from Dunsley I’d not wanted to tackle it, it seemed very tricky.
Anyway on Thursday I bit the bullet and set about my woodburner.
The instructions I’d been given I vaguely remembered but I had remembered bits about removing the left hand fire brick and a catch being involved, also threading the shaker bar (agitator bar, whatever) into position. With some construction, dismantling and further construction I managed to get it all in place. I was very pleased with what I’d done, a bit of memory and some Sherlocking through the internet – very little info’ – along with a good helping of practical common sense and there it was, only two hours later, all in place.
I was keen as mustard to see it working so I bundled in some kindling and firelighters to the back of the firebox, as the manual instructed, lit them, let them get a good head of steam and then closed the door only to see them smoulder and go out.
More Sherlocking and on removal of the top plate there was a bunch of vermiculite blocking the main stove pipe. Removing this and there was a large bit of brick in the stove pipe too. I couldn’t remove it through the gap I had so I took off he observation panel on the stovepipe to reveal it was a rather substantial bit of brick that must have landed there after my last clearance and the one that the heating engineer had done too. Not good and probably the reason for he smoulder I attempted to remove it but it was too big. On reflection I now know that I should have removed the external plate on the soot box to free it but I didn’t know this at the time. An hour or two later and with much chipping away I finally freed it and set about lighting the fire again. This time it was more successful the kindling lit and stayed lit on closing the door but once I added more fuel – despite it burning brightly – it just never caught. Things seemed to be burning and even fiddling with the riddling bar – that’s it a riddling bar – it just wouldn’t burn properly. I opened all the vents and ignoring the smoke from the vents I left it. I kept an eye on it and the smoke in the box just got to crazy levels, it was so smoky you couldn’t see the flames of the fire, the smoke just rolled and rolled in the firebox but still it was putting out some heat, so as it was now 12:30am I decided to leave it and go to bed.
The next morning I awoke at my usual 6:22am and went downstairs to be greeted by a dripping noise from the family room (my new name for the kitchen diner). I thought the worse, perhaps the pipes on the back boiler had come free, but on opening the door I found it was worse than that. Looking up water wasn’t dripping, it was more of a scamper, from the ceiling into a big pool on the floor. My new expensive booster seat I’d bought for Izzi and my unassembled kitchen units were in dripping range and my ceiling was looking quite tragic. I quickly set a builders flexi under it and knowing there was little I could do I fumed over my breakfast knowing that my biggest problem would be solving this from work, as I HAD to go to work that morning for a very important meeting with my boss.
I hurriedly sent off messages to my heating engineer who responded and he reassured me he’s be there quickly to try to resolve things.
I went to work and post meeting I got in touch with my builder, whom I knew would be on site and he told me that the heating engineer was there and they’d had to leave site as he was working in the bathroom where they wanted to work that morning.
Knowing that he was on site I gave the heating engineer a ring and he informed me that the leak was down to a pipe connector going faulty. He explained that the fault was not on anything that they’d worked on but it was next to work that they’d done. Although not their work it was plausible that it had been affected by their work but it wasn’t anything they’d actually plumbed. He said he’d fixed it and would be back later that day to check it was working by switching on the heating. I expressed that I thought it must be the coincidence of the century that it should break now on the first firing of the fire but we left it at that as I knew he’d responded quickly and was getting on with the important job of getting it working.
There was still the problem of the fire though, it wasn’t working right.
Luckily that day I’d booked the afternoon off to go watch “Godzilla” well kiss that goodbye I now had an emergency and a fire to sort out.
I rang Dunsley to find out if they had a clue and left a message with Mark of Dunsley to get back in touch and then I had a brainwave to drop Gav – who’d fitted the fire in the first place and who’d been an all-round excellent chap – a text. At the time I was doing this I was over at my folks, my meeting had been in Hartlepool that morning so I’d punctuated my visit back to my house with some lunch there. Gav was straight back in touch and very concerned he offered to come over the next day, this quickly was changed to today as he was in Darlington and could pop in on his way back to Newcastle, more like a major detour but he’s a super-tradesman is our Gav. We agreed to meet at my gaff on the hour but this was a problem as it was a fifty minute drive and I only had that fifty minute to get there in Friday traffic. Taking my life in my hands I struck out from my folks and drove so quickly I reversed time and arrived there with eight minutes to spare.
Gav was already there, he was a really welcome sight, the kind of guy who exudes confidence in a very laidback manner.
He got down to looking in my soot box and found some problems there with another brick and he was surprised to see that other work had been done in there. He’s so flipping professional too, it took me ages to tease out of him that he wasn’t happy with the work that had been done subequent to his work, the soot box, the cracks in his plasterwork and the pipework, he was unimpressed. He doesn’t like dissing others work but it was only too apparent that he wasn’t happy, he feels that one shouldn’t criticise other tradesmen’s work and I feel bad actually writing this, but I’ll tell you that he really didn’t volunteer this until I’d expressed that the tradesman who’d done this subsequent work had in turn criticised his work. Unprofessional of me but I needed an unguarded opinion on the work that needed doing to solve the problem. Anyway he cleared the other blockages that had seemed to come from some work that had been done blocking up the chimney in a bedroom and he charged the fire with some kindling, set it alight and got it flaring with a spurt from a can of WD40.
Gav concluded what I had, it just wasn’t right, opening the bottom door just didn’t get it roaring like it should, it just wasn’t working properly. He explained that he needed to get to another job and then spent another half hour working on my fire before I told him to leave, he just wasn’t going to give up. I asked him how much he wanted for the call out and he refused payment, he’d only take a trivial amount for petrol but that was after some pressing. He said he’d be over in the week to dismantle the fire and reset the vermiculite in the soot box, again for free. He left, accidently leaving his jacket…. so he has to come back now 🙂
What a result, the chap from Dunsley rang too, but I quickly assured him I had the right man on the job.
Izzi came over for a spot of movie watching and game playing so my evening was gone. Still it had been a stressful day and I had resorted to a pack of smokes, but hey what with work (another story) it had been a very stressful day.
I’ll pack in tomorrow.
Today – which is tomorrow.
Got up at 6:22am, had breakfast and set about tidying the house for a visit from Jason who was measuring up my windows and discussing my final requirements before they would be fitted. The intention in the tidying was to clear all the windowsills to allow him access for accurate measurements. On the dot of 9am Jason arrived and set about measuring up my windows on a ladder outside, d’oh – well actually he did do a couple internally so all was not lost. We discussed my requirements and I changed my mind from the four four configuration (four panels in each sash, above four in the other) to a more traditional for the period and area of a two two configuration. This I’d all along realised was the better choice but I’d erred and was going to go for the four four as I thought it was classier. I needed the shot in the arm that Jason provided to make me realise what I’d known deep down all along, that although four four was fitting in some other houses, classier in doing four four in my house would more likely become cheesier than classier. I did a bit of a deal too on offering to pay in advance and Jason offered to fit my French doors, with a following wind, the next Saturday and the windows in a fortnight. This would be excellent, if possible, as the shuttering on the side of my house was looking an eyesore and along with my garden I think the neighbours were beginning to think I might be leaving it like this.
Still all good, things are looking up.
The rest of the day was uber-busy, it is now 22:00pm and I’ve only had a couple of breaks sine 6am, I’ll write briefly now as I just want a beer, a curry, to watch my pre-recorded footage of the Champions League final and to get to bed.
Basically fixed Anna’s computer and dropped it off.
Went to B&Q to pick up some bits, a bunch of cable ties to do the pipe lagging – didn’t realise I had to do this myself? – some bolts and another Benton bolt to secure my outhouse workshop, some compost, but unfortunately I couldn’t get the wallpaper stripper I wanted and a really useful box I would have found really useful too because that branch was out of stock. Did some shopping too and headed back.
Anyway the progress so far up to today is:
Spent the day – I know this doesn’t sound much but it was – tidying up the family room, removing all of the dust, rubble and garbage that had amassed on the site, tidying up bits and bobs in the garden. Moving on I had to dispose lots of dead indoor plants and re-potted my Bonsai tree (yes I have a Bonsai tree) took photos and a video of the progress, stemmed another leak in the family room (this time from rain leaking into the bay window and not just a pipe (Ray is sorting this out in the near future, he’d told me there was still a leak, I’m glad I trusted him on this and had asked him to book in the work) did all my washing and dishwashing, spruced up all my rooms with some spit and polish, put doors and wood under cover (well in my sodden garage) installed Izzi’s new booster seat in my car, cleaned up the stove… again. Found a missing spring from a burglar sensor, saving me 20odd quid in the process, sorted out my tools, phoned my folks, cleaned up my smoking detritus – no longer a smoker again, it was just a glitch J. Tons and tons of stuff, I really didn’t stop, it just doesn’t sound like it when you look at this list. I would have fitted the hasp and oil store alarm but it was too wet to work outside with an electric corded drill. Must get a battery one.
Anyway it’s now 10:20pm so booze, curry and football time now, I feel justified in my manly pursuits now.