Done and dusting
So I took a long weekend to get some work done on the house and boy did I work some hours.
What I needed to achieve this weekend was to get the darned sub-subfloor finished, this meant I’d be out of the soil and working in the clear air. It was just getting too much, just the feeling that after a day of work I was going to be squirming under floorboards and covered in soil and dust, it just wasn’t the most appealing of proposals and even my patience was wearing thin.
So to break the back of the job I took a Friday as a holiday and this would allow a full two days to get the job fettled.
Friday and an early start and I now had to finish off one corner, another corner to fully do and two strips which would be tricky as they each need to be finished from above – once the final panel was to be done it couldn’t obviously be done from below.
First job and I tackled the first part of the full corner I needed to complete, these were always a bit tricky and involved some wiggly sawing and fiddly DPC to complete. By the mid-morning this was done.
Next job was to make two elaborate panels that would finish off the job for the two strips. These panels would then be the final jigsaw pieces in the flooring, these were the ones that would be pulled into place from above and bolted into place. They had to be done now as they would be large and they’d need to be put under the floorboards before a suitably sized aperture was filled in.
By lunchtime two panels were finished and put under the floor.
I sometimes discover myself subconsciously doing slightly odd things, today I caught myself racing the kettle against the microwave and the toaster while I was making lunch. I suppose I’m subconsciously trying to get some enjoyment from the monotony of the job and make it pass more quickly, I’ve found I tend to do this when I’m deeply immersed in a project however Kettle, toaster, microwave racing is a new string to my already bulging array of DIY and kitchen Olympics. By the way the kettle won, narrowly ahead of the microwave that mulverised the toaster into third place, the toaster now is demanding a lighter toast setting and is appealing that the kettle be tested for doping.
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After lunch it was just a straight slog to get the flooring done. Basically I completed the two corners first and then set to work on the straights. These had to be done piecemeal, the problem here was that you could no longer get at the panels from the side and I had to work slowly bit by bit along the lengths of the strips, fitting a small square panel at a time. The routine was, measure up and cut the plywood, then fit this panel of plywood to the bottom of the joists with screws, measure a piece of PIR insulation to size, fit this underneath the plywood with screws and EPDM washers, then tape up the joints with foil tape and start again. This doesn’t give the real impression of the tight spaces, the dark, the scuffed knuckles and the flipping soil dust one would encounter on every single nasty bit of panelling.
Anyway by the end of the day it was done, the floor now was almost complete, there only remained two dark holes to fill in with the panels I’d placed under the floor earlier.
Put simply, I tore off the sticky adhesive backing of the DPC tape I’d used to produce a seal, I pulled the panels from above so the top section fitted neatly into the gap and the bottom section (with the sticky DPC tape) pulled up against the bottom of the surrounding flooring. I then screwed pre-fitted battens to each of surrounding joists and finger tightened the bolts that would eventually pull the full job together.
This done I retired to bed.
Next day I got all my soiled overalls and gear and they were despatched to the washing machine.
A clean pair of overalls were donned and I set about finishing off the flooring.
What I achieved in the day I’d hoped to have done by lunchtime but this job just kept on giving and it really took the day to get these final elements wrapped up.
First the bolts needed trimming with an angle-grinder to allow me to get a socket and ratchet onto them. I then tightened them up to bring the panel even snugger into place and I had to trim them again to finish off the tightening.
I then spent my day sorting out the mess I’d created and sorting out my tools. There was ample housework to catch up on too and by the time I’d got a temporary floor down (some builders are coming in next week and this needed sorting) and realised that routing the radiator piping wasn’t going to be done in an hour. Well when that was all done I was knackered, I retired to my local Chinese bought some Chow Mein and Sweet and Sour Chicken and put on a movie.
The sub-subfloor now is all done… well apart from a teeny bit that I can only do once everything else is ironed out, but hey it won’t require me to writhe around in soil anymore.
Wahooooooooo