Shuttering and tarnished towel rails
Up against a deadline it was time to get a move on.
A day at work then an hour drive home and straight into my work gear. I needed to get the bathroom progressed speedily so I needed to spend every moment I had on it.
The boxing-in under the window was taking time, it wasn’t an easy job at all and would take time whomever tackled such a job, but time being tight I needed it out of the way this evening.
So getting my rugged work gear on I set about finishing it. Essentially it was a nasty job as it involved boxing in an irregular shaped area, the boxing needed to support the weight of a radiator and perhaps even the weight of a person standing on the radiator – yes you know you’re guilty of that. It needed to be constructed with the piping fitted and the structure and piping had to be done to such a tolerance that the radiator could simply be hung onto the hangers and the pipes tightened into place without any fuss or removing the shuttering. It also needed insulating, the insulation too needed to be screened from any damp that may ingress from outside too.
All in all a tricky nasty job.
Up till now I’d fixed the frame, it was sitting lovely and level with the imaginary line that would allow a sheet of plywood to be fitted to it and remain flush to the wall. It was solid as a rock, the top area had even been packed with wood packers to shore up the saggy window ledge and it had even been insulated and lined with DPC.
Still the nasty bit was yet to be done, the radiator gubbins itself.
When I got to this stage I sat down with a can of fizz and gave the job a good hard stare. After a bit of contemplation my plan was firmly in place, I would probably only have to change it two or three times now.
I cut two plywood sheets to size so they could be fitted and then jointed (at their tongue and grooved edges) horizontally, I then fixed both sheets to the frame to completely cover the hole. I measured the job to death and marked out where the radiator hangers would be placed and I fixed the radiator hangers by only their top screw into the top section of plywood. I hung the radiator, fitted the radiator tails and hand tightened the TRV and joints onto the radiator tails, I then used a right angle square to mark on the plywood where the radiator legs should arise from the plywood when they were eventually fitted.
Once all marked up I removed the radiator, spun the radiator hangers through 90 degrees and removed the bottom panel of plywood. I then rehung the radiator (putting the hangers back to vertical) and temporarily fitted the radiator legs, this allowed me to measure where the pipework should be cut, I marked this up and cut the pipes to size and once done, I removed the radiator again, spun the hangers out of the way then I used brass elbows to fit the chrome radiator legs to the pipe. I then packed out the voids with insulation, drilled the plywood with holes for the legs and refitted the plywood while slotting the legs through the newly drilled holes. I then rotated the hangers back to vertical and fitted them and the boards permanently with more screws.
Phew that’s that done, I wonder if anyone ever reads that 🙂
Next a bit of food and I cracked on with the next project.
Earlier this year I’d taken advantage of a Screwfix offer to buy a black ladder towel radiator. I had had one donated from my sis’ and bro-in-law but on inspection it had suffered from two years in my garage and it was covered with lots of rust so I decided on taking up the Screwfix offer.
Now though and on further reflection I now didn’t like the black towel radiator, it wasn’t a great colour for the bathroom and size-wise it was just a bit wimpy.
I revisited my rusty radiator and carelessly gave it a scratch with my finger nail and guess what the little rust I’d rubbed came away to reveal lovely chrome underneath.
So into the house it came, out came a selection of cleaning solutions and after a bit of experimentation I was rubbing away with a polishing pad that had been supplied with one of the small sanders. It was pretty slow work and after an hour of spit and polish I reconsidered my manual rubbing and dug out a sander and attacked the radiator with even more vigour.
The results were great but not perfect, a bit of the chrome did rub off and there were teeny pin-pricks of rust left here and there.
Still to the naked eye it looked good, the missing chrome could be set to the reverse, maybe touch it up with some silver paint too, anyway it looked a lot better than the black one, I would polish it further and perhaps invest in some internet based ideas to get it looking good as new.
The black one could go into the shower area.