what have I been up to
What have I been up to, well lots… but nothing really to show for all my graft…
I did take a week off on holiday and I did keep a bit of a log, I did intend to start on the shower and finish the hallway but despite my best efforts I only managed to finish off the hallway and that was that for the week.
Sunday 20th November
Got down and dirty with the chainsaw and chopped up some logs for my week off
Domestic duties: fire on, washing finished, clothes away and sorted
Did a bit of measuring
Took up the floorboards, carefully, in the downstairs hall. Some of the boards were rotten through with woodworm and rather than replace all the boards I’d decided to stockpile the good ones, saving them for a utility room worktop project I had in mind. The boards were replaced with some 23mm Caberfloor, much less creaky than boards and as carpet was going down they wouldn’t be too much of a problem. All wood was treated for woodworm – even though it had been dead for years and everything apart from the floorboards was largely untouched.
Sorted out wood in the garage, I needed to assess what wood I had to fulfil the needs of a tank stand I was putting into the attic.
Made some cable clip arrays to allow me to tidy up the sub-floor pipework and fitted them into place.
Got online and ordered some kit from Screwfix and some presents.
Monday 21st November
First things first with a bit of work on the computer
Breakfast and off to Wolsingham for a haircut
Back to Bishop and off to Screwfix, I am now officially a Screwfix master as I was ushered to the loading bay at the back to pick up my new 50 gallon tank I’d ordered for the attic. Along with 6x 3m lengths 22mm HepO2 pipe, loads of pipe lagging (making myself unpopular with Screwfix shopping personnel again), fittings, screws and more pipe clips.
Off to Travis Perkins to order some wood to make staging for the tank. I’d emailed my order in and Davey was surprised to see me walk into the store just as he’d replied.
The idea of the tank is to alleviate my water pressure problems for the shower. Basically the shower head on the bathtub taps barely dribbles and I expect no more from the shower. My sis and bro-in-law had donated their old impellar pump from their power shower but code dictates that one cannot simply attach it to the water main and it must be fed from a buffer tank. Hence the tank, the staging would allow a higher head of water for non-impellar tasks such as filling the bathtub, thus making a better flow. It would need some pretty major engineering as the tank would be carrying 50 gallons of water and around a ton of fluid over my head shouldn’t be trifled with.
With the car brimming over with kit I decided on a burger on the way home at my local burger van.
Home and chasing insulation in the wind.
Off to see my folks and take my Mum shopping
Mad weather
Screwfix – Hartlepool this time, on the way back to my folk’s house as the Bishop branch hadn’t had stock of a pair of plastic pipe shears.
Mum’s and a spot of food
Borrowed Dad’s socket set, my ratchet had disappeared
Drive home in tropical storm, lots of standing water, lots of kittens nearly had
Watched toons with my little girl, cleaned her teeth, got her ready for bed, played robots, read her a story and put her to bed.
Back home and shopping away, bins out and past midnight I managed to make it to bed
Tuesday 22nd November
Up and it was really cold, I’d not started the central heating as I’d wanted to press on with the pipework, so a bit of kindling and the fire was roaring in no time.
Breakfast and then some pipe tidying. The floor in the hall had been hiding a mess of pipework. My first attempts of routing pipes had all gone through this hall and it wasn’t a pretty site. The pipes were too long and just a tad untidy for my liking, soooo out with the pipe shears, cut out a section, rejoin them with some Speedfit connectors, neatly clip them into the clip arrays I’d made and bazinga all was well and tidy.
I make it sound so simple, it took ages.
Fixed a faulty elbow joint on the hall radiator
Figured out what pipes went to what radiator
Wood delivery…
Started out insulating under the floorboards, now this wasn’t really necessary but I’d been done the rest of the ground floor so why not finish it off with the draughty hallway. Again a simple job to describe but one that took ages, fitting insulation to the bottoms of floor joists with little clearance took ingenuity and experimentation. Rarely could I simply fix it with a screw and a washer as I’d done in the past, this time I had to fix wooden battens to the insulation and then screw these sideways into the joists. A toughy time-consumer.
Tea at 10pm
Brought the wood in from the garden, I’d not managed to get it in earlier, it was quite wet and very dark.
Wednesday 23rd November
Fire on again
Now that the rats nest of pipework had been sorted it was onto the electrical cabling. Again it sounds so simple but it took hours. The results were great, almost a shame to have to cover it all up.
A bit more chain sawing
Routing and clipping network cables
By now I was beginning to suffer from tool disappearing syndrome. Whenever I needed a tool I was wandering around, looking here and there, standing with my hands on my hips wondering what I was doing with my hand on my hips, wondering what I was looking for, just taking ages to find everything. This had to stop so I had a grand tool gathering… I decided to look everywhere and every tool I thought I’d need in the ensuing week was spread out in a mildly organised fashion on the kitchen table. This took some time, but saved me ages.
Lunch
Cables done, networking done, under floor insulation done… now more insulating. Now don’t be fooled by this cavalier outlook of losing one’s tools, I can be a real pedant and although the insulation under the floor had done its job and been fitted rather fetchingly there were still points where PIR insulation needed to be done before fitting the wooly insulation, namely at intersections with walls and over walls that were supporting the joists. Again ages and ages of monotonous work.
Took delivery of a tanking kit for the shower.
I now felt like a bit of pipe lagging, so I rounded off the day with lots of lagging and then off to play robots, read books, watch TV, clean teeth and put my little girl to bed.
Thursday 24th November
The water supply to the house was being distributed by some rather nasty 15mm steel pipework, now was my opportunity to change this. What with the tank about to be fitted into the attic I decided to fit some 22mm HepO2 pipe as a rising main through the centre of the house. I wouldn’t be commissioning it immediately but this was my last opportunity before fitting the floors, so it had to be done now.
I’d previously fitted some 15mm pipe to achieve this but I’d decided I needed to spend some cash (22mm Hep02 pipe is very expensive) and replace it with a more suitable gauge of pipe for this important job.
So lots of drilling out of 15mm holes, removing the old pipework and struggling with the new pipework and joints into place.
Next was a job I’d not looked forward to, insulating all of the pipework under the upstairs landing floor. This was like a scene from the Terry Gilliam film Brazil, it was pipework central, a dizzying amount of pipework mixed with a huge amount of electrical gubbins in a very limited space.
Guess what, it took ages…..
But a fine job was done.
Next the landing floor needed levelling, there had been a bit of historic movement in the house and I’d had to level out floors here and there, the landing was no exception.
Not too much work but it did take some careful measuring to get it to all fit into place.
Finished off insulating between the joists upstairs (most of it had already been done)
Fitting the rest of the floor using my wonderful new mini-circular-saw to cut the sheets of Caberfloor.
Managed to do a couple of sheets downstairs too
Izzi, bed, robots, clean teeth, stories and bed.
Friday 25th November
Up, breakfast, jumped into car and a quick visit to the dentist.
£170 lighter and off to my folk’s to see my Mum.
My dad had been moved to a new place so we went shopping bought him a TV and took it to his new digs.
Jumped in my car to go home, reversed into someone who’s sneaked their car behind me as I was playing with my sat’ nav’
£200 lighter and off to folk’s again.
I’d had some skirting, architrave and mouldings delivered to my parent’s home so I visited, chopped it to size and loaded it into the car.
Headed home, unloaded the car
Pipe insulation
Insulating between joists upstaris
Finished off floor
,Did some domestic work and off to bed.
Saturday 26th November
Had my little ray of sunshine for the whole day
Sunday 27th November
Late up for the first time all week, nursing a bit of a vino hangover after watching Sing Street with a bottle of wine the previous night.
Finished off the floor downstairs with a flourish of circular sawing and impact driving.
And relax.