Well, that's all my bah-humbugging done for another year. Christmas is packed away, the New Year has swept the old aside and replaced it with something surprisingly similar.
I have enjoyed a multi-centre holiday. First I went to Birmingham to visit my Dad and meet up with my brother and his family and my cousin and her Husband. We enjoyed a splendid curry at the Shabar on the Coventry Road in Sheldon. This is blatant advertising but I make no apologies: the food is superb and the portions generous. Less enjoyable were the two nights I spent sleeping on cushions on Dad's floor.
On Christmas Eve, I drove to Worthing to be reunited with my Beloved who had been there for the previous five weeks to provide post-operative care for her Mum.
Christmas Day always has a certain ambivalence to it. On the one hand, there is anticipation of things wrapped up and, on the other, disappointment at things unwrapped. We do well to remember the real meaning of Christmas, which is never a let-down. Nevertheless, we enjoyed a good family time at my brother-in-law's.
I seem unable to escape DIY (or, from my father-in-law's perspective, GYSTDIFY - Get Your Son-in-law To Do It For You). The spring-loaded arm of my Outlaws' loft ladder was flapping about loose and I was asked if I could fix it. Of course I could. The platform it had been attached to had fallen apart and been re-assembled in a very strange and ineffective way. I had to dismantle and reconstruct it using screws instead of nails and the oldest set of tools known to man. Anyway, it now works perfectly.
My father-in-law had a couple of toilet problems ... 'Do I want to know,' you ask? I'm going to tell you anyway.
The first problem occurred after a short walk on Boxing Day and a visit to a public house to use the facilities. He went in and failed to come out for a considerable time. Since he is elderly and somewhat infirm, I went in to check he was still alive. There was no sign of him in the loo but my finely-honed skills of detection noticed that the WC door was closed; my enquiry into his well being brought a response that both confirmed my suspicions of his whereabouts and reassured me that all was well. I returned to the car and continued to wait ... Eventually, he emerged with the news that he had had a mishap (I will persist in telling you this story). The chain had come off in his hand and most of his absence had been spent trying (successfully, good for him) to reattach it.
The second problem arose later that day. After a visit to the bathroom back at home, he announced that the toilet seat had broken when he sat on it. More GYSTDIFY. As soon as B&Q re-opened, it fell to me to reupholster the Parental Throne.
My mother-in-law continued to make a good recovery from her heart surgery. We could measure her progress by the level of annoyance she expressed (and caused). When a woman is well enough to reassert herself in her own kitchen, she is well enough.
My Beloved and I saw in the New Year with a bottle of champagne (the Outlaws having gone to bed before midnight) and the London fireworks on the telly. New Year's resolutions? Nah. That would break the last one I ever made many years ago, which was never to make New Year's resolutions.
We packed up our car on Wednesday and headed back up-country to spend another night on Dad's floor and to eat all his delicious, home-made mince pies and seriously to deplete his sherry and whisky supplies by way of compensation for our lack of a proper bed. Then, on Thursday, it was home via Leeds.
During our time away, the neighbour who was keeping an eye on our house had called to tell us there had been a three-and-a-half hour power-cut on Christmas Day, and the internal sounder of our burglar alarm had been going off. It did so repeatedly, needing to be reset several times until our return. So, our New Year at home began with yet more DIY to rectify the fault, assisted by advice from my brother and a very good friend with a ladder.
We finished off our holiday with a trip to the cinema on Friday (The Life of Pi, in 3D) and an outing to the theatre in Keswick on Saturday (The Railway Children, at the end of which I almost blubbed).
And now I'm back at work and the holiday is drifting into the distant recesses of my memory. Oh well, only fifteen months to retirement ...
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
Showing posts with label DIY. Show all posts
08 January 2013
24 November 2012
Trouble with Holes
Well, it's been a long time since writing. Again. This time, I've been distracted with musical pursuits, plagued with writer's block and, no surprise, engaged in plenty of DIY.
Breaking my left wrist and right hand at the same time does not appear to have given me an excuse for not doing DIY. All that happened was it got delayed. That's the thing about DIY: it isn't DIY if someone else does it...
The first thing I had to do, once signed off the sick, was put in three new fence posts. At least I got to buy a new tool for the job: a narrow-bladed spade so the holes I dug didn't need a lorry-load of concrete. They were quite deep, however. Their narrowness made getting the final bit of dirt out difficult and I had to resort to lying on the ground, thrusting my arm down the hole and scooping out the soil with my hand. It occurred to me that in that position I had an entire planet in my armpit! Actually the soil was very sandy down there. It made me wonder what my house is built on... I thought my wrist would be bad the next day but my efforts seem to have done it some good. No more excuses then.
The next job was to put a new spur from the socket in our dining room through to the lounge. To gain the necessary access for drilling the holes needed, I had to knock out the wall at the back of the cupboard under the stairs. That part of our house was built in 1898 or thereabouts and all the walls are lath and plaster. I am still amazed how much dust can be generated from a piece of wall about 50cm square. Much to my Beloved's annoyance, I managed to fill every room on the ground floor with the stuff. Of course, the simple expedient of shutting the cupboard door whilst working would have avoided the problem but then I would have had to do the job in my scuba gear and that's not what it's for. Anyway, My Beloved wanted a socket and a socket she got. I have yet to see her use it...
The next task was beyond my abilities. We had talked a long time about restyling the lounge and getting rid of the ugly brick fireplace. We wanted to open up the hole and recess our log-burner. Chimneys are not something I know much about so we decided to employ a builder whose work we had seen in a neighbour's house. We vacated the lounge and camped in the dining room for three weeks. Our builder did a great job in the first of those, solving some very knotty problems along the way and also fitting a new radiator and yet another socket (!).
Then it was over to me. I had to fit a couple of skirting boards and paint everything in sight in time for our new carpet to be fitted. Of course, we had to let new plaster dry out before we could paint it, which is why we spent so long living in the dining room.
We had a new curtain pole to fit. I was quite surprised when my drill seemed to hit a space behind the plaster. I don't know what I was thinking about but I prodded the drill more firmly into hole, all the time wondering what was in the wall that could be so springy. At this point, my Beloved, who has an NVQ level I in Passing Screwdrivers, walked into the room and said, 'There aren't any wires to avoid there, are there? Only you're drilling right above the socket.'
Indeed I was. My drill was even plugged in at that socket. How my heart sank. I shone a light into the hole and discovered what was in the wall that was so springy. I saw a neat red circle with a neat copper-coloured bullseye. I hadn't gone right through the cable but I knew I would have to do something about it soon and it was likely to involve a lot of mess. In our pristine new lounge. Which would have a new carpet the next day. Bummer.
On the basis that we didn't run any high current devices on the ring main, I took the decision to leave the remedial work until my Beloved was away and would never have to see the mess.
Today was the day... I was hopeful that I could pull a new cable behind the plastic sheath in the wall but was worried I might have to channel out the wall, patch and repaint it all without wrecking the rest of the room.
Last night, my brother phoned. Now, it must be said, my brother is a excellent DIY-er and knows a lot more about it than I. Basically, he explained how to do the job. I am delighted to report his advice worked perfectly. There was one complication when I couldn't draw the cable down. I looked up at the wall and saw a line of damage about five inches long where the plaster had been broken off from the inside. I lifted the loose plaster away and found a large pimple in the sheath. I cut out a small area to reveal a lump of Polyfilla about the size of a (Bird's Eye) pea which was binding the cable. Once I removed that, the rest of the job was a doddle. I had made no mess, and only a small amount of patching with Polyfilla was needed. In the end, it took longer to reconnect the socket and join the cables in a junction box than it had to pull the cable through.
Thanks Bro. Respect.
Time, I think, for a celebratory single malt. Cheers!
Breaking my left wrist and right hand at the same time does not appear to have given me an excuse for not doing DIY. All that happened was it got delayed. That's the thing about DIY: it isn't DIY if someone else does it...
The first thing I had to do, once signed off the sick, was put in three new fence posts. At least I got to buy a new tool for the job: a narrow-bladed spade so the holes I dug didn't need a lorry-load of concrete. They were quite deep, however. Their narrowness made getting the final bit of dirt out difficult and I had to resort to lying on the ground, thrusting my arm down the hole and scooping out the soil with my hand. It occurred to me that in that position I had an entire planet in my armpit! Actually the soil was very sandy down there. It made me wonder what my house is built on... I thought my wrist would be bad the next day but my efforts seem to have done it some good. No more excuses then.
The next job was to put a new spur from the socket in our dining room through to the lounge. To gain the necessary access for drilling the holes needed, I had to knock out the wall at the back of the cupboard under the stairs. That part of our house was built in 1898 or thereabouts and all the walls are lath and plaster. I am still amazed how much dust can be generated from a piece of wall about 50cm square. Much to my Beloved's annoyance, I managed to fill every room on the ground floor with the stuff. Of course, the simple expedient of shutting the cupboard door whilst working would have avoided the problem but then I would have had to do the job in my scuba gear and that's not what it's for. Anyway, My Beloved wanted a socket and a socket she got. I have yet to see her use it...
The next task was beyond my abilities. We had talked a long time about restyling the lounge and getting rid of the ugly brick fireplace. We wanted to open up the hole and recess our log-burner. Chimneys are not something I know much about so we decided to employ a builder whose work we had seen in a neighbour's house. We vacated the lounge and camped in the dining room for three weeks. Our builder did a great job in the first of those, solving some very knotty problems along the way and also fitting a new radiator and yet another socket (!).
Then it was over to me. I had to fit a couple of skirting boards and paint everything in sight in time for our new carpet to be fitted. Of course, we had to let new plaster dry out before we could paint it, which is why we spent so long living in the dining room.
We had a new curtain pole to fit. I was quite surprised when my drill seemed to hit a space behind the plaster. I don't know what I was thinking about but I prodded the drill more firmly into hole, all the time wondering what was in the wall that could be so springy. At this point, my Beloved, who has an NVQ level I in Passing Screwdrivers, walked into the room and said, 'There aren't any wires to avoid there, are there? Only you're drilling right above the socket.'
Indeed I was. My drill was even plugged in at that socket. How my heart sank. I shone a light into the hole and discovered what was in the wall that was so springy. I saw a neat red circle with a neat copper-coloured bullseye. I hadn't gone right through the cable but I knew I would have to do something about it soon and it was likely to involve a lot of mess. In our pristine new lounge. Which would have a new carpet the next day. Bummer.
On the basis that we didn't run any high current devices on the ring main, I took the decision to leave the remedial work until my Beloved was away and would never have to see the mess.
Today was the day... I was hopeful that I could pull a new cable behind the plastic sheath in the wall but was worried I might have to channel out the wall, patch and repaint it all without wrecking the rest of the room.
Last night, my brother phoned. Now, it must be said, my brother is a excellent DIY-er and knows a lot more about it than I. Basically, he explained how to do the job. I am delighted to report his advice worked perfectly. There was one complication when I couldn't draw the cable down. I looked up at the wall and saw a line of damage about five inches long where the plaster had been broken off from the inside. I lifted the loose plaster away and found a large pimple in the sheath. I cut out a small area to reveal a lump of Polyfilla about the size of a (Bird's Eye) pea which was binding the cable. Once I removed that, the rest of the job was a doddle. I had made no mess, and only a small amount of patching with Polyfilla was needed. In the end, it took longer to reconnect the socket and join the cables in a junction box than it had to pull the cable through.
Thanks Bro. Respect.
Time, I think, for a celebratory single malt. Cheers!
12 November 2011
DIY - How to Fall Out of the Loft
We have decided to decorate the hallway. It should be easy because the hallway is a very small space. Needless to say, nothing is ever easy. It's complicated by virtue of the fact that I am married to a woman.
My Beloved wants new flooring, and I have to admit that the laminate flooring left by the house's previous owner is less than exciting. She also wanted a socket in the hallway (there having not been one up to now) and downlighters instead of a pendant light; all this in addition to new wallpaper and a lick of paint.
The socket got done on Thursday evening. This was surprisingly easy. The hallway is in the modern, single-storey extension of the house. Consequently, the internal walls are hollow and faced with plasterboard, much easier to work with than the lath-and-plaster construction in the old part of the house. The loft space above the extension has easy-to-find power cables, and so the obvious way to fit the socket was to drop a spur through the wall from above. This was all achieved with a couple of small holes needed to get past horizontal woodwork inside the wall, and only one hole drilled from above into the wrong room. The second attempt found the inside of the wall easily.
Today, I did the downlighters. The main problem with this job was having to clear junk from the loft so I could lift the boarding that lay over the area where one of the new lights was to go. I had already planned the job itself and bought the necessary fittings and additional tools on the way home on Thursday. Actually installing the lights was straightforward. The cutter I had bought made very simple the job of covering myself with plaster dust. Connecting wiring is always fiddly - there never seems to be enough room in a junction box. I dare say that electricians find it easy, having the benefit of plenty of practice, but for even the gifted amateur that I am it is a time-consuming, fiddly annoyance made worse by always being in a confined space. Connecting lighting units, their being overhead, also plays havoc with my neck and shoulders.
Anyway, all went well, and the final task was to make sure that the new lighting units were ventilated and not covered by loft insulation. Again, this was an easy task, and I had even remembered to buy (and wear) a mask to keep dust and insulation fibres out of my lungs.
Now we come to the highlight of the event. Crawling around between joists and roof bracing is a clumsy pass-time when you've been working for several hours and have forgotten to stop for lunch. One objective is to avoid placing one's foot in the room below by passing it through the plasterboard ceiling. In attempting to avoid the aforementioned disaster (successfully, I say now in an attempt to spare you any stress), I reached out to grasp a bookcase for support. This bookcase is normally nailed to the rafters but I had had to move it to get to the ceiling and, at this point in the proceedings, it was free-standing and unwilling to take my weight. Consequently, I found myself undertaking an unplanned lateral transition. In an attempt to arrest my fall, I stepped out only to find that my foot was on the less than firm support rendered by the open loft hatch. Had I not fitted a loft ladder when we moved into the house, I may well have fallen all the way to the floor below. As it happens, my concession to the influence of gravity was somewhat truncated, and I ended up half in and half out of the loft, having bent my thumb back during my flight, bashed my side against the rim of the hatchway, and clonked my right knee on the ladder for whose presence I heaved a hearty thanks heavenwards.
I decided that enough was enough and, since the actual job was done, I would reorganise the loft tomorrow and just tidy up the mess I had made down below.
Tomorrow, after a night's sleep has provided chance for the aches and bruises to set in, I will probably discover just how much damage I have done myself...
Meanwhile, I will attempt to allay the pain by use of muscle-relaxant in the form of a Cumberland Ale or two, and any other such medication that may be within reach...
My Beloved wants new flooring, and I have to admit that the laminate flooring left by the house's previous owner is less than exciting. She also wanted a socket in the hallway (there having not been one up to now) and downlighters instead of a pendant light; all this in addition to new wallpaper and a lick of paint.
The socket got done on Thursday evening. This was surprisingly easy. The hallway is in the modern, single-storey extension of the house. Consequently, the internal walls are hollow and faced with plasterboard, much easier to work with than the lath-and-plaster construction in the old part of the house. The loft space above the extension has easy-to-find power cables, and so the obvious way to fit the socket was to drop a spur through the wall from above. This was all achieved with a couple of small holes needed to get past horizontal woodwork inside the wall, and only one hole drilled from above into the wrong room. The second attempt found the inside of the wall easily.
Today, I did the downlighters. The main problem with this job was having to clear junk from the loft so I could lift the boarding that lay over the area where one of the new lights was to go. I had already planned the job itself and bought the necessary fittings and additional tools on the way home on Thursday. Actually installing the lights was straightforward. The cutter I had bought made very simple the job of covering myself with plaster dust. Connecting wiring is always fiddly - there never seems to be enough room in a junction box. I dare say that electricians find it easy, having the benefit of plenty of practice, but for even the gifted amateur that I am it is a time-consuming, fiddly annoyance made worse by always being in a confined space. Connecting lighting units, their being overhead, also plays havoc with my neck and shoulders.
Anyway, all went well, and the final task was to make sure that the new lighting units were ventilated and not covered by loft insulation. Again, this was an easy task, and I had even remembered to buy (and wear) a mask to keep dust and insulation fibres out of my lungs.
Now we come to the highlight of the event. Crawling around between joists and roof bracing is a clumsy pass-time when you've been working for several hours and have forgotten to stop for lunch. One objective is to avoid placing one's foot in the room below by passing it through the plasterboard ceiling. In attempting to avoid the aforementioned disaster (successfully, I say now in an attempt to spare you any stress), I reached out to grasp a bookcase for support. This bookcase is normally nailed to the rafters but I had had to move it to get to the ceiling and, at this point in the proceedings, it was free-standing and unwilling to take my weight. Consequently, I found myself undertaking an unplanned lateral transition. In an attempt to arrest my fall, I stepped out only to find that my foot was on the less than firm support rendered by the open loft hatch. Had I not fitted a loft ladder when we moved into the house, I may well have fallen all the way to the floor below. As it happens, my concession to the influence of gravity was somewhat truncated, and I ended up half in and half out of the loft, having bent my thumb back during my flight, bashed my side against the rim of the hatchway, and clonked my right knee on the ladder for whose presence I heaved a hearty thanks heavenwards.
I decided that enough was enough and, since the actual job was done, I would reorganise the loft tomorrow and just tidy up the mess I had made down below.
Tomorrow, after a night's sleep has provided chance for the aches and bruises to set in, I will probably discover just how much damage I have done myself...
Meanwhile, I will attempt to allay the pain by use of muscle-relaxant in the form of a Cumberland Ale or two, and any other such medication that may be within reach...
30 October 2011
DIY - Money Down the Drain
Well, I owe B&Q an apology. In my previous post I implied that they were less than helpful. I retract that accusation and apologise unreservedly.
We have a condensing combi boiler. For those of you who may not know what that is, the combi bit means it produces heat for the central heating system and hot water on demand, with the consequence that one has no need of combination thermal underwear when indoors. The system needs neither a hot water reservoir tank nor a cold water header tank. The condensing bit means that its efficiency is improved by using a heat exchanger in the exhaust gases from the burners to scour heat that would otherwise be wasted on the atmosphere. This means that I make better use of the calories in the LPG we have to use where we live, and as a result have a smaller carbon footprint. A side-effect of the heat exchanger is that water vapour in the exhaust condenses, hence the term.
This condensate is not really any use for anything as other substances from the exhaust are dissolved in it. It has to be piped away to a convenient drain. At our house, the condensate pipe passes through the wall at boiler height and then drops about 1.5m to the drain. Normally, this works fine but our last two winters have been cold enough to freeze the condensate on its extremely long and exposed journey to the drain, thus blocking the pipe. Herein lay my problem. Once the pipe is blocked, the boiler stops working. To get the boiler going again, you have to boil kettlesful of water and pour it over the pipe to remove the blockage. This is, of course, only a temporary solution, one that is reversed on the next cold snap.
One more useful solution would be to route the pipe inside the house and into a larger outflow, such as from the kitchen sink. That had been my intention but the position of the breakfast bar and other kitchen units made the task impossible without dismantling the kitchen. Since the kitchen cost me 8 grand I did not feel like wrecking it.
Another solution was to make permanent a temporary measure I had adopted last winter (and which seemed to work) in a desperate attempt to avoid boiler shut-down: lagging the pipe. Hence my visit to B&Q.
I had hoped to find some pipe lagging that was made specially for the job, unlike the only stuff that was left in B&Q last winter, when everyone else was having the same problem and the same idea. Unfortunately, it turned out that the pipe is of a larger diameter than anything B&Q stocks insulation for. This is not a fault on their part; I don't think anyone would have it. So, I spoke to an assistant in the insulation aisle, explaining my problem. I mentioned that the only option I thought I had was to box the pipe in and fill the boxing with loft insulation or some such material. 'Which would be the best?' I asked.
'Don't do anything with wood,' he said, 'or you'll have to weather-proof it. Use some square-section electrical conduit. It's PVC and you can screw it to the wall and fill it with lagging.'
Brilliant idea! Only problem was, B&Q's example of square-section electrical conduit was only about half the size I needed. The assistant told me where a couple of electrical wholesalers could be found. Very helpful. Thank you, whoever you were.
I found a wholesaler nearer to home than the assistant had suggested. I acquired a 3m length of 75mm square conduit (only 1.7m of which was necessary) and stood it in the back garden for a couple of weeks. That was not a necessary part of the job. It just resulted from having other things to be done, bad weather and procrastination, a skill which I perform to a remarkably high level of expertise.
Anyway, today saw me with time and opportunity to get the job done. I'd already spent a few days fretting about how to cap the end of the conduit to keep precipitation out (rain, snow, fallout from the local children's water cannons), with schemes involving self-tapping screws and cuts at various cunning angles. However, this morning as I lay in bed procrastinating (I'll thank you not to snigger at this point) I realised that I had in my toolbox a remarkable adhesive called 'Pipe Weld' for PVC pipes which would make it remarkably easy to fix in place angle brackets and an end cap fabricated from the excess length of PVC conduit.
To cut a long story short, having avoiding cutting the conduit too short, the whole venture went off exceedingly well for a total cost of around £33. The pipe is now nicely encapsulated in square-section electrical conduit. It is not yet packed with insulation as it started raining while I was buying loft insulation at B&Q. I need dry weather when installing that to give it the best chance of working. Then I have to paint the shiny white conduit black so that it blends in with other external pipework and ceases to lower the tone of the neighbourhood.
Maybe tomorrow...
We have a condensing combi boiler. For those of you who may not know what that is, the combi bit means it produces heat for the central heating system and hot water on demand, with the consequence that one has no need of combination thermal underwear when indoors. The system needs neither a hot water reservoir tank nor a cold water header tank. The condensing bit means that its efficiency is improved by using a heat exchanger in the exhaust gases from the burners to scour heat that would otherwise be wasted on the atmosphere. This means that I make better use of the calories in the LPG we have to use where we live, and as a result have a smaller carbon footprint. A side-effect of the heat exchanger is that water vapour in the exhaust condenses, hence the term.
This condensate is not really any use for anything as other substances from the exhaust are dissolved in it. It has to be piped away to a convenient drain. At our house, the condensate pipe passes through the wall at boiler height and then drops about 1.5m to the drain. Normally, this works fine but our last two winters have been cold enough to freeze the condensate on its extremely long and exposed journey to the drain, thus blocking the pipe. Herein lay my problem. Once the pipe is blocked, the boiler stops working. To get the boiler going again, you have to boil kettlesful of water and pour it over the pipe to remove the blockage. This is, of course, only a temporary solution, one that is reversed on the next cold snap.
One more useful solution would be to route the pipe inside the house and into a larger outflow, such as from the kitchen sink. That had been my intention but the position of the breakfast bar and other kitchen units made the task impossible without dismantling the kitchen. Since the kitchen cost me 8 grand I did not feel like wrecking it.
Another solution was to make permanent a temporary measure I had adopted last winter (and which seemed to work) in a desperate attempt to avoid boiler shut-down: lagging the pipe. Hence my visit to B&Q.
I had hoped to find some pipe lagging that was made specially for the job, unlike the only stuff that was left in B&Q last winter, when everyone else was having the same problem and the same idea. Unfortunately, it turned out that the pipe is of a larger diameter than anything B&Q stocks insulation for. This is not a fault on their part; I don't think anyone would have it. So, I spoke to an assistant in the insulation aisle, explaining my problem. I mentioned that the only option I thought I had was to box the pipe in and fill the boxing with loft insulation or some such material. 'Which would be the best?' I asked.
'Don't do anything with wood,' he said, 'or you'll have to weather-proof it. Use some square-section electrical conduit. It's PVC and you can screw it to the wall and fill it with lagging.'
Brilliant idea! Only problem was, B&Q's example of square-section electrical conduit was only about half the size I needed. The assistant told me where a couple of electrical wholesalers could be found. Very helpful. Thank you, whoever you were.
I found a wholesaler nearer to home than the assistant had suggested. I acquired a 3m length of 75mm square conduit (only 1.7m of which was necessary) and stood it in the back garden for a couple of weeks. That was not a necessary part of the job. It just resulted from having other things to be done, bad weather and procrastination, a skill which I perform to a remarkably high level of expertise.
Anyway, today saw me with time and opportunity to get the job done. I'd already spent a few days fretting about how to cap the end of the conduit to keep precipitation out (rain, snow, fallout from the local children's water cannons), with schemes involving self-tapping screws and cuts at various cunning angles. However, this morning as I lay in bed procrastinating (I'll thank you not to snigger at this point) I realised that I had in my toolbox a remarkable adhesive called 'Pipe Weld' for PVC pipes which would make it remarkably easy to fix in place angle brackets and an end cap fabricated from the excess length of PVC conduit.
To cut a long story short, having avoiding cutting the conduit too short, the whole venture went off exceedingly well for a total cost of around £33. The pipe is now nicely encapsulated in square-section electrical conduit. It is not yet packed with insulation as it started raining while I was buying loft insulation at B&Q. I need dry weather when installing that to give it the best chance of working. Then I have to paint the shiny white conduit black so that it blends in with other external pipework and ceases to lower the tone of the neighbourhood.
Maybe tomorrow...
17 August 2011
Green DIY with Soot and Tuna Flakes
We have a log-burning stove in our lounge. It's a great and green way to keep warm in the winter. We have a chimney that handles the exhaust from the stove and is a very successful carbon-capture facility, judging by the amount of soot that gathers up it.
Chimneys being what they are, they have to be swept regularly, at least every other year, in an attempt to avoid burning the house down. There is a metal sheet behind the stove that seals off the chimney from the lounge. The flue from the stove passes through this sheet and the sweep has to pass his brushes through the flue to do his job. An unfortunate consequence of this is that much of the dislodged soot misses the sweep's vacuum cleaner nozzle and is prevented from completing its plummet to the centre of the Earth only by the floor of the hearth that lies lies out of reach behind the sheet.
Over the five years that we have lived here, we have had the chimney swept twice. Goodness knows how many times it has been swept since it was constructed in 1985. I suspect that the space behind the sheet could be almost full. Last time he was here, the sweep suggested I make a two-inch hole at the bottom of the sheet so he can get the nozzle of his vacuum cleaner in and remove such errant detritus (I paraphrase; whether he is that erudite or not I cannot say).
'Tis once more the chimney-sweeping season, and so I decided to act upon the necessity drawn to my attention of excavating said hole in the sheet. Since I do not possess a two-inch drill or other conveniently-sized boring contraption capable of cutting metal, I set about the process in the following manner.
Seeing that I was searching for something, the lady behind the counter asked what I wanted. I explained I wanted a blanking plate and she showed me the plastic electrical blanking plates that the shop carried. I explained what it was for and that the heat from the stove precluded the use of plastic. Undaunted, she said, 'Why not use the lid of a tin can?'
I must confess to being bowled over at the sheer brilliance and creativeness of this idea. I bought a small pack of the self-tapping screws I would need to fix the lid in place and hurried home to find a tin lid in the recycling bin. Had I gone to B&Q, I may have been told that there might be something three-quarters of the way down Aisle 473 on the right hand side, or that such a thing was not available, or one could be ordered for a week next Thursday.
Unfortunately, the baked bean tin lid at the bottom of the recycling bin was not large enough to cover the hole and still have room to drill holes for the fixing screws. Fortunately, the tin of Asda savers tuna flakes in the cupboard was exactly the right size. Furthermore, we had a small 'Tupperware' container (I use the name in a generic sense akin to the use of 'Hoover'; a Dyson is, of course, a Hoover) that was the right size to hold the contents of the tin that was to be sacrificed, thus ensuring that Monday's sandwiches would not be rancid.
All that remained to be done, after removing the lid from its can, was to punch two clearance holes in the lid to allow the shanks of the self-tapping screws to pass through, drill two corresponding interference-fit holes in the metal sheet in which the screws would find a firm grip, and fix the now recycled erstwhile tin lid in place in its new role as a blanking plate.
Job done!
Chimneys being what they are, they have to be swept regularly, at least every other year, in an attempt to avoid burning the house down. There is a metal sheet behind the stove that seals off the chimney from the lounge. The flue from the stove passes through this sheet and the sweep has to pass his brushes through the flue to do his job. An unfortunate consequence of this is that much of the dislodged soot misses the sweep's vacuum cleaner nozzle and is prevented from completing its plummet to the centre of the Earth only by the floor of the hearth that lies lies out of reach behind the sheet.
Over the five years that we have lived here, we have had the chimney swept twice. Goodness knows how many times it has been swept since it was constructed in 1985. I suspect that the space behind the sheet could be almost full. Last time he was here, the sweep suggested I make a two-inch hole at the bottom of the sheet so he can get the nozzle of his vacuum cleaner in and remove such errant detritus (I paraphrase; whether he is that erudite or not I cannot say).
'Tis once more the chimney-sweeping season, and so I decided to act upon the necessity drawn to my attention of excavating said hole in the sheet. Since I do not possess a two-inch drill or other conveniently-sized boring contraption capable of cutting metal, I set about the process in the following manner.
- Drew, near the bottom of the metal sheet, a circle around the lid of an old fish food pot which happened to be about the right size (and which now acts as a holder for drill bits).
- Using one of the small drill bits from the fish food pot, drilled a series of holes around the circle drawn in step 1.
- Using a larger drill bit from the fish food pot, enlarged the holes made in step 2, so that at least some of them overlapped to make a slot.
- Decided which end of a junior hacksaw blade to hold (the proximal end).
- Wrapped the proximal end of the junior hacksaw blade with insulation tape so that it would not cut a hole in my palm during the next operation.
- Pushed the other (distal) end of the junior hacksaw blade through a slot made in step 3 and sawed through the metal that remained intact between the holes.
- Removed the metal disc now released from its former location in the sheet of metal.
- Swept up the pile of soot that fell through the hole now in the metal sheet.
Seeing that I was searching for something, the lady behind the counter asked what I wanted. I explained I wanted a blanking plate and she showed me the plastic electrical blanking plates that the shop carried. I explained what it was for and that the heat from the stove precluded the use of plastic. Undaunted, she said, 'Why not use the lid of a tin can?'
I must confess to being bowled over at the sheer brilliance and creativeness of this idea. I bought a small pack of the self-tapping screws I would need to fix the lid in place and hurried home to find a tin lid in the recycling bin. Had I gone to B&Q, I may have been told that there might be something three-quarters of the way down Aisle 473 on the right hand side, or that such a thing was not available, or one could be ordered for a week next Thursday.
Unfortunately, the baked bean tin lid at the bottom of the recycling bin was not large enough to cover the hole and still have room to drill holes for the fixing screws. Fortunately, the tin of Asda savers tuna flakes in the cupboard was exactly the right size. Furthermore, we had a small 'Tupperware' container (I use the name in a generic sense akin to the use of 'Hoover'; a Dyson is, of course, a Hoover) that was the right size to hold the contents of the tin that was to be sacrificed, thus ensuring that Monday's sandwiches would not be rancid.
All that remained to be done, after removing the lid from its can, was to punch two clearance holes in the lid to allow the shanks of the self-tapping screws to pass through, drill two corresponding interference-fit holes in the metal sheet in which the screws would find a firm grip, and fix the now recycled erstwhile tin lid in place in its new role as a blanking plate.
Job done!
13 March 2011
On the Inevitability of DIY
I am knackered. Almost too tired to write. It is only the joy at having finished (well, almost) the latest DIY adventure that affords me the motivation to write this post, which I offer in explanation as to why I have not posted much of late.
My Beloved thought it was time to decorate the stairs and landing, and who am I to contradict...
Now, normally, decorating is not that big a problem, other than having to expend effort in the doing of it. Having grown up in a household that did its own decorating, I learnt by osmosis how to hang wallpaper and to paint. I also had an uncle who was a meticulous (and master) decorator, if somewhat slow as a consequence. Thanks to his and my father's contributions to my Painter and Decorator's training, there is no decorating problem I would lack the confidence to tackle (in a normal private dwelling house, that is: Buckingham Palace is probably a little beyond me).
The old part of our house was built in 1898, or thereabouts, a fact which confers upon it high ceilings. Very high ceilings, especially on the stairs; 5.2m to be exact. Problem number one: my step ladders are nowhere near long enough.
The walls were covered in anaglypta wallpaper which would have to be removed to achieve the effect my Beloved had in mind. In a house this old, anaglypta is often used to cover up defective wall surfaces. Furthermore, the top layer of plaster, having been on the walls for 113 years, was likely to be equivocal over the question of whether it should stay with the wall or the wallpaper. I experienced a similar problem in a house that was built in 1930 and so imagined the worst as the only possible outcome. Problem number two: my plastering skills are limited.
The solution to these two problems, and my reluctance (as perceived by my Beloved) to do the work, was to give them to someone else. I agreed and suggested she obtain a couple of quotes. This she duly did. The first quote was £560; the second, £630. Additionally, we intended to carpet the stairs (currently bare) and the likely cost of that was over £400.
Now, the current economic climate is not conducive to the outlay of large amounts of cash. Around £1000, for us, is a large amount of cash. It is not that the decorators' quotes were unreasonable: these guys have to earn a living. It's just that, in our circumstances, it was more than we could afford. My beloved and I had the same thought: it would be cheaper to hire a ladder.
And so the decision was made that we (a much misused personal pronoun, in my experience) would do the job ourselves. Should have known better. If someone else could do it, it wouldn't be DIY.
A previous necessity (the installation of a shower) had given me some hope that the wall may be able to hold on to much of its plaster. Fortunately, this proved to be the case, even under the force of my Beloved's assault with steam-stripper and scraper. A few bits came off here and there but nothing beyond my limited knowledge of the black art of plastering.
As to scaling the heights, my beloved did what she could whilst retaining intimate contact with floor and stairs, and I ventured as high as my steps would take me. As for the parts that were out of reach...
I looked up tool hire firms but wondered how I would find time to get the work done within the hire period. I considered buying an adequate ladder but had no room to store one that would be useful for any other jobs (like clearing gutters). Then I had a brainwave! Borrow one from a neighbour!
Fortunately for me, my neighbour was very willing to lend me his ladder, and work took on a more deliberate tone.
The first weekend was spent getting off the huge amount of hitherto unreachable paper, re-sticking the ceiling paper that had sweated off in the sauna from the steam-stripper and then painting it, and patching the plasterwork.
The second weekend was spent hanging lining paper; I climbed the ladders and hung the paper, my Beloved pasted, needing only one reminder about making sure the edges of the paper got enough paste.
We were to paint most of the walls and paper only one of them. The wall that was to be papered needed the lining to be hung horizontally, a new and exciting encounter with gravity. Had Sir Isaac Newton done his own decorating instead of spending his time sitting about in apple orchards, he may have discovered gravity earlier in his career...
'I've never pasted paper that way round before,' joked my beloved.
'Don't be silly,' said I, 'Just turn the table round.'
At this point in the process, my father-in-law had a stroke. My Beloved flew off to his side and, suddenly, I really am doing it myself...
I spent last weekend applying two coats of paint to the lining paper. Thereafter, I could return the ladder to my neighbour, which I did with grateful thanks.
Over several ensuing evenings, I rubbed down and applied two coats of primer/undercoat to cover very dark maroon paint on the sides of the stairs, and then what would turn out to be the first top-coat on all the woodwork, including six panelled doors.
This weekend, this Saturday, in fact, I applied a second top coat to all the woodwork and hung wallpaper on the accent wall. Finished! Phew!
Finished, apart from the worst part of every job: clearing up. Oh, and I have new lights and switches to install. I did some clearing up today. More tomorrow.
Of course, throughout the entire process I've also been holding down a full-time job, and glad of the rest!
I'm pleased to report that my father-in-law has made a good recovery, and that my Beloved returns tomorrow to a finished DIY project. All she has to do is clean the house I messed up while she's been away, and restock the fridge whose contents I've depleted to the point of near famine conditions.
I don't mind DIY, except for the bits I have to do myself...
My Beloved thought it was time to decorate the stairs and landing, and who am I to contradict...
Now, normally, decorating is not that big a problem, other than having to expend effort in the doing of it. Having grown up in a household that did its own decorating, I learnt by osmosis how to hang wallpaper and to paint. I also had an uncle who was a meticulous (and master) decorator, if somewhat slow as a consequence. Thanks to his and my father's contributions to my Painter and Decorator's training, there is no decorating problem I would lack the confidence to tackle (in a normal private dwelling house, that is: Buckingham Palace is probably a little beyond me).
The old part of our house was built in 1898, or thereabouts, a fact which confers upon it high ceilings. Very high ceilings, especially on the stairs; 5.2m to be exact. Problem number one: my step ladders are nowhere near long enough.
The walls were covered in anaglypta wallpaper which would have to be removed to achieve the effect my Beloved had in mind. In a house this old, anaglypta is often used to cover up defective wall surfaces. Furthermore, the top layer of plaster, having been on the walls for 113 years, was likely to be equivocal over the question of whether it should stay with the wall or the wallpaper. I experienced a similar problem in a house that was built in 1930 and so imagined the worst as the only possible outcome. Problem number two: my plastering skills are limited.
The solution to these two problems, and my reluctance (as perceived by my Beloved) to do the work, was to give them to someone else. I agreed and suggested she obtain a couple of quotes. This she duly did. The first quote was £560; the second, £630. Additionally, we intended to carpet the stairs (currently bare) and the likely cost of that was over £400.
Now, the current economic climate is not conducive to the outlay of large amounts of cash. Around £1000, for us, is a large amount of cash. It is not that the decorators' quotes were unreasonable: these guys have to earn a living. It's just that, in our circumstances, it was more than we could afford. My beloved and I had the same thought: it would be cheaper to hire a ladder.
And so the decision was made that we (a much misused personal pronoun, in my experience) would do the job ourselves. Should have known better. If someone else could do it, it wouldn't be DIY.
A previous necessity (the installation of a shower) had given me some hope that the wall may be able to hold on to much of its plaster. Fortunately, this proved to be the case, even under the force of my Beloved's assault with steam-stripper and scraper. A few bits came off here and there but nothing beyond my limited knowledge of the black art of plastering.
As to scaling the heights, my beloved did what she could whilst retaining intimate contact with floor and stairs, and I ventured as high as my steps would take me. As for the parts that were out of reach...
I looked up tool hire firms but wondered how I would find time to get the work done within the hire period. I considered buying an adequate ladder but had no room to store one that would be useful for any other jobs (like clearing gutters). Then I had a brainwave! Borrow one from a neighbour!
Fortunately for me, my neighbour was very willing to lend me his ladder, and work took on a more deliberate tone.
The first weekend was spent getting off the huge amount of hitherto unreachable paper, re-sticking the ceiling paper that had sweated off in the sauna from the steam-stripper and then painting it, and patching the plasterwork.
The second weekend was spent hanging lining paper; I climbed the ladders and hung the paper, my Beloved pasted, needing only one reminder about making sure the edges of the paper got enough paste.
We were to paint most of the walls and paper only one of them. The wall that was to be papered needed the lining to be hung horizontally, a new and exciting encounter with gravity. Had Sir Isaac Newton done his own decorating instead of spending his time sitting about in apple orchards, he may have discovered gravity earlier in his career...
'I've never pasted paper that way round before,' joked my beloved.
'Don't be silly,' said I, 'Just turn the table round.'
At this point in the process, my father-in-law had a stroke. My Beloved flew off to his side and, suddenly, I really am doing it myself...
I spent last weekend applying two coats of paint to the lining paper. Thereafter, I could return the ladder to my neighbour, which I did with grateful thanks.
Over several ensuing evenings, I rubbed down and applied two coats of primer/undercoat to cover very dark maroon paint on the sides of the stairs, and then what would turn out to be the first top-coat on all the woodwork, including six panelled doors.
This weekend, this Saturday, in fact, I applied a second top coat to all the woodwork and hung wallpaper on the accent wall. Finished! Phew!
Finished, apart from the worst part of every job: clearing up. Oh, and I have new lights and switches to install. I did some clearing up today. More tomorrow.
Of course, throughout the entire process I've also been holding down a full-time job, and glad of the rest!
I'm pleased to report that my father-in-law has made a good recovery, and that my Beloved returns tomorrow to a finished DIY project. All she has to do is clean the house I messed up while she's been away, and restock the fridge whose contents I've depleted to the point of near famine conditions.
I don't mind DIY, except for the bits I have to do myself...
10 January 2011
Another Adventure in DIY: Undoing What I Did Myself
Our downstairs toilet has been a little on the sluggish side for a while now, sometimes requiring many more than one flush to avoid offending its subsequent users. Yesterday, it decided it had taken enough of our crap and refused to work. Fortunately, its strike-action, which amounted to filling up on flushing and only very slowly emptying itself, was instigated without vast quantities of unsightly contents in view. Unfortunately, no amount of coercion could force it to cooperate. It looked like time to get the drain-rods out.
On arriving home from work today, I kitted myself out with old clothes, overalls, wellies and rubber gloves and then, dreading what I might find, I lifted the inspection hatch. On the up side, the very obvious blockage just happened to be where the drain ran into the inspection chamber and it looked like I wouldn't need to use the drain-rods (or clean them afterwards). On the down side, there was a great wad of poop and paper lodged behind the piece of loose concrete that had given rise to the offence, and I was going have to get my hands in there.
I'm not sure what we will do if supermarkets and department stores abandon the use of plastic bags completely. I used one to line my bucket so as to avoid having to clean it, and one on each hand as an extra barrier between skin and dwang. I reached into the drain and transferred one large, double-handed scoop of poop into my bucket, and then a second. There was a third but it must have taken fright because it broke free and slithered away along the drain and out of sight. I had my beloved running up and down the stairs flushing both toilets to make sure that the fleeing dollop made it all the way to its demise in the septic tank without getting lodged anywhere else.
Satisfied that the blockage was cleared, I replaced the hatch, changed out of my still-clean protective garments, and washed my hands several times, just in case. Purely as a precaution against anything noxious I may have inadvertently ingested, I disinfected my inner self with a couple of glasses of red wine and a shot of Glenmorangie.
The facility has now been restored to normal service, having being tested fully...
On arriving home from work today, I kitted myself out with old clothes, overalls, wellies and rubber gloves and then, dreading what I might find, I lifted the inspection hatch. On the up side, the very obvious blockage just happened to be where the drain ran into the inspection chamber and it looked like I wouldn't need to use the drain-rods (or clean them afterwards). On the down side, there was a great wad of poop and paper lodged behind the piece of loose concrete that had given rise to the offence, and I was going have to get my hands in there.
I'm not sure what we will do if supermarkets and department stores abandon the use of plastic bags completely. I used one to line my bucket so as to avoid having to clean it, and one on each hand as an extra barrier between skin and dwang. I reached into the drain and transferred one large, double-handed scoop of poop into my bucket, and then a second. There was a third but it must have taken fright because it broke free and slithered away along the drain and out of sight. I had my beloved running up and down the stairs flushing both toilets to make sure that the fleeing dollop made it all the way to its demise in the septic tank without getting lodged anywhere else.
Satisfied that the blockage was cleared, I replaced the hatch, changed out of my still-clean protective garments, and washed my hands several times, just in case. Purely as a precaution against anything noxious I may have inadvertently ingested, I disinfected my inner self with a couple of glasses of red wine and a shot of Glenmorangie.
The facility has now been restored to normal service, having being tested fully...
31 August 2010
Another Perfect Bank Holiday
I woke up this morning feeling flat. Why I woke up in that mood I don't really know. I had had a dream that was clearly stress-related but cannot remember what it was about. It may be something to do with anxiety about my dog's terminal illness and the decision I will soon have to make. It may just be that I hadn't slept well for the last two nights, having been away from home for the first of them or recovering from DIY in a cramped loft-space prior to the second. It may be the result of an extended episode of boredom with work. Whatever the cause of it, I just woke up feeling that I could not be bothered. With anything. Ever again.
Of course, I had to be bothered. It was my turn to get up and walk the dog. The slight improvement in his condition almost made dragging myself out of bed, taking him out and picking up his poo feel worthwhile but any such benefit was countered by the miserably cold and grey August weather. Back at home, I managed to make mugs of tea for my beloved and me, and then immersed myself in one of Jeremy Clarkson's books for an hour or so. I even managed to find amusement in some of it. Then my beloved needed her breakfast, and the dog needed another wee.
Despite wanting to spend the day curled in a ball under my duvet, I managed to transport a car-full of garden waste to the local tip, to clean the inside of the car so that it no longer looked like a builder's pick-up truck, take the dog out for his favourite pass-time of swimming in the river, and replace the CRT monitor on my desktop computer with a space-saving LCD device. The sun also shone for an hour or so this afternoon, and I was able to give Mr Clarkson a little more attention whilst exposing my hypothalamus to mood-enhancing rays.
I realised whilst driving home this evening with our Chinese take-away that I still felt pretty crappy - interesting how toilet analogies inform the description of low moods - a bit like after a migraine. The dog wasn't feeling too good either, having overdone it on the river bank, and needed extra medication. He, at least, is more settled now.
Actually, my mood must have improved or I would not have felt like writing this. Perhaps I find some perverse pleasure in being able to inflict my misery on the entire Internet - or at least on the one or two people who persist in reading my blogs. Had I tried to write this earlier in the day I would not have had the will to fini
Of course, I had to be bothered. It was my turn to get up and walk the dog. The slight improvement in his condition almost made dragging myself out of bed, taking him out and picking up his poo feel worthwhile but any such benefit was countered by the miserably cold and grey August weather. Back at home, I managed to make mugs of tea for my beloved and me, and then immersed myself in one of Jeremy Clarkson's books for an hour or so. I even managed to find amusement in some of it. Then my beloved needed her breakfast, and the dog needed another wee.
Despite wanting to spend the day curled in a ball under my duvet, I managed to transport a car-full of garden waste to the local tip, to clean the inside of the car so that it no longer looked like a builder's pick-up truck, take the dog out for his favourite pass-time of swimming in the river, and replace the CRT monitor on my desktop computer with a space-saving LCD device. The sun also shone for an hour or so this afternoon, and I was able to give Mr Clarkson a little more attention whilst exposing my hypothalamus to mood-enhancing rays.
I realised whilst driving home this evening with our Chinese take-away that I still felt pretty crappy - interesting how toilet analogies inform the description of low moods - a bit like after a migraine. The dog wasn't feeling too good either, having overdone it on the river bank, and needed extra medication. He, at least, is more settled now.
Actually, my mood must have improved or I would not have felt like writing this. Perhaps I find some perverse pleasure in being able to inflict my misery on the entire Internet - or at least on the one or two people who persist in reading my blogs. Had I tried to write this earlier in the day I would not have had the will to fini
10 August 2010
On Building a Patio
Our garden, when we bought our house, had a brick- and stone-built barbecue in it. After four years, I realised that it was listing increasingly to starboard. The corner of the garden is higher than the surrounding ground, so my suspicion was that the garden was subsiding.
Since my beloved and I are not ardent barbecuers, I suggested that I knock down the structure, and then investigate and rectify the problem. I suspected I would have to dig down to the surrounding level and build a retaining wall, then back-fill the wall and lay out a new flower bed. A fairly straightforward task.
'Oh,' said my beloved, 'if you are getting rid of the barbecue we could have a summer house there.' It is truly wondrous how so simple a statement can can have such far-reaching consequences...
A summer house, of course, is a structure. A structure needs something to stand on. Something large enough and, since we would not want to replace a lopsided barbecue with a lopsided summer house, something level. So now I had to build a patio. I still had to build the retaining wall as above but also
The next set of problems were beyond my control. I got the retaining wall built but had to stop short of expiring because of the heat. I also struggled with the mortar mix. How on earth do people build houses with that stuff? The following weekend, too much rain proved to be an obstacle (weather is a great problem for outdoor work). Having a social life is also a distraction, as is going on holiday for two weeks, and family birthday celebrations 200 miles away.
Anyway, I eventually got back to the job and finished the re-sited wall of the flower bed, creating along the way a nice pile of topsoil for the dog to dig in (at least, he thought it was for him) and which, at some time, I would have to redistribute around the garden or transport to the tip. In the process, I mastered the mortar mix and managed to build the boundary walls, despite the dog's best efforts. I even grew to understand why some people kick their pets, although I love mine too much to resort to such extremes. The spade in my hand did not seem to discourage his interfering ways...
Now, having demolished a barbecue built largely of bricks, and having dug almost as many from the ground, I had a huge pile from which to make hardcore. This entailed putting each brick in turn on a large stone (also dug from the ground) and pulverising it with a 1.8 kg lump hammer. I am amazed how hard bricks are (in the USA, such rock-breaking amounts to hard labour in penal servitude). I made good progress with that at first, then discovered that it gave me Tennis Elbow in my right arm. Further progress proved painful. I needed an alternative way to get the job moving again.
For a while, I toyed with the idea of buying some hardcore but, having looked it up on the Internet, it proved to be largely unavailable in the form that I wanted or that my beloved would tolerate... There was no option but to continue doing it myself by hand. Fortunately, I discovered a two-handed technique that enabled me to avoid the pain.
Work continued, and the pile of bricks grew smaller. Looking at the dwindling pile and the area yet to be filled in, I began to wonder if there would be enough bricks or if I would have to begin prospecting in another part of the garden to see if there was another as yet untapped seam. However, another day's hard labour - a whole day breaking bricks; one whole day; that's a working day doing nothing but smash brick after brick after brick - proved the stockpile to be adequate. I still had a pile of bricks and other rubble to take to the tip. Oh joy! I also now had Golf Elbow in my left arm.
With hardcore laid down, and gravel thrown in to fill the small spaces, the next day's work entailed filling up the area with sand and covering it with slabs. Off to B&Q I went to procure the necessary supplies. It transpired that, because I live on the wrong side of a bridge with a 5 tonne axle weight limit, and could not guarantee that the delivery vehicle could get within 10 metres of our house at all times, the thirty 400mm square slabs I needed could not be delivered. I would have to transport them myself. So, pro tem, I settled for the sand. Fifteen bags I bought, in accordance with the advice the B&Q man gave me. Loaded them in the car myself, I did. Drove home very gingerly, avoiding potholes and bumps so as to preserve my car's suspension.
At home, I took the sensible approach of unloading the sand bags as I needed them. That meant that the seven I apparently did not need were still in the car for taking back to B&Q once I had levelled off the area. Back they went, and I unloaded them from the car onto the B&Q trolley I needed to get them to the returns desk.
I then bought my slabs and loaded them into the car. One at a time. I drove even more carefully this time, amazed at how low the car sat on its suspension. Since I was sure I would need all the slabs, the next job was to get them all, one at a time, out of the car into the garden. I cleared the route, in good manual handling practice, only to find that, on my very first trip, the dog had assumed that the clearing had been for his benefit; he was lying in my path. In fairness to him, he was willing to move on being so instructed, and it only took him two or three tellings-off to cotton on...
I next had to master another black art: cutting slabs. Now, hiring an angle grinder may have made the job easier but I am a tight-wad and, in any case, like a challenge. Not only that, I had already been given an excellent DIY book one Christmas that contained all the enchantments necessary for cutting concrete slabs to size, and had all the requisite magic wands (lump hammer and bolster chisel) in my armoury. I also had two-and-a-half slabs spare for training purposes. With unbounded confidence, I set to and destroyed only four slabs (cf. two-and-a-half) in the process. I ran out of steam before covering the whole area, but at least I got enough slabs down to give an impression of what the the finished patio would look like. I also decided that cutting slabs by magic was never going to be an accomplished skill of mine, and that I'd better find the right tool for the job rather than destroy the world's entire supply of slabs single-handedly.
After the weekend's heavy lifting, I spent the following day at work aching at my desk, struggling to lift even my mug of tea. Admittedly, it is a very large mug. Ordinarily, it would not be a problem but manual labour, for which I was not designed, had taken its toll. I used my lunch break to investigate the cost of hiring an angle grinder or block cutter. Since I couldn't do any slab cutting until such an implement had been acquired, I used the next couple of evenings to begin the relocation of left-over bricks and rubble to the local tip.
Better inspiration followed. I asked a colleague at work if he had an angle grinder and, if so, would he mind if I borrowed it? Of all the people at work, he was my most likely source of a free loan. Jackpot! He had one and was willing to let me borrow it, especially after I explained that I was always reluctant to lend my tools to others for the simple reason that they usually come back broken. I had to buy some cutting discs but, hey, that was a small price to pay.
I got all my slabs cut, and the garden filled with white concrete dust, not to mention the back porch and stairs, my shoes and my socks, in one evening's work. Magic! I even managed to use the ones I had damaged earlier to good effect. Setting the slabs out demonstrated that the sand bed was not as level as I had believed. Further work was necessary to remedy that, and I wondered if I should have kept a few of those bags of sand instead of taking them back to B&Q. I had half a bag left, and reckoned I would need one more.
My beloved made her contribution to the work by riddling and bagging the pile of topsoil excavated from the raised bed and patio area. I found a neighbour whose rockery needed topping out and managed to off-load a fair amount of the soil on her; not literally, of course, that would be cruel.
The project approached its final stages. I bought another bag of sand on the way home from work on Friday. I had a weekend to finish the job. All I had to do was level off the slabs and grout them with mortar. That's all. That, and walk the dog, give a statement to the police (see here for the reason why), receive a huge delivery of logs and move them by hand into the log store, walk the dog again, and eat some lunch. Anyway, I eventually got to levelling the slabs and worked my way around the outside of the patio. I fixed those at the front and back to the supporting bricks with mortar plus a special ingredient that made the mix much more pliable and easy to work with: washing-up liquid! Brilliant! Saturday came to an end and all I had to do on Sunday was level all the slabs in the middle.
Well, actually, I had to go to church, eat my lunch, walk the dog and then set to work on the slabs. All with a badly bruised toe on my left foot, since I had stubbed it on the solid wooden foot of my beloved's grandma's balloon-backed chair on Saturday night. I'm not complaining. I still had one limb in full working order. Working on the slabs was actually a bit of a relief because it meant spending a good part of the day on my knees instead of my feet. I managed to run out of sand with only four slabs to go, two hours after B&Q had closed.
Finally, on Monday evening, after struggling out of B&Q on that badly-bruised toe with a large bag of sand (how many did I take back and why?), I got the slabs all level enough, swept dry mortar into the spaces between, and sprinkled water all over to dampen the mortar. My heart sank a little later that night, when it looked like I would need to go over the grouting again, the mortar having settled when wet.
On checking the patio in the morning, I was elated to find that all was well. I had finished! I had built a patio! It took a long time and sweat and pain but I did it. On top of that, I have learnt a load of new skills which I hope never to use again.
And there you have it. Well, not quite. The rest of the garden has to be put right but at least the patio is finished. We thought about having a barbecue to celebrate but realised that we no longer had the means...
Since my beloved and I are not ardent barbecuers, I suggested that I knock down the structure, and then investigate and rectify the problem. I suspected I would have to dig down to the surrounding level and build a retaining wall, then back-fill the wall and lay out a new flower bed. A fairly straightforward task.
'Oh,' said my beloved, 'if you are getting rid of the barbecue we could have a summer house there.' It is truly wondrous how so simple a statement can can have such far-reaching consequences...
A summer house, of course, is a structure. A structure needs something to stand on. Something large enough and, since we would not want to replace a lopsided barbecue with a lopsided summer house, something level. So now I had to build a patio. I still had to build the retaining wall as above but also
- make the area for the patio wide enough by knocking down a stone wall around a raised flower bed and deep enough by lifting some of the gravel-covered crazy paving,
- dig the bed back and rebuild the wall,
- build boundary walls (a couple of courses of brick), since the ground is not level, to define the front and back levels of the patio,
- provide drainage for the area,
- fill the area with hardcore,
- top it out with sand, and
- lay slabs.
The next set of problems were beyond my control. I got the retaining wall built but had to stop short of expiring because of the heat. I also struggled with the mortar mix. How on earth do people build houses with that stuff? The following weekend, too much rain proved to be an obstacle (weather is a great problem for outdoor work). Having a social life is also a distraction, as is going on holiday for two weeks, and family birthday celebrations 200 miles away.
Anyway, I eventually got back to the job and finished the re-sited wall of the flower bed, creating along the way a nice pile of topsoil for the dog to dig in (at least, he thought it was for him) and which, at some time, I would have to redistribute around the garden or transport to the tip. In the process, I mastered the mortar mix and managed to build the boundary walls, despite the dog's best efforts. I even grew to understand why some people kick their pets, although I love mine too much to resort to such extremes. The spade in my hand did not seem to discourage his interfering ways...
Now, having demolished a barbecue built largely of bricks, and having dug almost as many from the ground, I had a huge pile from which to make hardcore. This entailed putting each brick in turn on a large stone (also dug from the ground) and pulverising it with a 1.8 kg lump hammer. I am amazed how hard bricks are (in the USA, such rock-breaking amounts to hard labour in penal servitude). I made good progress with that at first, then discovered that it gave me Tennis Elbow in my right arm. Further progress proved painful. I needed an alternative way to get the job moving again.
For a while, I toyed with the idea of buying some hardcore but, having looked it up on the Internet, it proved to be largely unavailable in the form that I wanted or that my beloved would tolerate... There was no option but to continue doing it myself by hand. Fortunately, I discovered a two-handed technique that enabled me to avoid the pain.
Work continued, and the pile of bricks grew smaller. Looking at the dwindling pile and the area yet to be filled in, I began to wonder if there would be enough bricks or if I would have to begin prospecting in another part of the garden to see if there was another as yet untapped seam. However, another day's hard labour - a whole day breaking bricks; one whole day; that's a working day doing nothing but smash brick after brick after brick - proved the stockpile to be adequate. I still had a pile of bricks and other rubble to take to the tip. Oh joy! I also now had Golf Elbow in my left arm.
With hardcore laid down, and gravel thrown in to fill the small spaces, the next day's work entailed filling up the area with sand and covering it with slabs. Off to B&Q I went to procure the necessary supplies. It transpired that, because I live on the wrong side of a bridge with a 5 tonne axle weight limit, and could not guarantee that the delivery vehicle could get within 10 metres of our house at all times, the thirty 400mm square slabs I needed could not be delivered. I would have to transport them myself. So, pro tem, I settled for the sand. Fifteen bags I bought, in accordance with the advice the B&Q man gave me. Loaded them in the car myself, I did. Drove home very gingerly, avoiding potholes and bumps so as to preserve my car's suspension.
At home, I took the sensible approach of unloading the sand bags as I needed them. That meant that the seven I apparently did not need were still in the car for taking back to B&Q once I had levelled off the area. Back they went, and I unloaded them from the car onto the B&Q trolley I needed to get them to the returns desk.
I then bought my slabs and loaded them into the car. One at a time. I drove even more carefully this time, amazed at how low the car sat on its suspension. Since I was sure I would need all the slabs, the next job was to get them all, one at a time, out of the car into the garden. I cleared the route, in good manual handling practice, only to find that, on my very first trip, the dog had assumed that the clearing had been for his benefit; he was lying in my path. In fairness to him, he was willing to move on being so instructed, and it only took him two or three tellings-off to cotton on...
I next had to master another black art: cutting slabs. Now, hiring an angle grinder may have made the job easier but I am a tight-wad and, in any case, like a challenge. Not only that, I had already been given an excellent DIY book one Christmas that contained all the enchantments necessary for cutting concrete slabs to size, and had all the requisite magic wands (lump hammer and bolster chisel) in my armoury. I also had two-and-a-half slabs spare for training purposes. With unbounded confidence, I set to and destroyed only four slabs (cf. two-and-a-half) in the process. I ran out of steam before covering the whole area, but at least I got enough slabs down to give an impression of what the the finished patio would look like. I also decided that cutting slabs by magic was never going to be an accomplished skill of mine, and that I'd better find the right tool for the job rather than destroy the world's entire supply of slabs single-handedly.
After the weekend's heavy lifting, I spent the following day at work aching at my desk, struggling to lift even my mug of tea. Admittedly, it is a very large mug. Ordinarily, it would not be a problem but manual labour, for which I was not designed, had taken its toll. I used my lunch break to investigate the cost of hiring an angle grinder or block cutter. Since I couldn't do any slab cutting until such an implement had been acquired, I used the next couple of evenings to begin the relocation of left-over bricks and rubble to the local tip.
Better inspiration followed. I asked a colleague at work if he had an angle grinder and, if so, would he mind if I borrowed it? Of all the people at work, he was my most likely source of a free loan. Jackpot! He had one and was willing to let me borrow it, especially after I explained that I was always reluctant to lend my tools to others for the simple reason that they usually come back broken. I had to buy some cutting discs but, hey, that was a small price to pay.
I got all my slabs cut, and the garden filled with white concrete dust, not to mention the back porch and stairs, my shoes and my socks, in one evening's work. Magic! I even managed to use the ones I had damaged earlier to good effect. Setting the slabs out demonstrated that the sand bed was not as level as I had believed. Further work was necessary to remedy that, and I wondered if I should have kept a few of those bags of sand instead of taking them back to B&Q. I had half a bag left, and reckoned I would need one more.
My beloved made her contribution to the work by riddling and bagging the pile of topsoil excavated from the raised bed and patio area. I found a neighbour whose rockery needed topping out and managed to off-load a fair amount of the soil on her; not literally, of course, that would be cruel.
The project approached its final stages. I bought another bag of sand on the way home from work on Friday. I had a weekend to finish the job. All I had to do was level off the slabs and grout them with mortar. That's all. That, and walk the dog, give a statement to the police (see here for the reason why), receive a huge delivery of logs and move them by hand into the log store, walk the dog again, and eat some lunch. Anyway, I eventually got to levelling the slabs and worked my way around the outside of the patio. I fixed those at the front and back to the supporting bricks with mortar plus a special ingredient that made the mix much more pliable and easy to work with: washing-up liquid! Brilliant! Saturday came to an end and all I had to do on Sunday was level all the slabs in the middle.
Well, actually, I had to go to church, eat my lunch, walk the dog and then set to work on the slabs. All with a badly bruised toe on my left foot, since I had stubbed it on the solid wooden foot of my beloved's grandma's balloon-backed chair on Saturday night. I'm not complaining. I still had one limb in full working order. Working on the slabs was actually a bit of a relief because it meant spending a good part of the day on my knees instead of my feet. I managed to run out of sand with only four slabs to go, two hours after B&Q had closed.
Finally, on Monday evening, after struggling out of B&Q on that badly-bruised toe with a large bag of sand (how many did I take back and why?), I got the slabs all level enough, swept dry mortar into the spaces between, and sprinkled water all over to dampen the mortar. My heart sank a little later that night, when it looked like I would need to go over the grouting again, the mortar having settled when wet.
On checking the patio in the morning, I was elated to find that all was well. I had finished! I had built a patio! It took a long time and sweat and pain but I did it. On top of that, I have learnt a load of new skills which I hope never to use again.
And there you have it. Well, not quite. The rest of the garden has to be put right but at least the patio is finished. We thought about having a barbecue to celebrate but realised that we no longer had the means...
30 March 2009
The Rules of DIY
- Holes don’t stay where you drill them.
- Measure twice, cut once, measure again to see why it doesn’t fit.
- If you drop something small, it will fall down the crack in the floorboards.
- If you drop something heavy, it will land on your foot or the cat or something breakable.
- Always use the right tool for the job.
- If you don’t have the right tool, use a hammer.
- Always work slowly when cutting wood; it gives you more time to realise your mistake.
- If you need a screw of a particular size, you will not have one, possibly because you have just dropped it (see 3 above).
- If there are two ways of doing something, the easier way takes longer.
- The leaking joint is always the least accessible one.
- Paint never dries lighter.
- The best tool for applying plaster is a magic wand.
- Always plan the job carefully before you start it; be prepared to modify your plan at any point in the process.
- Gravity always acts vertically, except in the vicinity of a spirit level.
- In the middle of a process, you will discover you need another tool (see 5 above); you will have forgotten where that tool is (see 6 above).
- The shop will close two minutes before you arrive to buy the vital part you forgot.
- If the shop is open, the vital part is out of stock.
- New shelves never look level…because they aren’t (see 1 and 14 above).
- Always take extreme care when using sharp tools: try not to get blood on anything you cannot wash.
- The worst part of any job is clearing up at the end.
- The most difficult part of any job is getting around to it.
- The best part of any job is the tea-break.
- The easiest part of any job does not exist.
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