Day 5: Radiator Crisis!

Today made good progress, ripped out the other half of the floor. Everything going smoothly until I got to the radiator. I had removed weeks ago for painting, but it never worked properly since. My very helpful heating repairman recommended blasting out the radiator with the garden hose. However when I removed the radiator and the pipe started leaking! Had to get buckets to keep the water in check. Couldn't get it to stop - the more I fiddled with it the bigger the flow became! Called the heating repair man but no answer this time! Left desperate message. Would I have to spend my Friday night in vigil over the dripping pipe? Would I have to spend the New Year's long weekend sitting beside the pipe?

After a few bucket loads I got out the trusty Collins DIY Encyclopedia after reading several pages, soothed by the zen like dripping beside me, I found the passage needed explaining how to adjust the connection using 2 wrenches. (Lesson: never undo radiator valve connections without using 2 wrenches to prevent accidental twisting loose of other parts of the joint..)

Soon got leak under control, well pleased with self for averting weekend catastrophe and also called off the repairman who would have made me feel like an idiot as he tutted knowingly and stooped to fix the problem with a swift flick of the (two) wrenches and left me with a £50 bill.

So after a small dance of joy in front of Paula to celebrate the happy ending, went out back to blast out the radiator. Plenty of filthy black muck came out all over the patio. Hmm, another clean-up job for the to-do list. . . (low priority, let the forces of nature do their work on it)

So, back to stapling in the tinfoil bubble wrap stuff. I developed a new technique to avoid having to rip out the last floorboard (would have meant a lot of destruction to the board to get it loose from the pipes and maybe more sinister problems with leaks-- however may cause problems later when I need to match the penultimate board hopefully no big gap!!)

The new technique is box style, slipping in cubes of insulation between the joists...

So by end of day room looking nice and shiny awaiting re boarding tomorrow.