Taking Shape!

Today was one of those days that you get a lot of work done and then say, why can't they all be like that?!

Went shopping in the morning to replenish on the vermiculite aggregate for to mix with concrete. Spent an hour stuffing it up the flue and building up a nice 'neck' to optimise airflow. Apparently this is the key to good combustion. We'll soon find out!

When I finished I stuck Paula's phone camera up the flue and took a photo. You can see how the concrete mix meets the chimmney back at a 45 degree angle. This is the only way I can see it as its dark up there! I had to do a lot of feeling with my arm stuck up the hole....

Then went on to plaster in the fireplace. I hate plastering because it is one of those jobs that you actually have to be skilled at to get even half-decent results. It goes completely against my 'rough and ready' philosophy. Nonetheless, this not being the first time, I did a better job than ever before, although it does take some patience. Maybe one day I'll be good at it...

Swept out the room and mopped the whole downstairs to remove traces of cement and plaster dust (not good for Wasabi to lick out from between his little toes....)

Then since it was still early decided to tackle the baseboards (they call them skirting board here). The key to this is careful measurements. Also its important to concentrate carefully to ensure that you are cutting the 45 degree angle the right way! I am pleased to report that I only ruined one piece by doing the angle the wrong way. My new cordless disc saw really proved its worth and cut the angles beautifully. Chewed through them all in no time.














The only one that's left is the curved part in the alcove. It was getting late and I ran out of skirting board so leave it for next session. This one will require a special technique that I reverse-engineered from the worm-eaten original. Stay tuned to see if I ruin that one!







By end of day things looking good! I haven't fastened the board to the wall as this is noisy and neighbours may not like! I need to order the special hammer fasteners for this.


All it needs is some sanding to and a coat of paint!

Installing the Fireplace Part I

Woke up this morning and headed out to buy materials for the job: concrete, blocks, mortar, vermiculite, and a big mixing bucket..

First step: brick up the back of the chimmney stack. Easy job! No need to care about clean pointing on the mortar, or perfectly straight courses, because nobody is going to see them anyway! Quick and dirty...




Since I had to chip away at the plaster above the lintel and found the bricks completely loose, I did some repair on the mortar between them and hopefully keep things together.








Second step: slide in the insert (easy!). Luckily for me the insert was exactly 1mm shorter than the lintel, and it just barely fit in!









Third step: bolt on the surround. I had to drill two holes in the tiles for notches at the base of the surround to fit into. Then I used my favourite 'multi-montis' to bolt the top of the surround to the brick, just beneath the mantel.







Fourth step: mixed up the concrete and vermiculite in the prescribed ratio and packed it in behind the insert in the space between the blocks I put in earlier. Vermiculite is recommended because it is light, fireproof, won't harm the fireplace and has the right consistency.

Unfortunately I rand out of vermiculite before I completed the job. I always underestimate the amount needed. This time 5 bags weren't enough. Its almost up to the top of the fireback but I need to make a nice ramp afterwards above that level to create a flue. So that's for tomorrow, along with the re-plastering job.


So cleaned up and called it a day. When I came back, found the inspector checking the work carefully...

The Fireplace

I'm going to stop numbering the days because my holiday is over and I'm back to work again. So back to weekend DIY warrioring. But looking back on the past month, managed to make a leap forward. The house is beginning to feel like a home, finally after 2 years.

Today the fireplace (see Day 6 below) arrived, finally. I was at work so Paula took delivery of it. It is gorgeous, but weights a ton! Its much bigger than the other one I bought last year and its much heavier. It comes in several pieces.

Meanwhile over the past few evenings I sealed the tiles and grouted them. So I assembled the fireplace inside the hearth to get an idea of what it would look like and to figure out a plan for installing it. I hope to do this on the weekend.

Essentially I need to brick up part of the chimney opening as the fireplace does not fill the entire space. Then I need to bolt the cast iron face onto the wall and then fill in the remaining space behind the fireback with concrete mixed with vermiculite.

Note the completed flooring, 3 varnish coats! We had intense debates about the colour, about whether it was too light... In the end we like it and agree if it were darker it would make the room look smaller.

After the fireplace the next task is to cut new skirting board and fit it...

Day 20: More Waxing...

Today back to waxing the floor. Its been 72 hours since the dining room was varnished, so moved all the stuff from the living room there. Was irritated to find that, in spite of the fact that the room had been closed off, the cat still found a way to get in and put muddy black footprints all over the bare wood! I am minded to taxidermise him for this...

Had to re sand all the footprints which took an hour. Then 2 coats of wax today. Good news is of the 9 total coats I needed to do (3x3 rooms) I only have 1 left! Tomorrow should be finished! Yay!

Day 19: Shower Power!

Fulfilling my vow from yesterday, I arose this morning and drove to my favourite shop and bought a 'Deluge Shower Kit', came home and installed it.

Before

After

Brouhahaha! This alone is worth the cost of the new boiler! To finally have a real shower that blasts hot water! I have already taken 3 showers just for the pleasure of it! Gone are the days of wretched dribbling! I no longer have to go on a business trip to get a hotel that has a decent shower, I can get up every morning and have the hotel experience in my own bathroom! And the best thing -- doesn't matter how long I stay there, or if Paula has taken a shower before me, there is no hot water tank, so the hot water never runs out or gets cold!

This only reminds me that the bathroom is in urgent need of a ripping out and makeover. Fortunately, I can re-use the shower, but that's about all that I would want to re-use. I am planning on this as my next project....

Day 18: Boiler installation!

Today was a long day. The boiler boys arrived around 10 and set to it. Plenty of hammering, cutting, ripping, hacking to get the old boiler out. It had been sitting there comfortably for the past 30 years.

The new boiler is a combi-boiler, so doesn't utilise separate hot water storage tanks in the loft. This meant that they could remove the tank and a lot of piping that went all the way up to the roof. Plenty of copper ripped out and added to the heap. Also the boiler itself and the concrete slab it was sitting on hurled on the heap.

Meanwhile, as part of the deal to save money, my job was to change all the radiator valves since the old ones were all leaky and old. So I spent much of the day doing this. Simple but time-consuming! But worth it, in the end I saved about 500 pounds by doing the work myself.

By the end of the day, the house was freezing cold because there had been no heating all day. But the new boiler is fantastic. It is quiet, small but very powerful. It can produce 15.5 L of very hot water per minute. The best thing is that it allows me to have mains pressure on both hot and cold taps, not like the old system where I had cold mains pressure, but a weak pressure on the hot which came from the tank in the ceiling. Of course this has one overriding benefit: SHOWER POWER.... When I saw the amazing water pressure, I vowed that tomorrow I will go out and buy a real shower to benefit from this...


The junk heap is now much bigger with all the old boiler detritus. Note the boiler itself (the huge chunky rusting unit behind the flowerpot, the concrete slab it was sitting on beside it, the copper piping cut from the house (click to enlarge photo). Also the copper cylinder removed from the loft. No the ladder is not junk, just resting there..

Day 17: Preparation for new Boiler

Spent the morning going over the boiler installation plan with the heating guru who showed up at 10. He meticulously studied the layout, now probing with some tool, now peering beneath the floorboards to figure out how the pipes were laid out. When he had seen enough, he left promising to return with his colleague tomorrow morning to do the job.

I had agreed to save myself some money on the job by doing some of the easy but time-consuming work myself. One of the tasks was to move the existing drainage pipe and hopper because it was too close to the place where the new flue would emerge. Also it was in completely dilapidated condition.

I decided to go for the fake cast iron replacements, and these arrived in the morning. It took a while to take down the old one pipes and hopper. They were fixed to the wall with unbelievably strong steel fixings that I ruined several drill bits drilling out. In the end I used the club hammer to break off the pieces. It was impressive to see how long these pipes had lasted. I kept the hopper as its was in salvageable state. I will try to strip it down and repaint if I have time one day. I can always reuse in the future.

New plastic pipes and hopper now in place. Can you tell that they aren't cast iron? Pretty good fakes!










































Bonus image: the junk heap behind my house. mixed in the heap are scraps of old floorboard, bags of sawdust from the sanding, the cupboard unit I had to rip out to make space for the new boiler, junk I found in the loft from decades ago, sanding belts from the sanders, rubble from when I cleared out the fireplace.

Day 16: Diversion

Sick of painting floorboards this morning so go out to do shopping for the next task: replacing the drainage downpipe outside the house because its completely corroded and to make way for the flue of the new gas boiler.

I am bothered that my original cast iron pipe and hopper are severely corroded and parts will need total replacement. I'm trying to keep as much of the original 1930's fittings intact as possible. The hopper is probably salvageable but would need a good stripping down and repainting, which I don't have the time for now. The alternative is to buy cheapo plastic replacements, which all the neighbors have. Low maintenance, but ugly and souless. But a quick check on the web shows that new cast iron parts will add up to about 200 pounds, whereas the plastic tubing will cost about 15. It does suddenly seem stupid to use an easily corroded material such as cast iron to transport drain water...

Some more searching revealed a company that makes plastic parts that look like cast iron. Maybe this is the solution!

Since my cordless drill reached the end of its useful life, also purchased a special sale package with nice drill and also cordless disc saw. Had fun when I got home playing with those for a while.

Then felt guilty for evading my responsibilities and did a few more hours of waxing floors..

Day 15: Yet More Waxing. . .

a bit tired of squatting over the floor, so didn't do all that much today.

Day 14: More of the Same!

Now things are pretty monotonous. I'm getting really tired of obsessing with the same floorboards row after row, coat after coat. After all, will anybody ever take notice of them once the rugs are down and the furniture is in place? All the time I spent removing all the little sanding marks with the fine paper and all the time spent ensuring no brush strokes are visible.... is it really worth it? Who cares!

But then I remember the old edict that perfection in small things is still a form of greatness! So then I begin to look for sanding marks again... it goes on like this hour after hour.

But then there was some diversion today. I had to remove the cupboard in the far end of the kitchen to make room for the new boiler. This was good old demolition at its best. At first I did try to unscrew things gently with the hope that I might be able to reinstate one of the smaller units afterwards. But the units were so cheaply built and installed by some fomer owner (classic example of the DIY 'who cares' philosophy) that there was no alternative but to get out the hammers and crowbars. Lots of crunching and ripping later, the unit was the new crown on the heap of detritus thrown out behind the house. This mound consists of heaps of old floorboards, rubble from the hearth, broken tiles, a half-ton of sawdust, junk I found in the loft from previous owners etc, etc. I'll post a picture eventually. The old boiler will soon join the mound, and perhaps the fridge too as Paula has got the idea of buying anew one (uh oh!)... Then when this phase of the work is done, I will order a skip and load it all and send it on its way to its destiny of becoming more landfill.

Of course will reuse all the floorboards for kindling in the new fireplace...

Day 13: Wax on, Wax off!

Today more sanding. Finished all of the living and dining rooms. All that's left to sand is the entrance.

Began applying the varnish. Actually its not varnish but a wax. Not sure what the difference is, but this one has low toxic fume content.

Lets see... this room took me about 2 hours to do one coat. Each room needs 3 coats, making 9 coats x 2 hours each! That's a lot of painting. I hope that it will move faster after the first coat which is slower because the wood drinks up more of the wax. If not, I'm in for a lot of monotony over the next few days.

Big logistical challenge: how to wax the floors in the entrance that leads from front door to stairs without anybody stepping in it (including the cat). Apparently the floor needs 72 hours before 'general traffic'!

Day 12: Reinforcements have arrived!

Took delivery of the Svedish continuous belt sander this morning! Brouhahah...



The heating guru recommended these people to me as their machines are all Svedish and not the UK cheapo stuff that you usually rent. True to the sales pitch, the machine is fantastic and makes much better progress than the one I rented from the local tool hire shop for the bedroom.


So spent today sanding away.

There is something very pleasing about seeing the old dirty surface get stripped away to reveal fresh pine. And the really impressive thing is that after 70 years, the original floorboards still produce a lovely pine smell, like they were cut yesterday.

The boads were quite uneven so it still took a few hours to get through the first coarse grain.



Even Paula took a stab at it.

By late afternoon, we were ready to fill the floorboard gaps. To do this you mix sawdust with a resin compound and put it between the cracks.

Today got through Phase I of the living room and part of the entrance. Tomorrow plan is Phase II (fine sanding and prep for varnish) in the living room, then finish the entrance.

After all was done, went upstairs but developed a terrible headache due to the fumes of the resin stuff. Boy those Svedes sure make powerful Viking chemicals. Won't be using the resin anymore thank you. The only way I can function is to get out the trusty gas mask! (I bought it to defend myself against the Russian gas mafia people but actually is more effective agains noxious fumes!) Am I going to have to sleep with this on?

Day 11: Prep for sanding

Today was more of the same, so won't bore you. Replaced floorboards in the other rooms (dining and hallway), and I called in the heavy machinery, due to arrive tomorrow, for floor sanding.

Also spent the afternoon with heating guru planning insallation of the new boiler. I worked out how much my inefficient, 70's boiler is costing me. It worked out to £476 since Aug 14! This translates into about £100/month! But this is during relatively warm weather. The temperature here is still very mild. Usually the bill doubles in the winter. So with my current system at the current prices I would probably pay at lease £1,500 a year for gas!! So its plain stupid to keep the old boiler now that the Russians are playing their mafia game with the natural gas supply. I'm paying Gazprom through the nose! The guru reckons I can cut my bill by up to half with a modern 98% efficient boiler. So should pay for itself within a few years! (Assuming the Russians don't get more greedy...)

Paula helped prepare the floorboards in the hall for sanding..

. . . while the inspector looked on.

Day 10: Life Aquatic

Things were going smoothly today until I put a nail through one of the radiator pipes. I managed to do this after specifically noting where the pipes were and making sure I stayed away. Oh well, first real disaster of the project. No pictures because things were pretty aquatic. After the nail went through I heard a quiet hissing noise. Curious, I lifted the board and then water began spurting out under high pressure. This time it wasn't a little drip. I had been meaning to call the radiator guru anyway to discuss a new boiler but this made the call suddenly very timely. He gave me some useful instructions (like how to shut the system off in the loft) and said he was on his way.

In the meantime I drained out the system using the garden hose. I figured since he was coming anyway, he could move the radiator across the entrance because this was something we have been wanting for a while. So I took down the radiator, blasted more filthy muck out of it with the hose and vacuumed the age old inch thick dust layer off the back.

When heating guru arrived, I studied his work carefully. Learned many secrets of the trade! Took about an hour to fix and move the radiator and also fix the faulty one in the living room. Realised that I could probably do it myself... maybe next time..

He took pity on me and only charged me for the radiator move job (not the emergency callout fee).

Day 9: Tiling Fun!

Today was a fun day!

Had to do more shopping in the morning to get ready for the next few days. Need to get all the flooring sorted in living, dining and entrance so can begin the sanding process on Saturday. Got more floorboards the right nails this time plus the mortar for today's task: tiling the hearth.

Being the first time I used mortar did not know what to expect. So followed the instructions:

1. Mix up the concrete and sand in prescribed proportions, add water











2. Dump into hearth and level down with a batten (not shown)









3. Soak tiles in water and lay (I skipped the boring detail step about using spacers -- I'm looking for the rustic effect anyway and these are already uneven slate tiles, so who will notice anyway, right?)










4. Check alignment, press down, and that's it! I couldn't believe how easy this was! It went so fast that I finished early today in time for another delicious Paella by Paula....







After Paella came back to inspect. Guess who came before me? Just had to make his mark . . . Does this make him the first cat on the moon?

Day 8: Odds & Ends

Lazy day today given its New Year's Day and we slept in till late.

Cleaned out the fire hearth and patched some of the bigger holes with quick dry cement. Artistic rendering of the same shown above (can you spot the point where Neil Armstrong to his first step? Hint: its 1km due East from the rusting remains of the lunar buggy). Then sat and pondered over it how best to put in the tiles. Use self-levelling screed to lay base? Or just mortar? Opted for the latter, higher risk but more efficient. Will go out and procure tomorrow.

Also put the radiator back on after cleaning out (see Day 5), but still doesn't circulate the water. So there must be some deeper problem. Pipe blocked? Maybe will need repairman after all...