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.