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That 'big project' I've been banging on about for a few years now....

Started by James Harrison, January 31, 2020, 08:06:41 PM

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Synistor 303

Or you could have bought a Victorian style corner cupboard and put the router in that...

James Harrison

I did consider that, but what put me off was that it would have had to sit in front of the electrical plug.  I have a 'thing' about electrical sockets and plugs being smothered and overheating. 
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison

What held me up last night was want of £5 worth of drill bits and string. 



Which shortcoming I rectified this morning and it's now finished.  Except for cleaning up the dust of course. 

Meanwhile things have been progressing elsewhere;
- Two new windows ordered for the kitchen;
- Still plugging away at slowly stripping paint off the fireplace and skirting boards in the sitting room. 
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

Synistor 303


James Harrison

Thanks!  It's not an original 1900s piece- the candle stick type were obsolete/ out of fashion long before the rotary dial was introduced- it's a 'modern' reproduction (by modern I mean circa 1990s/ 2000s). 
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison

The '5-minute job' that was anything but. 



The sitting room fireplace, taken back down to slate. 

The mantletop and edges weren't too bad at all; some methylated spirit and kitchen tissues were enough to take that off. 
Everything else though was an exercise in stoicism. 
I ended up using
- paint stripper
- cement remover (think brick acid)
- more methylated spirit
- about two rolls of kitchen tissues
- emery cloth
- around 30 dremel sanding/ polishing abrasive pads

Truth be told there are still some little patches of paint on it in odd corners but I'm at the point of diminshing returns, it doesn't seem worthwhile spending hours removing every speck of what remains when it's invisible unless you get right up close to it. 

So now this just needs
- polishing to remove any remaining dust
- coat of mineral oil to fill scuffs and scratches
- coat of slate and stone preserver

Oh, and the joint between mantle and uprights was polyfilla, so I need to use some grey tile grout to put that joint back in. 
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison

You spend hours and days taking all the black paint off the slate fireplace, return it to the natural material, and then you polish it up....



... and at the end of it you have a nice black slate fireplace.

Not quite entirely finished, but finished so far as I'm going to take it at the moment whilst work carries on around the rest of the room.   
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison

So; one month into the paint stripping exercise.

On the credit side;
- The doorframe is cleared
- The fireplace is cleared
- Five of the skirting boards are completely cleared

On the tipping point;
- Three skirting boards are close to completely cleared
- Four skirting boards are at least partly stripped

On the debit side;
- Four skirting boards still to even start

If you're wondering why there's so many skirting boards, this is the room with a bay window and two inglenooks. 

It's slow going and not helped by having to try and work at it on my hands and knees in tight corners.  I was hoping to have this bit done by the end of January and then being in a position to clear up all the dust, stain the woodwork and at least start thinking about cleaning down the paint and buying the picture rail moulding, but I think that's a bit optimistic. 
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison

#1433
Ice redux.... well, maybe not as severely as back in December (Decembrrrrr?) but still...

On the plus side, although it is cold at night, at the moment the daytime actually warms enough to clear enough ice that the following night's freeze doesn't lead to a complete shutdown. 

Having cleared the gutter of ice yesterday, I woke up this morning to find more ice in it.  This time I've seen what the mechanism is. 
1) Condensate from the boiler runs down the gutter, doesn't quite reach the downpipe, and then freezes. 
2) The boiler dribbles again.  The water runs on top of the ice, cools rapidly, doesn't quite reach the end of the ice before freezing. 
3) This carries on and you end up with a long sliver of ice that builds up in successively shorter layers until it reaches the top of the gutter. 

4) Meanwhile not all of the water makes it out of the condensate pipe and this gradually builds up a layer of ice that eventually blocks the pipe. 

So this morning I tapped the underside of the gutter with a hammer to break the ice up and then scooped it out, and set up a hairdryer to blow warm air up the pipe.  This thawed out the end of the not-quite-plug and when that fell out I got a 3' length of thin wood and pushed that up there to dislodge anything behind it.  Then bounced the pipe up and down a few times (being long and not fixed down it's quite flexible) and whacked it with the wooden stick, and that brought down a fair amount of icy slush.  Whilst I've not been able to access the whole length of the pipe, the fact that dislodging the ice wasn't followed by a gusher of water suggests that there wasn't a complete blockage in the bit I was able to clear.  If there were a blockage further up the boiler would start making motorbike noises again. 

I'm adding 'rerouting the boiler pipe' to my to-do list for the year. 

Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

von Corax

Quote from: James Harrison on January 22, 2023, 09:15:27 AM
Ice redux.... well, maybe not as severely as back in December (Decembrrrrr?) but still...

On the plus side, although it is cold at night, at the moment the daytime actually warms enough to clear enough ice that the following night's freeze doesn't lead to a complete shutdown. 

Having cleared the gutter of ice yesterday, I woke up this morning to find more ice in it.  This time I've seen what the mechanism is. 
1) Condensate from the boiler runs down the gutter, doesn't quite reach the downpipe, and then freezes. 
2) The boiler dribbles again.  The water runs on top of the ice, cools rapidly, doesn't quite reach the end of the ice before freezing. 
3) This carries on and you end up with a long sliver of ice that builds up in successively shorter layers until it reaches the top of the gutter. 

4) Meanwhile not all of the water makes it out of the condensate pipe and this gradually builds up a layer of ice that eventually blocks the pipe. 

So this morning I tapped the underside of the gutter with a hammer to break the ice up and then scooped it out, and set up a hairdryer to blow warm air up the pipe.  This thawed out the end of the not-quite-plug and when that fell out I got a 3' length of thin wood and pushed that up there to dislodge anything behind it.  Then bounced the pipe up and down a few times (being long and not fixed down it's quite flexible) and whacked it with the wooden stick, and that brought down a fair amount of icy slush.  Whilst I've not been able to access the whole length of the pipe, the fact that dislodging the ice wasn't followed by a gusher of water suggests that there wasn't a complete blockage in the bit I was able to clear.  If there were a blockage further up the boiler would start making motorbike noises again. 

I'm adding 'rerouting the boiler pipe' to my to-do list for the year.

If you were in Canada I'd suggest you install heating cables, but you guys probably can't even get them over there. ???
By the power of caffeine do I set my mind in motion
By the Beans of Life do my thoughts acquire speed
My hands acquire a shaking
The shaking becomes a warning
By the power of caffeine do I set my mind in motion
The Leverkusen Institute of Paleocybernetics is 5842 km from Reading

SeVeNeVeS

Quote from: James Harrison on January 22, 2023, 09:15:27 AM
Ice redux.... well, maybe not as severely as back in December (Decembrrrrr?) but still...

On the plus side, although it is cold at night, at the moment the daytime actually warms enough to clear enough ice that the following night's freeze doesn't lead to a complete shutdown. 

Having cleared the gutter of ice yesterday, I woke up this morning to find more ice in it.  This time I've seen what the mechanism is. 
1) Condensate from the boiler runs down the gutter, doesn't quite reach the downpipe, and then freezes. 
2) The boiler dribbles again.  The water runs on top of the ice, cools rapidly, doesn't quite reach the end of the ice before freezing. 
3) This carries on and you end up with a long sliver of ice that builds up in successively shorter layers until it reaches the top of the gutter. 

4) Meanwhile not all of the water makes it out of the condensate pipe and this gradually builds up a layer of ice that eventually blocks the pipe. 

So this morning I tapped the underside of the gutter with a hammer to break the ice up and then scooped it out, and set up a hairdryer to blow warm air up the pipe.  This thawed out the end of the not-quite-plug and when that fell out I got a 3' length of thin wood and pushed that up there to dislodge anything behind it.  Then bounced the pipe up and down a few times (being long and not fixed down it's quite flexible) and whacked it with the wooden stick, and that brought down a fair amount of icy slush.  Whilst I've not been able to access the whole length of the pipe, the fact that dislodging the ice wasn't followed by a gusher of water suggests that there wasn't a complete blockage in the bit I was able to clear.  If there were a blockage further up the boiler would start making motorbike noises again. 

I'm adding 'rerouting the boiler pipe' to my to-do list for the year.

If you are still having problems, I would be tempted to clamber up the roof and chop that pipe slightly lower than the ridge tiles to allow any water to dissipate across the roof. still end up in the gutter but over a larger area.

I would say you still have to re-run the gutter and overflow eventually. If you do decide to cut the pipe try and aviod contact of the boiler water with the lead flashing, I've seen corrosuon caused by the acid content befote, everything else will be fine.


Be careful peg tiles can be somewhat brittle.

James Harrison

Me + heights = a very bad combination. My thought is, once we're through the Winter, I'll have the pipe moved inside and I'll just have a small outflow in the corner of the bathroom just above the guttering.

Noted re: the flashing, that was something I hadn't thought of. Corrosion there is not a good thing.

The guttering itself, not brilliant of course that water pools in it. I have it in mind to try to lever the gutter up at the closed end with some plastic slivers to get more of a fall on it but I'm keeping that back as a job for the Summer.
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison

[quote author=von Corax link=topic=50805.msg1018267#msg1018267

If you were in Canada I'd suggest you install heating cables, but you guys probably can't even get them over there. ???
[/quote]

I think we can actually get something like a heating element that slips inside them. Whether I can get one long enough, and how you wire it up, I don't know.
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

von Corax

Quote from: James Harrison on January 22, 2023, 12:20:28 PM
Quote from: von Corax on January 22, 2023, 10:48:42 AM

If you were in Canada I'd suggest you install heating cables, but you guys probably can't even get them over there. ???

I think we can actually get something like a heating element that slips inside them. Whether I can get one long enough, and how you wire it up, I don't know.

Home Despot has 'em up to 200 feet, and they plug into a standard outlet.
By the power of caffeine do I set my mind in motion
By the Beans of Life do my thoughts acquire speed
My hands acquire a shaking
The shaking becomes a warning
By the power of caffeine do I set my mind in motion
The Leverkusen Institute of Paleocybernetics is 5842 km from Reading

James Harrison

Well I can get them- for a price- but it needs to secured to the pipe somehow (like I say, me + heights = bad, very bad) and you need to insulate the pipe.  Quite how I'm to do that when the thing is at least 10' long and has a 90-degree bend at the one end of it, and is on a roof, I don't know.   

It seems to me that it would be a complete pain in the proverbial to fit it, and expensive considering the length I would need.  I think it would make more sense to re-route the pipe inside the house and then fit the heater.  It'd be easier to access to fit, I'd probably need a shorter length and the insulation becomes less of an issue.
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

von Corax

By the power of caffeine do I set my mind in motion
By the Beans of Life do my thoughts acquire speed
My hands acquire a shaking
The shaking becomes a warning
By the power of caffeine do I set my mind in motion
The Leverkusen Institute of Paleocybernetics is 5842 km from Reading

SeVeNeVeS

Get back to the plumber who initially installed it, tell him you have a problem with his installation and therefore expect him to sort out under guarantee, free of charge, be forcefull in tone expressing general unhappiness etc etc.

if I fitted a conservatory 2-3 years ago and a leak appears I go round and sort it free, same should apply here, as with the guttering, they both did a job which have proved problematic, it happens, doesn't mean they crap tradesmen. Give it a go.

James Harrison

#1442
Quote from: von Corax on January 22, 2023, 04:02:58 PM
What diameter is the pipe?

It's 15mm or so (about 5/8")

Quote from: SeVeNeVeS on January 22, 2023, 04:17:06 PM
Get back to the plumber who initially installed it, tell him you have a problem with his installation and therefore expect him to sort out under guarantee, free of charge, be forcefull in tone expressing general unhappiness etc etc.

if I fitted a conservatory 2-3 years ago and a leak appears I go round and sort it free, same should apply here, as with the guttering, they both did a job which have proved problematic, it happens, doesn't mean they crap tradesmen. Give it a go.

The condensate pipe is something I've inherited - it was put in by the previous owner - when I had the boiler replaced (about five months after moving in) we just reused the existing pipe run.  So it's not really something I could have a whinge at my plumber about to fix it. 

The guttering though, that one is something I could play my face up about.  Maybe if my thoughts on a simple fix don't work that would be something to try.

~Edit~

I've tried my simple fix - I had some little metal washers sitting idle - the gutter is clipped down to its brackets and I can't inveigle a spacer in.  I can't see either how the gutter can be rehung without needing to replace the bargeboard that it's secured to. 

It's on my list to have the roof and gutter people check my roof in a few months for broken/ slipped tiles (I've got at least one slipped one that I can see on my bay window) so we can have a chat about it then. 
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

von Corax

Right. 15mm is too small to snake a heating cable up, so my solution (for what it's worth) would be to wrap the condensate pipe in the sort of heating tape made for water lines, wrap that in insulation, and lay a roof cable along the gutter and down the drainpipe. Put them on a common switch and only turn them on when it starts to freeze.
By the power of caffeine do I set my mind in motion
By the Beans of Life do my thoughts acquire speed
My hands acquire a shaking
The shaking becomes a warning
By the power of caffeine do I set my mind in motion
The Leverkusen Institute of Paleocybernetics is 5842 km from Reading

James Harrison

Right, so.  I usually have the boiler serviced in the Summer, I think this year when I have that done I'll also have the condensate pipe rerouted inside the house (so that's at least day of my Summer holiday already spoken for then).

Meanwhile work's been progressing in the sitting room.  Six weeks in and I've finally sanded the skirting boards to the point of diminishing returns (read: there's still paint on them in places, but honestly?- it's more effort getting it off than it's worth). 

So now I've got the lovely little job of getting all the sanding pad and paint dust up.  It's got everywhere... and I suspect that all that will happen with any attempt to remove it will be more a case of moving it around rather than getting it out. 

Once I've done that, I've got to wash down every wall.  I think I did mention I've got somewhere around 800 books, DVDs and CDs on shelves and in cabinets in here?... but it needs cleaning down because over the last few years as shelves have gone up and other bits have been replastered, the dust has worked its way into the paintwork.

That then neatly segues into the repaint... at least one more coat of dark blue, mostly.  And the cream around the top before the picture rail goes in.  And a coat of sealant and brilliant white on the ceiling.  Oh, and I want to strip the existing paint off the coving moulding and repaint that.

The challenge with the dining room was that I could only work on it at weekend and in holidays.  The challenge with the sitting room I think is trying to work around all the stuff I've got in there.
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison

Some photos.  You wouldn't have thanked me for an illustrated blow-by-blow account of stripping the skirting boards, but these two you may regard as being representative of the whole thing.  All five weeks of it. 





That done, I thought to clean the walls down before staining the skirting.  One wall has some rather impressive cracks in the plaster.  From the ceiling coving, around the bookshelves and then down behind the radiator.  To make sure it wasn't a symptom of something more insidious, I intended to break out a couple of holes just large enough and deep enough that I could check the brickwork behind. 

One of the holes sort of... grew. 



The outcome of this exercise was the conclusion that the brickwork is OK but the plaster is not quite life expired.  It still sticks to the wall... but there are hollow spots.  It's nowhere near as bad as the hallway (plaster was supported by wallpaper) or the dining room (cutting through the skim produced a waterfall [plasterfall?] of crumbly dust and a big void) but at some point- not yet- I think it will have to come down.  Alternatively I'm aware there are stabilisers available- you drill a small hole and pump in a water-based compound that sets the degraded plaster in an adhesive matrix. 



After four or five days work (most of that spent sitting around waiting for the latest depth of applied filler to set), the holes are filled and I've chased out the majority of the crack and filled with ready-mix filler.

So at this point I actually feel I can make a start on the decorating.
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison

Onto the next bit.  I've spent the afternoon sugar-soaping the cracked wall and staining the skirting boards, from the doorway around to the fireplace. 









The photographs hint at the problem I'm now encountering; trying to decorate in a furnished and inhabited room.  I can't take the furniture out, there isn't anywhere to put it.  I can take shelves down but then end up with hundreds of books, CDs and DVDs either perched precariously on other shelves or sitting on the floor.  I can move furniture around up to a point but I don't have the space to move it all to the centre of the room and still have working space. 

To my mind, the only way of working from this point on is to concentrate on one wall, or one corner, and only move on when that part is completed. 

So I think the next thing I'll do will be to mark in the proposed centre line of the moulding around the room (I can do that because it sits at top bookshelf level) and then concentrate on painting just the walls between the doorway and the bay window.  When those are done I can put my DVD shelves back up, I can move my DVDs back to where they belong and I can use that freed up bit of floor area to move the television and a few bookshelves to, so I can paint the alcove where the television currently resides. 

And then I do rather have a problem because my main bookshelves (and the 5 - 600 books sitting on them? need to come down. 
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison



Between the doorway and the bay window is at least started. We'll see how we get on.
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

James Harrison

Progress!



Because of the ad-hoc nature of the development of the sitting room, this is the first time in three years that at least part of it actually looks like what I had in mind (and even then a bit more refined because the cream upper wall and picture rail moulding [not fitted yet] didn't feature in the original plan). 
Persons intending to travel by open carriage should select a seat with their backs to the engine, by which means they will avoid the ashes emitted therefrom, that in travelling generally, but particularly through the tunnels, prove a great annoyance; the carriage farthest from the engine will in consequence be found the most desirable.

SeVeNeVeS

Quote from: James Harrison on February 06, 2023, 06:08:40 PM


Between the doorway and the bay window is at least started. We'll see how we get on.

Just to let you know i'm still watching with interest. Any chance of a closer picture of the coving meeting the ceiling please? I have an idea for home using dado/picture rail to add some detailing. Thanks.

btb not my sort of colour but I must say looks good and like the idea of the one piece being cream.