Day 480: Some venting

After a week off in Austria - it was back to business on the kitchen. The first order of business was to grout the tiles; cause white tiles by themselves are well .. a bit dull. We elected to go with  a grey "smoke" colour. This was more of a medium grey as opposed to the brownish/yellow "smoking" colour from the rest of the house.

The fun part was to get all of the excess tile adhesive outside of the joints between the tiles. Good practice is to use an adhesive similar in colour to the grout you plan on using. Lazy practice is to use the adhesive you have left over, in this case white, and scrape out any excess.

 

Then came the grout, one of my more favorite activities. Right behind smashing things. Grout was mixed into a peanut butter consistency and smeared on the wall working it well into the joints with my trusty float.

 

And then off it came. After many a wipe down with a builders sponge, it was looking rather sharp. Now to just let it dry and focus on a few other things ...

 

And once it was dry, finally time for the cooker hood (and a long story). 

So the cooker hood was originally ordered in April of 2016 with the cooker. We chose a Belling 90cm stainless steel hood to match the cooker. It was supposed to arrive in June last o=year just after the cooker .. unfortunately it didn't and I got a call from Curry's that it was delayed by the manufacturer Belling and would be refunded. So I then ordered from another outlet who said they could deliver in 2 months time. And after 2 months I got a call saying it would be delayed another 2 month, followed by another phone call and another 2 months. By the time I got a 3rd call from this outfit, I told them where to go. I managed to find another supplier that had it "in stock" only to find out a week later that it was, you guessed it, about 2 months away .. 

Now it was Christmas time, and I was in Canada and elected to go with the 100cm version, normally much more expensive, but on sale for Boxng Day. And it was in stock!!! The box arrived just after we got back to the UK and I really couldn't believe my eyes when the thing actually arrived. So yes, it's a 100cm hood over a 90cm cooker but my research shows that this isn't a bad thing because smoke doesn't just go straight upwards anyway, a bigger hood is actually better if you can fit it. 

 

And all I need to mount it was a bracket and 3 screws - these things don't actually weigh that much. So far so good.

 

And finally the hood was mounted. After initially struggling to get the 150mm piping routed out of the house, and then having to figure out how to conceal it (see here), and finally having all the issues with delivery .. the hood was up. And it looks nice and works a treat (i.e. it sucks, but in a productive kind of way)

Except of course there had to be an issue .. the cover for the tubing was not very forgiving. Apparently, though it's a 150mm extractor, Belling must not think many people are going to be fitting 150mm ducting because there was no give to the front. The ducting would have been mounted perfectly flush to the wall in order for it to work. And I had about 2cm of gap. Not the end of the world, but definitely a bit more customization in the near future. 

That aside, I'm still glad that we went with the full size ducting. The fan works much better without the constriction and is a whole lot quieter. Only to get this surround figured out now.

Day 270: Things are lookin' up - aka my neck's a hurtin'

Before people start thinking I'm some combined Mike Holmes/Bob Villa on steroids. This posting spans a couple of weekends .. and a bit of mid week magic.

So the task at hand was to finish framing the ceiling void in the extension, install insulation, run the ducting and plasterboard the lot. Piece of cake

You'll have seen in the previous posts that the old area was a bit of a falling apart Artex mess. The whole thing came down with minimal effort. As usual, putting it back took a bit of extra work. All the key bits were in place however; Tom re-routed the hot water pipes and got his mate to install the vent hood for the 150mm kitchen exhaust.

So first, I decided to put on the insulation. Given that it was pretty cold with single paned windows, a grossly undersized rad and no insulation whatsoever, I'm expecting big things now. The kitchen may even end up being a bit too warm with the big vertical rad, double glased windows and now insulation. Let's see this winter. I'm expecting super cold temps to make it all worthwhile.

I grabbed 50mm Celotex. This was the largest width I could fit between the rafters (and much cheaper than say 100mm). Cutting it was a breeze with a extending knife - although recommend wearing a dust mask and doing it outside as it looked a bit like the North Pole afterwards (or Pablo Escobar's kitchen table). The Celotex is foil lined on both sides for moisture protection and is rigid enough to hold itself in place. The density also gives it better insulation properties. A 120cm x 240cm sheet did the whole area with some left over. Joints were sealed with foil tape (really cool stuff - like sticky kitchen foil).

After the Celotex came the vapour barrier. This keeps all the moist air on the inside of the house so it doesn't escape through the insulation and condense on the other side leading to nasty things like rot/mould/etc. The material looks like old garbage bags fused together in a big sheet. Cost-wise however, it doesn't look a thing like old garbage bags fused together in a big sheet. This was fixed in place in one sheet using a staple gun to hold in place. Good ol' duct tape was used to seal the joints.

Later came the framing for the duct work. This would have been a great time lapse photography piece. Except I'm not so talented nor motivated to set this up myself. Maybe the next reno project. So the challenge - I decided to go with 150mm kitchen ducting. The problem - 150mm is 6" which is BIG. It doesn't turn corners very well and takes up a lot of space. I initially thought I'd do the whole thing with flat channel ducting and put it together like LEGO. That didn't work entirely. So thanks to the Internet, mixed and matched some semi-rigid aluminium round ducting, flat channel pieces and an adapter to connect the two. In all, it somehow worked. Joints were sealed with mastic sealant and double sealed with special PVC ducting tape. The aluminium pieces used my favourite aluminium duct tape. And the valuable lesson/biggest surprise of all .... Duct Tape, the centre of all household repairs .. ISN'T PARTICULARLY GREAT ON DUCT WORK. Amazing! Look it up if you don't believe me. Generations of people have been mislead, including myself. Go impress your friends with this great piece of trivia.

But the duct work worked after all. 150mm throughout. This thing is really going to suck. Whenever the hood decides to arrive.

Last came the plasterboard. With all the duct work in place, I just need to conceal my great work. Good thing there is a blog so it can be appreciated by millions around the world (or at least a few appreciative friends/family). I figured to celebrate my achievement and make plasterboarding a bit easier, I'd go and purchase a new Dremel tool to add to the collection - a hole saw kit. Basically a poor man's router. This think makes cutting plasterboard details a breeze - an a lot more fun.

You can see from the results, it looks much better now. Ready for some finishing work and plastering on top.




The startin' place

Celotex polysomething insulation for roof voids

Lots and lots of plasterboard

Celotex in place

Now some vapour barrier (glorified garbage bags)

Vapour barrier in place now sealed with good 'ol duct tape

Beginnings of the frame for the ducting

Some ductin' in place

Scott's got a new gadget

The finishin' place - ready for cornerin', tapein' and plasterin'