Day 115: Scott vs a hole in the wall

OK, enough with guess the story. 

So , when we took out the toilet last November and changed the soil pipe it left a gaping hole in the wall. This was patched up on the inside but I figured that if get around to the outside when I get around to the outside. So this is me getting around to the outside. Why is the hole so big for a 4" pipe you may wonder. It's not that I went crazy with a power chisel - although it was fun to do. The old toilet was actually on an angle so it created an extra large hole when we straightened the pipe. 

So in first with the expanding foam to insulate and fill the gaps. Just shake the can, insert the nozzle and fill the foam. Then you watch it expand, and expand, and expand, and EXPAND! As you can see, I completely underestimated the expansiveness of the foam. It exted up looking like i jammed a giant marshmallow on steroids into the hole.

Good thing it's easy to cut when it dries. I used an old serrated kitchen knife which worked a treat. Don't ever try and clean excess off before it sets as it is stickier than a giant melted marshmallow on steroids. 

Once the foam was cut away, I used a bolster to cut bricks to size and fixed them using a lime mortar. As I've been reading, lime is important for flexing and water egress. Particularly important in older buildings that would have originally used lime. After it set, I used the same mortar for the rendering. Done in a couple of coats to get the right finish. This was finished off with a wet sponge and voila, no hole.

I'll finish off the paint when the weather gets a bit warmer.

 

Day 109: Scott vs the door trim

Day 109: Scott vs some wood rot

Compared with the fun I had on the radiator, this job was a piece of cake.

Under the tub on the external floor joist where the pipes exit the wall, I noticed some flaky wood. No discolouration or mushrooms growing from it so safe assumption that it is wet rot. Not quite sure what was causing it as I left a piece of cardboard over the areas for a week and it was perfectly dry. So likely to be from the previous bathroom installation.

After checking around the surrounding wood, the damage looks to be pretty minor just a 2 inch section and not too deep. Regardless, thought it best to call in Captain Ronseal .. 

This stuff soaks deep into affected wood and makes it rock hard and prevents future rot from occurring. There is a couple of window sills that could also use a visit from the Captain, but that will be the subject of a future post. So painted on, let it dry and hopefully, problem solved.

Day 102: Scott vs the radiator

If you think you've seen this towel radiator in multiple previous posts .. you have. And I'm STILL working on it. The challenge is that the radiator tails are more porous than the Toronto Maple Leafs blue line. I tried 8 wraps of PTFE tape on the threads, turned on the water and .. drip, drip, drip. So I had to drain the rad and take out the tails and put 14 wraps of PTFE tape on the treads, turned on the water and ... drip, drip, drip. 

So once again, I drained and took it all apart. So on went 20 wraps of PTFE tape to the point where threads were no longer visible and the rad tail looked like King Tuts thumb. Surely this has to work. Buttoned it all up again, turned on the water and, YEAH, no leaks! I filled up the rad completely now and turned on the heating, and when it reached full pressure .. drip, drip, drip. So out came some grown up words to express my joy in having to do this once again.

After consulting my friendly sources of knowledge - diynot, pistonheads and mybuilder - I felt somewhat vindicated in knowing that I wasn't the only one with this issue. Towel rads leak and quite often. I don't know why they've managed to solve most other building issues over the last 2 millennia but towel rads are somehow beyond the reach of science.

Or so I thought. Then I discovered Loctite 55. I think this must have been developed for NASA in some Apollo mission. The stuff is great. It looks like some overpriced dental floss and isn't cheap, but will it work? I followed the instructions of cleaning out any gunk from the tail threads, then taking a saw to the clean threads to rough them up a bit. After our recent history, I was more than happy to inflict some pain on those cursed threads. Afterwards I followed the recommended 7 wraps of the Loctite 55 and one for good measure and screwed them back on. Buttoned up the rads, turned on the water and prayed ... 

And, NO DRIPS! Feeling confident, I filled the radiator up fully, put the heating on to let it pressurise, and NO DRIPS!!! Finally, I finished the pipes off with some neato chrome pipe covering. One week on and drip free. Hooray for Loctite 55. PTFE tape is going in the bin.

Headline: Scott wins over a tough opponent in extra time

Day 102: A winning window

Well, I realise that I've been a bit slow in posting comments to go along with the photos, so trying to catch up on things.

Today was window day. After 3 months of staring out the ugly 1970's, dirty, flip up, single pane window, finally we got our new window installed by Falcon Windows. The guys came by and I let them to it. They made quick work of the old window and had the new triple glazed version in place in no time. 

Overall, it looks pretty good and definitely much warmer than the old one. I was hoping that they could push it back further but looking at the frame, this would have taken a lot more building work. They put a small wooden ledge on the bottom which we'll eventually get around to painting. The architrave around the outside looks lopsided because of my shower door installation. The plan is to take out the achitrave and tile around the outside of the window which should make it look a bit more symmetrical. This finishing work is time consuming - I much prefer knocking down walls :)

Day 95: A very rad wall

And the tiling goes on, and on, and on, and on. The thing about Metro tiles is that the tiling is non stop. And then comes the grouting. I've used about 3x as much grout on the walls to cover the same amount of space as the floors. On the bright side, the tiling is almost finished .. er would be closer to finished if we had ordered the right amount, but that's another story (see my last post)

 

Anyway, on to the weekend. I finished off the half row of tiles on the bottom of the far (accent) wall and then did some much needed grouting. As you can see in the photos, the wall looks much more finished now.

 

After letting the grout dry and enjoying some of the nice t-shirt weather, I started installing the heated towel rail. Those ugly things sticking out of the floor are the hopefully well placed pipe ends. After doing a test fit and drilling through the Carbyne tiles for what felt like hours (and several drill bits later) came the moment of truth

 

The radiator fit! My measuring was good. And good thing 'cause these pipes 'aint movin'

 

And then the second test, turning on the water. This test didn't go so well. The pipe ends inside the rad weren't tightened enough (requires a special hex key) so the floor got a bit wet. A second casualty was the chrome pipe covers as these wouldn't allow the compression nut to go on without cutting down too much. So Amazon to the rescue again - pipe key and new chrome slip-on sleeves now on order. The towel rad should be working by next weekend.

 

But at least I had some volunteers to make sure it looked nice and shiny! One genuinely helped and one just posed for the picture (I'll leave that up to people to guess which one)

 

Day 88 - Carolyn's 2nd Post!

I've been reminded on more than one occasion that this is 'our' blog and not just Scott's blog and that I'm under delivering with my updates. So here goes...It's obvious what Scott's been up to, but what about me?  In order to work on floor tiles, wall tiles, grouting, bath panels etc...you need time and peace and quiet...so clearly the kids have been out with me... However, Scott had a slight lull over the holidays waiting for some materials to arrive, and focused his efforts on training his two apprentices.  Grammy & Grampy sent them a table and chairs set for Christmas, so the girls were put to work.  Actually, they really wanted to build it and did most of it themselves with a little help...maybe future engineers like their Dad?  I may not have the expertise to build a bathroom, so I have the glorious job of cleaning and organizing.  I'm turning our downstairs dining room (one day) into a dedicated children's playroom and this is where the table and chairs will reside.

By the way...big 'shout out' to Scott...amongst everything else on your schedule, thank you for finding the time to organize our date night for my birthday.  Was a great evening out!