Day 148: I've been framed

I finally got around to fixing the window - been putting this off since we had the window replaced. When the window guys removed the old window, half of the plaster wall came with it. Nicely tucked away behind some architrave, it needed to be fixed.

 

Rather than plastering around the architrave (an option) we decided to pull off all the plaster, put up some backerboard and tile the wall instead. Given the placement of the shower door wall, the architrave could have only gone around 2/3 edges and wouldn't have looked symmetrical (see picture).

 

So in the spirit of "it going to look worse before it looks better", I took off all the remaining plaster down to the brick wall. And in doing so, I found the old lead over flow pipes. One went up to the loft cistern, the other was just terminated. You can see the picture of the pipes from the outside (not the most attractive feature of the house). After some cutting, hammering, pulling, nudging, swearing ('cause it helps), and more coercing, the pipes finally came out. They left a fairly large hole behind however. Good thing I'm now an expert with spray foam. I applied a much less generous amount this time and the hole was nicely plugged.

 

The wall behind has seen better days. The masonry needed to be smoothed out to fix the backerboard. After adding wood supports, bonding plaster and some chiselling, it was finally ready to go. I applied a coat of SBR diluted 3:1 with water as a bonding agent/moisture guard and fixed the aquapanel with tile adhesive. After this set, I put some frame fixer screws to hold it in place. The final result was mostly flush - the rest I could smooth out with the tiles.

 

In place of the architrave, I decided to use a tiling corner bead. I fixed this to the uPVC window frame using some mitre glue. I suspect that this is really super glue in a more expensive package. But hey, it did the trick and felt like I could do pull-ups on the new bond.

 

Finally, came the tiling. Given the irregular border of the window frame now, this involved some creative tiling. I bought a special Dremel attachment a while back for just this task. It's basically a rough stick that goes on the end; but it just eats away tiles and made my job easy. Recommend this for anyone doing intricate tiling. The overall job looks fantastic if I can say so myself. Really nice boarder around the window now and will show a treat when I get around to the grouting.

 

 

Day 154: Something a-peeling

Today the task was to tackle the wallpaper. It's about 3 layers deep from what I can tell and painted over at least once. What that means is that it's going to be a pain in the @$$ to take off. I am definitely curious what lies beneath - a healthy plaster wall or a crumbly mess?

Today's tools:

• gloves 
• 100mm scraper 
• wallpaper remover 
• a poky, pointy stick 
• some elbow grease 

Although it looks like some medieval torture device, the pointy stick is actually for perforating the wallpaper to allow the wallpaper remove to really soak in. It worked a treat and the task was easier thank planned (although I planned for the worst).

 

The wallpaper remover gets mixed with water (kinda like a dish soap consistency). After about 10 min, it eats away at the wallpaper adhesive and it can be scraped away with a scraper. Recommendation is to invest in a good one to save some effort in getting the paper off the wall. The on that I use has replaceable blades so that it's always sharp.

 

Still, the task took the better part of the afternoon and made quite a mess - see from the pictures. I even had to enlist the work of a couple of smaller helpers to get finished. Good news is that the wall underneath all that paper was in pretty good shape. Now that I've finished with the sockets, I'll get around to doing a skim coat of plaster and it will be ready for paint.

 

 

Day 142: Socket to 'em

Most homeowners have been here before .. the sockets in the room are in the exact spot you don't need them. Probably should have got the electrician to move them when we did the re-wire, but at that point I didn't know where everything was going to go.

So on the other side of the bathroom is the 3rd bedroom - which will soon be the office. Right now it's Scott's tool room/workshop. There are 2 power sockets in the room, but they wouldn't be near where the computer desk is going to go, and I'd also need to run a couple of network cables into the room

Nothing too serious .. except ... the wall that I wanted to move them to was a masonry wall. So in order to have flush sockets, I needed to drill/chisel out the blockwork. The other option woulkd be surface boxes in conduit - but that would have been too easy. The job was actually much easier than expected .. but also a lot dustier. The key here is to make sure you're using a good masonry bit; the one that I had cut through the brick like butter.

I chiselled out the outline for the pattress boxes and a route for the cables under the floorboards. I decided to put the wiring through conduit rather than plastering them into the wall to make my life easier in the future. Wires can be run then after the wall is finished.

Those with a keen eye will notice in the pictures that he plaster is receding slowly away (like Brexit supporters). Reason being is that the plaster was loose on the wall and I decided to take it back further to a point where it was still bonded. I used some hardwall plaster on the bits that I chipped away and will skim the wall after the wallpaper is removed (but that's a different story) .. The little blocks of wood are nailed into the wall and will be used for fixing skirting sometime it the not-so-distant future.

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