Well ! a busy day yesterday and no mistake .
I really wanted to get this ditch filled in before the clear spell ended , so i cast about the estate looking for stuff to let me do so .
in the end i decided that ,whilst perf pipe and stuff was great , there was nowhere near that had any, so i improvised .
i took out all the clay pipe lying in the bottom of the trench , then used a bit with a 45 degree slash cut end , popped that on the drain and wrapped it all in leaky weed stop fabric,then i cut a new load of fabric off this weird bag thing ..
that appears to be the right sort of thing ...
laid that in the ditch , and filled it with old bricks .
they are probably going to end up being super rare inch and 13/75th bricks from the 1678 monastry of willing virgins , but i just don't care anymore !
next i found this overgrown bag of gravel.
this was a cursing and a blessing ,in not so much of a disguise .
see , to get it to the trench de sacre blu, i had to get the barrow de rotaty thing up these steps ..
which are just to high to miss the front bar , so i had to go up backwards , with a barrow full of loose gravel .....
next i had the torville and dean practise slopes to navigate ..
then i could tip the gravel in .
doing this many times got me to here ..
as you can see i put in a wall of slate to reduce the mud into ditch flowage factor a mite .
now i had a nicely filled trench , and i was very happy with it , however , i also had a load of old muddy gravel i had dug out in the first place ....where to put it ?
i was going to tip it where i tipped the mud from the trench ..
Then i had a really bright/awfull idea , lets put it on the drive ...
did i mention the ice skating rink from hell ?
so there i am doing the worlds most complicated core strength workout , wheeling a heavy barrow full of gravel and mud , down a sloping,bending, v slippery concrete path , trying to get down the steps without dropping all the gravel , all done with my eye mainly on the avoidance of a spectacular 'Guinness book of records' groin injury .
Thank goodness , i thought, when the last barrow of that was done ..
then a bit of raking and sweeping got me to here..
gabby inspected during the day ..
she gave me a enthusiastic 4 mice award , 3 of which she ate and one she left for me on the big room carpet .
Nice.
so today was going to be a rest day .....
yup .
well , the rads blocked again , so i thought here's a clever idea , i can shut off the flow to the rads with my new filter , close off that flow , and i can drain down the top rad pipes with no fuss , and then blow up the pipes . so i shut it off , and disconnected the rad feed in the hall , nothing ,stuck a screwdriver in the end...
oh ! here it comes ..
i had my basin ready , and was happily draining it away , and filled three basins before i realised , i had not shut the feed to the header tank >>>!
but then i thought , with this feed to the upstairs leg shut , how is water getting out ? then i remembered the loop in the roof where a rad had been taken out , and i guessed it was flowing right through that loop .
So , now i had three basins of water , and a full header tank .
I tipped the basins in the milk churn , and then shut the header tank feed , and drained the system into the three basins ...again .
then went around disconnecting pipes , taking up the floor again , dismantling the manifold and using the compressor to blow up the pipes .again .
then all back together ,lifting those basins full of water up the attic stairs, to fill the header tank , without spilling it all over my head ,was like a 'it's a knock out' event , i could actually hear stuart hall losing another rib laughing .
oh , one interesting thing was , while the sitting room rad from hell was disconected on its feed pipe, i undid the radiator valve ,and while it was sputtering into the basin, banged with my fist on the rad ,lo and behold a lot of stuff came out ...so i am thinking that rad is full of gunk .
temperature in the sitting room last night was ...
with a rad temp of ..
and the boiler at 75 c .
hopefully be a little better tonight .
to finish off my rest day i cut back the foam on the window box ..
used the offcuts to pack the holy bits ..
there's quite a lot stuffed in there ...and then tapped the frame back on .
after that day , i thought i'll just do the washing up , and feed the cat , then relax in the warm/cold whatever the universe sends me ... but no ..
turned on the hot tap ...no flow ..nuffin .
this normally happens when the pumping station had stopped working and the reservoir has emptied .
Now , at this point , i hope you will forgive me for feeling very slightly hard done by .not a lot ...just a bit .
was the reservoir frozen , was the pump not working ? all the usual thought on that whole problem flashed through my mind as i very gently rested the back of my left hand on my forehead .
i may have uttered the word ...
......Woe .
HOWEVER ..."enough pantywaisting" my industrious facet spat , off up the attic ladder with you ...again ..
it was the work of a moment to haul my flat battery self up the stairs open the hatch let down the ladder and climb into the attic ,popped off the lid to the hot water header tank , and stuff me !!!
it was full .
it was at this point i remembered shutting off the flow to the emersion heater tank , as i was trying to work out why i had flow on the rads ....
replace lid , down the ladder , slide up ladder , shut attic door , down stairs, open airing cupboard open valve ...
finish washing up .
Feed cat .
regards
robert