Again it was a slow day in terms of progress. I did get the corner cabinet attached to the wall with the spring toggles which means it is not coming off again – ever!
Moving the cooker power switch was straightforward enough if very time consuming. I’m not that experienced with electrics but I know enough to know that fifty amps can hurt if you get it wrong so I took my time with moving the socket. After dismantling the old socket it was back to B&Q for a junction box – D’OH!
I got as far as running the new cables to the new switch and to the two points that actually feed the cooker when Colm the plumber turned up.
Now Colm is a lovely bloke and I really enjoy his company but he is the most disorganised man I know. He was coming to fit a flexible gas fitting for the hob which will allow me to just plug it in when the worktops are fitted. I made the tea and was watching him sitting in the back of his van surrounded by pipes, tools and general plumbing detritus. Ten minutes later he was still sitting there without apparently moving. Worried that something was wrong with him I went out to see him when he explained that he had forgotten the gas fittings!
He could fit the converter on the top of the copper gas pipe though so he set about that when I said the fatal words, “While you are here.....”
My water main comes into the house in a stupid position a couple of feet away from the wall and in the old kitchen it came up about a foot at the front of the cupboard under the sink and the pipes went back to a real mish-mash of pipe work which reduced the cupboard space significantly so it all needed changing.
I felt that I could sort that out easily enough except for the mains pipe itself which is a plastic pipe that sticks out of the concrete floor by just about 2cm and goes into a converter that is also the stopcock. I had bought a convertor without a stopcock so the pipe could come up and then turn ninety degrees and run under the new cupboard before coming up at the back to a stopcock – just like normal houses!
The problem with the mains pipe was the tiny amount of play left in it. It was a one-chance job once the old fitting was removed. If the new fitting didn’t work the concrete floor, and the new tiles, would have to be dug out to get more pipe to play with. The old fitting came out reasonably easy and the mains pipe was thankfully undamaged. The new fitting went on and connected to a stop-tap a little further up the line. I turned the mains water back on at the front of the house to a loud shout from Colm. The new fitting was leaking.
We worked out that it was the top part of the fitting where it went into the copper pipe so Colm undid the nut and found that the olive, a brass sealing ring, had not compressed to make a seal. The trouble was that it was a brass nut on a plastic thread so we couldn’t give it large to tighten it to compress the olive or it would strip the plastic thread. If the thread was stripped the fitting would be useless and the floor would have to be dug up to remove it and fit a new one. It was tense.
Colm found a copper olive, a real feat of discovery in the chaos that is the back of his van. How does he work like that? The theory was that copper is softer than brass so it should compress with less pressure.
So the new olive was fitted and the nut tightened to a minimum of pressure and off I went to turn on the mains again. It leaked. The nut was tightened just a bit and the process repeated. In fact, it was repeated at least five times with the fitting leaking every time. Colm said that it was just about at the limit when he tightened it for the last time and it held! Hallelujah!
The rest of the pipework was relatively easy and Colm is coming back next Wednesday or Thursday to fit the gas fittings that he forgot.
So at the end of the day, I have got a cupboard in place, the sink plumbing almost sorted out, a new cooker socket and some bloody great holes in the walls that were so lovingly smoothed and painted only a few days previously.
This is perilously slow work. Saturday will be spent completing the electrical work, filling the holes in the walls and getting the oven cabinet secured in place. With those niggly jobs out of the way, I hope to get the other two cabinets secured on the back wall tomorrow so I can concentrate on completing the sink plumbing, the waste pipes and power supply for the dishwasher and the sink base unit in place before Tuesday when help is coming to cut and fit the worktops.
There’s still plenty to get on with. I have just watched qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix. Go Lewis! Time to crack on...
Moving the cooker power switch was straightforward enough if very time consuming. I’m not that experienced with electrics but I know enough to know that fifty amps can hurt if you get it wrong so I took my time with moving the socket. After dismantling the old socket it was back to B&Q for a junction box – D’OH!
I got as far as running the new cables to the new switch and to the two points that actually feed the cooker when Colm the plumber turned up.
Now Colm is a lovely bloke and I really enjoy his company but he is the most disorganised man I know. He was coming to fit a flexible gas fitting for the hob which will allow me to just plug it in when the worktops are fitted. I made the tea and was watching him sitting in the back of his van surrounded by pipes, tools and general plumbing detritus. Ten minutes later he was still sitting there without apparently moving. Worried that something was wrong with him I went out to see him when he explained that he had forgotten the gas fittings!
He could fit the converter on the top of the copper gas pipe though so he set about that when I said the fatal words, “While you are here.....”
My water main comes into the house in a stupid position a couple of feet away from the wall and in the old kitchen it came up about a foot at the front of the cupboard under the sink and the pipes went back to a real mish-mash of pipe work which reduced the cupboard space significantly so it all needed changing.
I felt that I could sort that out easily enough except for the mains pipe itself which is a plastic pipe that sticks out of the concrete floor by just about 2cm and goes into a converter that is also the stopcock. I had bought a convertor without a stopcock so the pipe could come up and then turn ninety degrees and run under the new cupboard before coming up at the back to a stopcock – just like normal houses!
The problem with the mains pipe was the tiny amount of play left in it. It was a one-chance job once the old fitting was removed. If the new fitting didn’t work the concrete floor, and the new tiles, would have to be dug out to get more pipe to play with. The old fitting came out reasonably easy and the mains pipe was thankfully undamaged. The new fitting went on and connected to a stop-tap a little further up the line. I turned the mains water back on at the front of the house to a loud shout from Colm. The new fitting was leaking.
We worked out that it was the top part of the fitting where it went into the copper pipe so Colm undid the nut and found that the olive, a brass sealing ring, had not compressed to make a seal. The trouble was that it was a brass nut on a plastic thread so we couldn’t give it large to tighten it to compress the olive or it would strip the plastic thread. If the thread was stripped the fitting would be useless and the floor would have to be dug up to remove it and fit a new one. It was tense.
Colm found a copper olive, a real feat of discovery in the chaos that is the back of his van. How does he work like that? The theory was that copper is softer than brass so it should compress with less pressure.
So the new olive was fitted and the nut tightened to a minimum of pressure and off I went to turn on the mains again. It leaked. The nut was tightened just a bit and the process repeated. In fact, it was repeated at least five times with the fitting leaking every time. Colm said that it was just about at the limit when he tightened it for the last time and it held! Hallelujah!
The rest of the pipework was relatively easy and Colm is coming back next Wednesday or Thursday to fit the gas fittings that he forgot.
So at the end of the day, I have got a cupboard in place, the sink plumbing almost sorted out, a new cooker socket and some bloody great holes in the walls that were so lovingly smoothed and painted only a few days previously.
This is perilously slow work. Saturday will be spent completing the electrical work, filling the holes in the walls and getting the oven cabinet secured in place. With those niggly jobs out of the way, I hope to get the other two cabinets secured on the back wall tomorrow so I can concentrate on completing the sink plumbing, the waste pipes and power supply for the dishwasher and the sink base unit in place before Tuesday when help is coming to cut and fit the worktops.
There’s still plenty to get on with. I have just watched qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix. Go Lewis! Time to crack on...
