So for the past (N) months I’ve been occasionally beating myself up over the plumbing. The failure of the shower to drain properly has been annoying me and I’d wondered if I’d ever get it fixed. It seemed that every few months the problem would return, sometimes more frequently, and I couldn’t really work out why.
I thought that the drop in the bathroom was pretty close to minimum fall, and perhaps I’d got it wrong, because the floor in there’s sure as biscuits not level. I blamed myself for the many and manifold faults I perceived to exist. Although I did vaguely wonder if the bucket-loads of grout that had been washed down from the shower had something to do with it.
I also assumed that it was leaking…because the sink sure as hell is, only slightly, but the drain fitting on the sink seems to persistently leak.
Yesterday I finally took the floor up, and found that no, it’s not leaking, but it is sodden from the leaking valve (which is fixed now). So the floor’s going to stay up for a while until the great big chunks of wood under there have dried out. Then they’ll get some rot-killer & hardener just to be sure. Unfortunately I cut through the pipework taking it out – and found that yes, it’s full of tile grout. Well, what came out when I dragged a high-tech cleaning thingie through the rest of the pipework to the outside world* was a mixture of mould and gunk that looked like it might once have been tile grout.
The problem seems to have multiplied itself as the final run of pipe (outside) appears to have suffered from the very-slow-running-water and had lots of gunk in it too, which it’s never really had before. So that was cleaned out.
The pipe section I cut through was replaced, and lo, the shower now drains. I also took apart the sink’s drain hole, and that proved to be an issue with cheapness. The nasty cheap drain I put in has a propensity to trap hair inbetween the shiny stainless steel top piece and the plastic underneath. This then slowly grows mould which eventually starts to block the sink drain in a way it’s very difficult to see, and impossible to resolve without taking it apart.
I’m tempted to replace it with a much nicer metal object.
And the shower? Not leaking. Not even slightly wet. Going to have to keep checking it for a while now that I’ve had to take it apart and put it back together, but I’m hoping it’ll stay dry and that this will once and for all resolve the problems.
In other news, the DAF is sporting a new, ill fitting door. Well it fits okay, but I suspect the original door might be a better bet if I clean it up, fill it appropriately, respray it, and put the window winder mechanism in from this door. But it means we have a working window winder for our trip. And some Evostick to take with us incase the crappy cheap bostik stuff that was all store I went to initially had fails and the door seal comes off half way around Europe. The car is running a bit better, for having it’s mixture enriched, although the difference isn’t huge – once she’s warm she’s fine, it’s just when cold there’s a startling lack of power. When we get back I hope we can make it to a DAF meet and someone way more experienced with them can perhaps tweak her to a successful running state. Hopefully we’re good to go.
* A sock (x2) on a piece of string. Did wonders.
