Yesterday was spent working on the house, actually doing some fairly significant renovationy things. Sadly, mostly things that don’t really do anything terribly visible, but that should make a reasonable impact to heating the house this winter.
The insulation was scheduled to arrive yesterday morning, and given that I had the whole enjoyable day off I decided to mount the radiator on the wall and start the above floor plumbing work. Thankfully, the insulation arrived early in the day allowing me to nip out and grab the TRV and some shiny chrome pipe for the run to under the floor.
The bolts that came with the radiator are pretty crappy, sadly. They’ve pulled out a little from the wall (about 1mm), which is slightly frustrating. But still, it’s looking reasonable.
The insulation, we discovered, pretty much fills the kitchen.
Having got 3 rolls of the stuff under the floor I got the fun of zig-zagging under the house in the filth dragging the rolls from the access point to the kitchen.
Finally, having got them to the right area I started sticking them into the joist spaces. I worked my way around with the staple gun and my roll of wire, holding the insulation up, stapling, and moving on. Can I just say, dear god I’m glad that they’re not glassfibre. I came out of doing this filthy, tired and sore. But not itchy. This stuff is heaven to work with compared to glass fibre.
I’ve only managed about 1/3rd of the job, and christ am I knackered today. Slept well last night though!
Whilst I was under the floor I also used the pipe-freezing kits and let the new radiator into the circuit. I admit to giving in and using quick-plumb stuff, saving me the pain of dragging the blowtorch down there. It all worked very nicely, actually, although the radiator promptly leaked up in the kitchen. I ended up spraying myself with a moderate amount of water this morning as I attempted to persuade it not to leak. I think I’ve just not been generous enough with the PTFE tape, which is not unusual, at least, not when I’ve have a big gap between now and the last time I was doing plumbing. I think, having had an impromptu shower in radiator water this morning I’ve managed to get it to seal. I’m not 100% convinced yet, though.
I’m now pondering whether I can get any work done on the deck today…
