A New Start #12: Outside services, Utility Room and Kitchen (23 - 29/08/2010)

Well another week has been and gone, I do not know where the time goes, but I guess I must be pretty busy as I am full of aches and pains from the neck down.

So here is a summary of what I have been doing this week. Sorry (especially to my wife) for not posting a daily blog, but I just have not had the energy at the end of the day.

UTILTY ROOM.

The first part of the week was installing the “First Fit” of the waste water pipes in the utility room – I also managed to fill the big void at the end of the utility room. I also capped both the water and septic tanks with concrete.

I installed rails to the walls, which will allow me to lay a perfectly flat and level concrete floor.

The Concrete floor is planned for next Thursday, but is subject to conformation

OUTSIDE SERVICES

I have done some more restoration work on the mess we made last weekend installing the sewer, rain water and gas pipes. It did not rain on Monday or Tuesday, so Tuesday afternoon, I though it would be a good time to start shifting some of that dirt (sticky, heavy muddy clay) – WRONG!!!! The clay had been baked by the sun and was now like concrete – so not too much progress there.

I did install a new down pipe for the rain water from the utility room’s roof into the new rainwater system – which has been heavily tested for the last 5 days (non stop rain) – I must admit, it had really helped with the flooding we were experiencing.

KITCHEN

As you can see from the photograph below, the height of the two patio doors is quite high from the kitchen floor, I think this was because the ground level outside was so high.

The side door was not so bad

Thankfully, because of the damp problem, I had to lower the outside ground level to be in line with the foundation/damp course – this also meant that I had a 60 cm (2’) step down outside.

Removing the smaller windows was very time consuming, as it was such a tight fit, only enough space on the sides and top to get a very thin saw blade between the bricks and frame to cut through and break the rubber seal around the inside and out side of the frame.

This shows the smaller door – with most of the bricks removed.

The smaller door with the new threshold fitted – including damp course.

The smaller door refitted at the new height.

The larger window was much easier, but significantly heavier, this took my son-in-law and my self some very careful maneuvering to get this safely on the floor.

A view from the outside, you will notice on the left how high the soil still is, the damp proof membrane is 4 courses of bricks lower than the soil level (not any more!)

Here is the re-installed patio doors – I think you will agree, a great improvement visually.

The “Blue” above both doors is 50mm (2”) insulation foam, which is temporary, just to fill the gap – eventually, we were thinking about installing leaded glass windows here – but that will be next year, when we start the kitchen properly.

I still have to seal both windows, but the stores are not open today, so I guess Monday or Tuesday will see them wind and water tight.