Saturday: I finished off clearing the plaster board of the walls to the kitchen to 1m (39”) high and disposed of the waste.
Finished of bricking-up the doors to the utility room.
Removed the excessive plastic membrane from around the perimeter of the new slab.
It is surprising how long all these small jobs take.
A day of relaxation,or so I thought – I finally managed to level most of the ground from the pipe laying, but I think at the first big rain (forecast for Tuesday), it will turn into a mud-bath again. I am reluctant to lay small stones on top of the surface, as they will have to be removed again next year when we pave the area, otherwise it is going to be too high.
I started to clear out the junk in the loft above the utility room – quite a bit of steel tubing was stored up there.
I even started to fill the trailer with scrap metal.
During my clearance of the utility room loft, a light flashed in by head with a great idea. By raising the walls in the loft by 1m to 1 ½ m (39” – 60”), thus raising the roof by the same amount, we suddenly get an extra 25m squared (270’ squared) of useable space. My idea is to make this into an on-suit bathroom to the main bedroom (the existing bathroom is down stairs at the far end of the house).
Monday: Just been cleaning up the main bedroom, which is not yet being finished built – so I can get a better look at the proposed modification.
BEFORE
AFTER
I will have to get the architect involved as I am not sure of the load bearing capacity of the footings of the utility room.
If this does work out, then it will delay the finishing (building) of the main bedroom by some months, as the roof space of the utility room will join the bedroom roof. Still there is a lot of other jobs to be done, small as well as huge
Looking into the kitchen, I have discovered that the wastewater from the dishwasher and sink are NOT connected to the main waste water system,
but simply soak away into the garden, just outside the patio doors.
I have two choices:-
i. Connect the 4” pipe to the main sewer, working my way around the exterior of the house – the big problem with this is the additional pipe run would be about 25m (82’) long and I would only have a 100mm (4”) drop, in addition, the pipe work would only be about 50mm (2”) under the exterior ground level.
ii. I have to open the concrete floor in the kitchen and lay some new 2” pipework. Luckily, the new waste water system in the utility room, who’s floor is some 6 “ lower than the kitchen floor – therefore I should be able to run the water into this system. The total run length would be about 5m (16’)
Well thats it for the last couple of days – the damp-proofing people should be here tomorrow, then I can start to move my tools into the house and set-up my temporary workshop.
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