REPLACEMENT ASBESTOS SOIL STACK

If I had a tenner for every inch of asbestos used in the construction of this house, I’d be a darned sight richer than I will be after this project’s finished.

Ugh! Asbestos. It’s the bane of everyone’s DIY life. Can’t drill it, scrape it, cut it, sand it or do anything to it other than look at it. If the sort you have is ultra-toxic then apply for a second mortgage if you want to replace it with anything safer. You’re stuck with this bugger for life.

The exterior soil stack pipe was flagged on our survey as being made of the dreaded ‘A’, the norm in properties built around the late fifties/early sixties. Houses in those days were built from materials designed to last decades. Nobody gave the slightest thought to the potential impact of degrading asbestos on the health of house-owners until now.

Our soil stack pipe whilst in sound condition looks awful. Paint peeling like leprosy exposing patches of grey material most likely asbestos cement. In an ideal world, I would have scraped off the patchy black stuff then re-painted the pipe in either Hammerite or some other waterproof exterior pipe paint but no can do. To attempt such a thing might result in a fate worse than death.

BEFORE - Awful pipe

So, do I let sleeping asbestos dogs lie or do I find someone who can replace the soil stack in the safest way possible? But without it costing me an arm and a leg…

Our builder assures me his plumber is up for the job and can replace the pipe taking all safety or waste disposal considerations into account. Okay. I smile hesitantly before retreating indoors, shutting every window so that no A-dust can get inside and kill me. OMG the lad’s not even wearing a face-mask!!!

Old soil stack removed

One aspect of replacing a soil stack pipe that is perhaps not immediately obvious to plebs like me is that the task involves connecting the new plastic waste pipe to the back of your toilet.

New pipe has to connect to loo

Sounds simple enough but when your loo is of the back-to-wall type incorporated into a fitted unit then be prepared to have your toilet trashed in order to accomplish this because a plumber/builder will need to reach the back of the pan.

OMG!  My beautiful toilet unit

Horror of horrors – just look at our loo! I really hope they know how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Good job I’ve got a downstairs cloakroom or I might have to spend the day in the Spoons nursing one of those bottomless coffees in case I need a pee. Aside from the occasional sneaky peak, I’m keeping well out of it.

After what seems like hours of banging, crashing and scurrying upstairs, I’m summoned to inspect their handiwork. Phew! The toilet immaculately assembled. If I hadn’t snuck upstairs earlier, I would be none the wiser.

You'd never know they'd been here

As the upper part of the wall is yet to be cladded then only the bottom half of the soil stack has been replaced with a nice sturdy plastic pipe.

New pipes to be connected together

Waste water pipes from handbasin and shower temporarily plumbed in with new pipes which will eventually be joined into the main soil stack rather than run as separate pipes as had been the case previously.

So far so good. Only the cladding remains to be done.  Let's hope I don't have to wait too long for that part of this project to be completed.

Replacement soil stack to be continued

BOOK LIBRARY GOES LIVE

What do you give a 31 year-old for his birthday? A Bluey cake, of course!

Bluey says Happy Birthday

Come on - you don’t really think I spend all day every day priming, painting or putting up fence posts, do you? I’m a dab hand in the old baking department too. But cookery is a subject for another day because there’s a little lending library to be finally put to bed.

Those fence posts are as solid as a rock, the perfect base for our book box so it’s just a case of securing one to the other.

Place book box on top of both fence posts. Whilst one of you holds everything in place, outline each of the posts in pencil on the underside of the box.

Drawing round posts

Remove box and lay it flat on its back. Mark lines diagonally from corner to corner on your pencilled post outline until you have a cross in a square. Use the lines on your cross to determine the location of screw holes. Drill holes straight through from the underside taking care not to splinter the wood. You can use one very large screw in the middle of the cross or a couple of diagonal ones like we’ve done.

Drill holes from underside of box

Place box back onto the fence posts. Again, it’s a two-person job as one of you needs to hold everything whilst the other one screws the box down onto each post. That is going nowhere. Even a force 5 gale isn’t going to knock it down.

Screwed down onto fence posts

Stand back to admire. Wow! It’s turned out so much better than I expected. My son’s as pleased as punch and can’t wait to declare the lending library officially open on the village Facebook site.

Wow!  Looks great

I hope his little act of kindness will be well appreciated by the locals and encourage a love of reading.

Lending library officially open

BOOK LIBRARY - FENCE POSTS

Every day’s a school day in the world of DIY, why should today be any different?

Today folks, we are road-testing new landscaping skills after watching a few of those online teach-yourself-how-to-put-in-fence-posts videos. Dig a hole, stick a post in then add concrete. Sounds simple enough. Except as everyone knows, it never is!

Son has found a piece of prime real estate in his front garden on which to site the village’s new lending library. The book box is being bolted on to a couple of sturdy fence posts so that it just hovers above this brick wall.

Can we put it there?

Once you’ve worked out exactly where along the wall the library is to be positioned then dig a very large hole about a foot deep as close to the wall as you can get. Measure the distance between the bottom of your hole and the top of the wall to determine the height of the fence posts.

Dig some deep holes

Cut fence posts. We used 1 x 2.4 metre post that was 10 cms square cut in half. Nice and chunky. Even a big bad wolf is going to struggle to blow those buggers down.

Look no hands to hold posts

Stick post in the hole. To save having to hold the posts in situ whilst the concrete dries, the other half has used some gash bits of timber and long clamps to chock the two posts evenly away from the wall.

Quick drying concrete for posts

Pour powdered postcrete into the holes around each fence post making sure it’s nice and compact then just add water. Always follow the recipe instructions on the packet for the best chance of getting a good bake.

Add powdered postfix

Then pour on the water

Pub lunch anyone? Well, there’s no point spending hours watching the bloody things dry, is there?

ONLY A NUMBER

What a weekend! Still buzzing from rocking my socks off to the Vengaboys at Victorious. And I mean buzzing. Five days on, my ears are fizzing like a sherbet dib-dab. That’s what happens when you stand too close to those enormous speaker stacks. You’d think after all these gigs that I’d know better especially now the TV volume is beginning to slowly creep up. Nah!

All aboard the Vengabus

The venga bus is coming, it would be rude not to get on it. Even though I’m a few years off from getting a biddy bus pass, I haven’t forgotten how to rave on. 

Age is only a number. And by next weekend, my knee/hip/butt will be telling me it’s a nine out of ten on the Pain-O-Meter. 

Up then down. Up then down. We like to PARRRRTAAY!!!

Scissor Sisters were also great

Summer is now officially over. Thank **ck. It’s rained (yay!). Cooler temperatures are hopefully on the horizon. Goodbye heatwave, hello tsunami. Happiest when I’m wearing my cagoule and not feeling like a roast-in-the-bag chicken without one. Finally, I can open the lounge curtains to look out at … clouds. And dead plants. Gardening is back on the agenda.

But before I ditch festival fripperies for garden fork, I’m devoting 15 minutes of my day to numbers because life’s all about maths. (And spreadsheets).

160 – the number of days since I left work to embark on my retirement odyssey. It’s been brilliant! I’ve not missed the drudgery of it all one iota or been back to see old colleagues because when you’re retired every day feels like a weekend.

56 – days to The Budget on 28 October. Horrible Healey’s replaced Rachel from Accounts. Will we see any relief from the tax burden foist upon us over the past few years or is it more of the same to come?

14 – days to the Bank of England’s next meeting to discuss interest rates, the BOE’s last knees up before The Budget. Andy Pandy had better hope they don’t decide to raise the base rate in anticipation of an inflationary spike. If they do, it’ll be a case of what comes soonest - Christmas or a recession?

114 – and that leads on nicely to number of shopping days before the big C. That is if you have any money left because the previous two points are going to deflate your financial headroom quicker than that inflatable unicorn you bought for the beach.

4.6 – kilos. When Bertie joined our household some years ago, he was a proper fat cat weighing in at a massive 10.1 kilos. Thanks to a diet of expensive cat kibble, his weight has reduced in direct correlation to my bank balance. Honestly, although I love my eggy-fart moggy there are times when I think it would be cheaper to turn him into catsu curry. Bertie! Why are you looking at me with kitty daggers?

2.45 – hours to my next visit to the Joint Pain Programme. This is like AA for the arthritic. Recommended by my physio as an alternative to medical intervention because let’s face it, the health service is going the same way as dentistry. ‘Motion is lotion’ utters our ‘rehab’ specialist as she drills a class full of octogenarians through an exercise routine designed around tortoises. I’m the youngest there. My pulse rate rarely gets higher than that of a cucumber and if the motion is ‘lotion’ then my aching joints are in desperate need of some WD40.

1 - week since I heeded the message from the clergy inviting me to pay homage to the Papa at his screening of '2 Big to Rig', the movie premiere of Ghost's world tour gig filmed in Mexico.  Awesome!  Gutted I missed getting tickets to see his Infernal Holiness in the flesh - busy holidaying in Munich at the time but watching this film more than made up for it.  

Ghost movie - amazing!

361 – days to next year’s Victorious Festival. Yep, the tickets are already on sale although headline acts haven’t even been booked because these days, music festivals are just glorified piss-ups with takeaways. If you’re lucky, you may even get to hear some decent bands. Or the Vengaboys.

The venga bus is coming. Waa Haay! Up then down. Up then down. 

We like to parrrrttaayy!!