Posts Tagged ‘house’

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Bathroom Decoration (Before)

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007

Lindsey started decorating the bathroom in November 2006, I just forgot to upload these pictures to the blog! She stripped the wallpaper, removed the fixtures and fittings. I helped remove the carpet in the bathroom, who has carpet in the bathroom! and with the electrics, removed a knackered fan heater from the wall.

Bathroom 1
Ceiling has been painted, covering the wood effect, with eggshell paint.

Bathroom 2
Note the original colour of the wooden unit under the wash basin!

Bathroom 3
Note the original colour of the wood panel on the airing cupboard.

Bathroom 4

Bathroom 5

Bathroom 6
It’s been painted green.

Bathroom 7
Umm, didn’t like the green, eh, It’s now been painted blue.

Bathroom 8
It’s now been re-painted another shade of blue!

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Leaking tank (again)

Saturday, February 24th, 2007

My partner went into the garage aka fish house this morning to do the washing (the garage also shares the washing machine and tumble dryer), and found water all over the floor. I thought I was getting a lie in bed today, so up early at 8.30am. It appears the seal had failed again on the base of the tank. The tanks contains approx 170l of water, no fish were harmed because although 8″ of water had been lost from the tank, once the pressure had dropped it was leaking slowly. I had two “cold spares” in the garden, so they were quickly cleaned and test-filled, whilst I caught all the fish, emptied the tank, keeping the water, and using the external filter to heat and filter the water whilst the fish were in 80l containers.

By 2pm the fish were back in a new tank, sited and filtered.

and then…..

this tank started to leak, the seals on the base of this tank had also failed. I tried to fix with silicon sealer, but it’s very difficult to fix a leaking tank when wet!

It’s still leaking, I’ve got a cat little tray under the tanks, whilst I asses my options. I have another “cold spare” but it’s just the time, I’ve got available to swap again.

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HMA and Reverse Osmosis

Saturday, January 27th, 2007

I thought it was about time to write something, as there has been a lack of posts recently.

I’ve been planning this DIY project for a long time, and finally got it finished today, I’ve “hard-wired” the HMA and Reverse Osmosis filter into the mains water supply. I plumped the washing machines and tumble dryer months ago, when we first moved into the new house, and it would have been easier to install the HMA and Reverse Osmosis filter at the time, but needed to start work on other jobs around th house. I’m not on a water meter, so as soon as I get a new membrance, I’ll be back on RO water, hopefully. Just need to design something to hold the water in.

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New Years Eve Party!

Monday, January 1st, 2007

I invited my parents, brother and his girlfriend to see the New Year in at our new house. My father brought with him a truck load of fireworks, to set off at Midnight New Years Day.

One rocket came back to earth, and exploded at head height! This is the full 9 minutes video of the event hosted at www.YouTube.com.

The event was recorded by my brother, I’m sure he’ll apologise in advance for the dodgy video footage and focus!

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Frostie the Snowman

Tuesday, December 19th, 2006

This is what I looked like the other evening. TIP Do not cut 6 inch thick Jablite with a jigsaw and then use silicone sealer!

I managed to get some silicone sealer on my hands after cutting 6 inch Jablite (posh word for polysterene insulation) and the polsterene dust stuck!

I took the two remaining slabs of 6 inch Jablite used to create the fish house partition in the old fish house, and after stapling Thermal Wrap to the inside of the garage doors and sealing with aluminimum foil tape, sealed the garage with the slabs, and then another layer of Thermal Wrap to finish off. Thermal Wrap looks like foiled bubble-wrap, it’s not cheap, at 23 GBP a roll, but it much easier to handle than Jablite (polysterene). It was cheaper at B&Q in the Autumn at 27 GBP, and get one free! I’ve used it previosuly in the garage, to insulate the flat roof at the rear, and cover the windows. It’s equivalent to 2.5 inches of Jablite (polysterene). So that’s a total of 8 inches of insulation behind the front garage doors. I think it might be working, as the temperature has increased a massive 4 degrees C, and it’s freezing fog outside. Hopefully all this investment, will reduce heating costs.

I had to cut myself out of the fish house, with a jigsaw, after I sealed myself in! Hence getting covered in polysterene dust!

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Cold Weather…

Saturday, December 16th, 2006

I’ve been lucky that we’ve been having some really mild weather for this time of year, although wet and high winds.

Not much to report in the fish house, I’m not having as much time as I had hoped with the new house, and DIY repairs to concentrate on breeding the pairs of fish I have.

I had hoped that this garage would have been warmer than the last, I think the problem lies, in the last garage, the “fish house” was built inside a wall of jablite, but it had a draughty asbestos corrugated roof, and garage door.

This garage is integrated into the house, so it only has two external walls, and the bedroom is above the ceiling, I had hoped that it was warmer, but my problem lies with the two very draughty barn doors!

One door now resembles something from the NASA Space shuttle, as I covered it in aluminium covered bubble-wrap, I’ve also insulated the flat garage roof at the rear with jablite, and the same aluminium covered bubble-wrap insulation, but despite what I try, I’m still losing heat. I may yet need to build a jablite igloo again.

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Come home to a roaring fire … buy a cottage in Wales!

Tuesday, November 14th, 2006

As once said by the Not The Nine O’Clock News Cast in the 80s. Not a laughing matter if you lived in Wales during that period of Holiday home burning!

Not in Wales, but here’s a picture of the open fire. It’s been getting colder this winter, so we’ve lit the fire on occasion.

A Fire

Lindsey has now started to decorate the bathroom, more photos later.

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Power Outage

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006

The electricity was cut-off to the village this morning at 8.45am, I started the petrol generator with ease, and then it took me a few minutes in the dark in the fish house (it’s got darker since I’ve insulated and blocked the windows!) to unplug the main four circuits and connect them one by one to the generator feed. At first the current draw from the generator was 12.5Amps, as all the heaters came on, but this gradually fell to a steady 7 – 8Amps. The petrol generator had a full 16l tank of petrol, and I had a 20l petrol can full on standby.

The electricity supply was restored at approx 2.30pm, but I left the Fish House on generator, for 30 minutes before migrating back to mains supply.

An excellent test, I only had to turn-off one 500 watt heater used to heat top-up water, and deemed this wasn’t necessary.

I used approx 10l of petrol, in approx 6hours to generate 9kWh (as measured by my Power Meters! Search the blog for details), so that’s approx 1 UK-GBP per kWh, so an expensive way of generating electricity, so I’m not going to make a saving by switching!

Petrol Gen1
Petrol Generator in use

Petrol Gen2
The small green box, far right under the bag of salt, is the earth box for the generator.

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Full Moon above the village

Tuesday, November 7th, 2006

Moon
Last night was a fantastic full moon, I rushed home from work, got my gear together rushed up the hill to photograph the Full Moon above the house, but by the time I had walked up the hill, the moon had risen too far. So here’s the picture I took anyway, without the house!

This should have been the photograph for Halloween! Maybe next year!

Petrol generator had it’s first test run today, check the Fish House Blog

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Power-Cut 7th Nov 2006!

Tuesday, October 31st, 2006

I’ve just received notice from YEDL, that they are turning-off the electricity supply in the area from 08.30 to 16.00 on Tuesday 7th November 2006.

Looks like I’ll be testing the generator, earlier than expected.

Need to purchase:-

  1. Large 20 litre petrol can
  2. 20 litre of petrol.
  3. Earth stake.
  4. Earth wire.

Need to check power cable reaches into fish house. Why YEDL cannot do this in the Summer, they have to wait for the cold spell!

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