2021-10 Plumbing Repairs
I dropped my camera from a height onto gravel this month. It was pretty damaged. As a result, there aren’t many photos for a couple of months until I managed to carefully repair it.
Plumbing Repairs
The water in the house tasted a bit grim to drink. When I shaved in the mornings the water in the sink looked pink. I knew the basement had the original (unknown date) water steel pipes. I’d seen youtube videos of these being removed and I knew they’d be almost completely full of rust sludge. I also knew that rust would be moving around the system and potentially reducing the service life of anything it fed via rust particles in the supply.
I asked the local plumber to come in and take a look. We spoke about a few parts of the system. They were especially interested that the house seemed to have three systems in a series that provided the same ability to heat and store water. The house had a modern ground source heat pump which included a water circulation pump and water tank. It is an amazing unit that would have cost a lot to install.
But there was also an older in-line Nibe water heater tank, a separate water circulation pump and a floor-standing galvanised massive hot water tank.
This was apparently quite exciting for the plumbers, and we ended up with three members of the four-person company coming in to take a look at the installation and discuss why it might have been done that way. I said it was fine to remove anything unnecessary and the old units were disconnected.
After a day or two, everything was complete. They replaced the old feed pipes and did a professional-looking job. There were still some short parts of the water system using steel pipes where removal is difficult. But the water was no longer pink. I tasted it a couple of days later and it was fine.
Basement Work
I worked in the biggest basement room to put a layer of Husfix on the wall, like render, to create a traditional-looking and smooth surface.
In this room, the basement wall had at some point bowed and cracked which is usually due to water outside. It had historic epoxy repair work visible and I knew that at some point someone had dug and installed a draining system around the outside of the foundation. So this could be historic. I put Husfix over and watched for any signs of cracks over the next few months. As an update, it has now been a year and there is no sign of movement. It could just have been from poor original drainage when the house was built. Another theory is that it’s likely from when the nearby road was built and the associated earthmoving and heavy machinery.
Pinecone Collecting
We also went out walking in the forest a lot and collected pinecones. We put these around some blueberry bushes we planted. These might be too exposed and they’re taking a long time to grow. The soil depth is quite thin and the clay underneath is poor for the plants. A year later there’s not much movement. It might be that we replace or move them.
