28th October 2018

So, today saw my last required visit. Since a couple of weeks ago, the fence plinths and posts have been dug out and put in, the panels have arrived and all bar one were dropped in. We went last week and fetched all the remaining tools and ladders home as Sharons Antara was swapped this weekend so we carted everything home in that. That car has served us very well, it’s been an extremely versatile and reliable work truck for the last year. Anyway, that left us a few jobs today which we have polished off and are happy with.

The clocks went back last night so ideally means an extra hour in bed. Just meant I was up an hour earlier. I got a few little jobs done at home early on and then we went to Snackattack when Sharon got up for a nice big breakfast. It’s official, they do the bestest breakfast as they will do me chips with it 👍.

We came back and loaded the car up, tried to run through all the jobs in my head as so not to forget any tools. My dad and I went up at 10.00am and were pleasantly surprised to see most of the fence panels dropped in, something we thought we would have to do. We did have one to put in which needed cutting down. We cut the plinth down with a brick cutter and then sawed the panel down. Took a bit of buggering about but we got it in and level and it looks great.

Next we moved on to fitting the original temporary front door that JB fitted over a year ago to get access in to the house. Its been all over that door but it’s final resting place will be the coal house round the back. We removed the rotten wooden door and then marked up the wall with the new door. It was a couple of inches wider than the existing hole so again the brick cutter was put in to action. The cutter didn’t cut deep enough but was good enough to get us a start and we chisel’d the rest out. We managed to get a really nice fit, again a bit of messing about but we got it in. Screwed and plugged it up, put some wooden packers above and that was that. It could do with a bit of white plastic to cover the packers, but it’s fully functional and lockable which again is a good job done.

Next we needed to extend an earth cable and put an earth bonding strip on the gas meter. A tiny job that I was going to do ages ago but never really got around to. No dramas there, done and fixed the crap job the gas company did fitting the meter box whilst we were at it. We removed that and refitted it correctly.

Finally we connected up the pressure relief valve on the boiler. It was sort of connected but only in situ as we were worried about soldering that close to the circuit boards. After taking a bit of advice we were told to try a compression fitting. Unfortunately we weren’t able to fit it as we couldn’t get the grips in to tighten it. So we nipped off to B&Q and bought a push fit, fitted a treat. It’s one of those pipes on the boiler that will only ever get used if there is s fault, so hopefully never but will be fine if there is now.

I dropped one ever so tiny goolie, I’d moved the condensate pipe out of the way to connect the valve, I forgot to reconnect it. Gemma had a bath and the boiler cupboard got a free wash !! 2 second job to fix so Sharon and I popped back up this afternoon to sort it.

And that my friends is it. The garden at the back is going to be rotivated next weekend, Paul and his team will then level it and seed it which will transform it.Read more