Wooo, working on the car at last!!

It's been a while since I've had anything worth updating, but I am now in a position to start working on the Sprite again.

Now that my son has a new summer house to play in, and I've done all the other things The Boss expects doing at a moments notice, I've been able to tidy the garage up a bit and get the Sprite on it's side ready to finish off some welding.

I thought I'd finished under the car and was going to get on with fitting the engine, but it turns out that I'd forgotten about finishing off the passenger's side footwell. I'd not done the welding under the cross member, and I where I had plug welded one edge of it in, I now know this will need seam welding. MOT rules mean that any patches that were not originally plug welded must be seam welded. And since the patch stops 2" short of the original plug welds, I have to seam weld it instead. If I'd known this at the time, I'd have just made the footwell a touch bigger and saved myself a fair bit of effort. But it's too late for that now!!

As you can see, there's a large section that's not welded in yet. Rather than try filling the gaps up, this bit was cut out to see what I had under there with the plan of putting a new patch in.

The plan was to cut back to the existing flanges on the cross member so that I can seam weld the patch in easily. This makes the welding much quicker, and will help make the cross member stronger too. Since I've had to cut the central section of it out, this can only be a good thing.

Once I'd had a closer look and a think about it, I ended up with a bigger hole to save having odd bits of welding and different bits of steel for the cross member. This is the hole in the usual zinc primer and ready for it's patch.

Another thing I've spotted is that I must've put the car down on a stand wrong at some point, as the open ends of both cross members are bent in! Whilst not the end of the world, it's something else to straighten before I can cap them off.

I'm hoping to be able to get the patch cut and at least tacked in this evening, so more to follow soon!

Final touches and the BCO inspection

Now that I had done the plastering, well sort of done the plastering anyway, I could do the few final touches that were needed. There were nothing big, just fitting the CO detector at the right height, finding a pen to write on the information plate and then putting it up to the fuse board and making the two plates to close the chimney off.

The chimney plates were a little fiddly as I had decided to make them myself from stuff I had knocking about in the garage. The metal I used was going to be a pair of wheel arch guards for my old 7 style kit car, but I ended up using something else. It also means that they're titanium as that's what a mate had spare at work.

The plates were meant to overlap perfectly, but I must have made a slight error on marking out, and made the left hand plate with a wrong angle on it. Not that it matters as you can't see it and they're only there to ensure the hot air rises into the room and not straight up the chimney. Since I sealed the cowl to the chimney pot, there are even any noticeable draughts anyway. But it's something the BCO needs to see so now it's done. The gaps around the edges and between the sections of cement board were later caulked up. Now there's a skim of filler over the plaster, I just need to sand it all flat a final time, and it's ready for paint.

Oh, and the BCO has signed off on it all now too! Which is good, but for my £230 I've had the BCO here for maybe a total of 15 minutes across both visits! Hardly value for money, but it is still cheaper than paying a HETAS certified person to do it.

With the stove done, I've had a bit of time to faff about in the garage, and I've finally wired in the ring main. I've only been trying to get it done for the last 4-5 months! Not that it matters, as we've got the estate agents coming round on Wednesday to value the house. Looks like I'll be looking for a new place on my own soon. :(

Airwash system

Just a quick video really that shows the effect of the airwash system on a smoke bomb. The system draws fresh in from a top vent and then across the glass. This keeps the smoke from touching the glass, keeping it cleaner for longer. This video also shows the draw on the cold flue that I've got.

Plastering is much harder than I thought!

It's been a while, but with the Mrs recuperating and me being busy at work, I've just not had the time to get anything done other than fire cement the vitreous pipework and get the stove tempered with a series of increasing fires. For someone who is a self-confessed firebug, this was difficult to do!

Last weekend though, I did get the Sunday morning to have a go at the plastering. And it's something I've never done before, so I was a little apprehensive. I started off by removing a few loose/hollow sounding bits around the edge of the existing hole:

Then the wall was given two coat of watered down PVA. It maybe should have been just one coat, but it seemed to dry out fairly quickly, and the instructions on the bag of plaster said to wet the wall, so I did. Given that I've never plastered before, and this is a repair patch rather than an entire section of wall, I opted for Wickes One Coat plaster. It mixed easily, but seemed a funny colour. I'm used to plaster being a dark brown/tan sort of colour and this stuff was grey. Not that the colour matters, it just wasn't what I had expected.

So with the plaster mixed and poured into a bucket, I started with the edge bead around the cement board. This gives edge a hard metal finish that is also straight. Cutting and sticking the stuff in place with plaster was a bit of a fiddle due to the short sections needed, but it was done. I should have taken a photo, but forgot. With the plaster glue drying, I set to with filling the big hole in, starting on the left. To begin with, it seemed fairly easy to do. And building up the depth was going well until I got to the right hand edge and discovered the wall had what now seemed a massive bow in the existing plaster which I hadn't noticed before. I only realised this was the problem when I was struggling to match the levels. I could move the trowel one way and level the plaster, only to go across it again and score it quite deeply. However, I decided to persevere and sand smooth what was left once the plaster had dried. Whilst this photo is of the finished (well as finished as it's going to be for now) plaster, it shows the bow quite well.

With the top bit mostly done and now drying off a little, I made a start on the two narrow sections either side of the recess. Given that the bricks aren't straight, an edge stop bead would look a bit odd and just point out how uneven the brick work is. So I made the decision to attempt a hand formed angle. I doubt this was wise on my first go, but I figure I can always sand it back should I need to. There will be a certain amount of sanding and tidying to do anyway to clean the bricks, so a little more is no real hardship to ensure a smooth surface.

Once the corners were done, the top was given a smoothing over as best I could. This is clearly the bit that takes the skill. I was getting drag marks and bits sticking all over the place, no matter how wet I made the surface. But I did the best I could, and the rest will need sanding back to see how much filler I need! OK, it may have been better to pay someone to do this bit properly, but I'm glad of the experience if nothing else.

And with that it was left to dry. 5 days later and it's almost finished, so I can get the stove lit again. Whilst the surface finish isn't great, I hope to fix that this weekend with some sanding and filling. I also hope to get the metal closure plate sections done, the CO detector properly mounted and then find a pen that writes on metal so I can fix the information plate in place. All of this needs doing as the BCO calls on Thursday to hopefully sign off on it all!

Arrgghhh, I've been left in charge!

Due to my partner having gall stones, and a related pancreas issue, I'm home all alone with my helper and have been since Friday! So I doubt I'll be getting much done with, well, anything I suppose!

The only thing I have managed to do is get my car's battery on charge and give the thing a quick hoover. And I've only done that because he loves sitting and playing with the wheel and buttons.

Building Control

Well that took all of 10, maybe 15minutes with my questions. But the upshot is the BCO is happy with the install and will be back this time next week to sign off on the full install.

I've got a few things to do, but they're things I either expected or haven't done yet. They are

1, Fit a CO detector. Got one waiting to go.
2, Fit the information plate. Now I know what they want on it, that'll be done later.
3, Make and fit the closure plate plates. I've got the sheet metal, but wasn't going to risk fitting or making them before today.
4, Plaster the chimney breast. It needn't be finished or painted, but it's needed as part of the fire protection.
5, Seal the stove to the vitreous pipe. The BCO is happy with just cement for this, but I may fit a bit of fire rope just for my usual belt and braces approach.

So those things will be done over this week and weekend, ready for 11am next Tuesday when the man comes to sign off on everything. And they expect that to take 10-15 minutes too!

Flue fitting and the view from my roof.

Well Saturday came around, and the wet weather went on it's way too. So with my brother on hand with a set of roofing ladders, it was time to set to with fitting the flue.

The first thing to do was unwrap the flue and have a look at it. It's a 316 grade 5" DURE-FLUE liner as I don't intend burning much, if any, coal. Given that I forgot the nosecone, one end was slotted and taped up to form something resembling a cone and a hole drilled in the liner for some of BT's finest draw rope. 9M of liner doesn't look like much when sat on the driveway.

So with the liner ready, tools in hand and the ladders set up, I was off up to the ridge line and chimney pot. There was a bird guard fitted recently by the local stove shop, so I knew the pot would be good for the all-in-one cowl I had. This is the view from up on the roof before I started work.

So once I had stopped nosing into the neighbours garden's and otherwise admiring the view, it was time to start feeding the liner down the chimney. We'd uncoiled it on the ground, and I had then dragged it up by the draw rope. Thankfully I'm not fussed by heights so thought nothing much of standing on the ridge, holding the stack with one hand and playing about with the liner with the free hand. I suspect Mr HSE would have had a fit, but never mind!

I had feared that the liner wouldn't go down, would jam, tear or any number of things would go wrong. Turns out to have been quite the opposite. Feeding the liner down took all of 5 minutes and it only got caught for a few moments about a metre and a half in. Otherwise it almost feel in under it's own weight! This is what I was left with at the chimney end, and also the reason I ordered 9m when I think 8 would've done.

This was the fireplace end once we'd attached the adaptor. Plenty of liner left over, as there's nothing worse than ordering what you think it enough, only to find it 6" short. Also note that the liner will clear a lot of bits out of the chimney when you feed it down. The liner is ridged and much stiffer than a sweeps' brush so may knock mortar snots off too.

So from there we set to with getting the vitreous pipes sorted out too. Whilst the BCO wants to inspect the flue, I was told I could fit the other pipes too so long as the inspector can get at all the joints. This is why I had to alter the closure plate, but more of that in a bit.

Given that there will always be some wiggling about and altering of the joints as you go, the vitreous pipes were screwed together and the adaptor fitted and fire cemented too. It doesn't go off for hours so you have time to fit the flue into position without cracking any joints.

And then the only way of knowing if you've got it right is to fit the stove into place. It's not fitted to the pipes or sealed as yet, but without it you can't gauge the height or final position of the pipework within the chimney so I don't see how it can be done any other way. Especially given that my chimney tracks to the right, so it turned out I had to twist the pipework that way too. Well, it was that or try to knock four more bricks out of the stack without making a mess of things again. The photo was taken later on, when I had the fire guard back in place. I would've preferred it to be straight up, but I don't mind it being twisted to one side either.

Now the bottom end was sat right, I could get back to the roof to trim the liner and fit the cowl. Once up there, I was faced with this much spare liner, some lovely sunshine and blue skies:

I had a few choices of how to trim the liner: angle grinder with a 1mm cutting disc, a hacksaw or tin snips of one form or another. I ended up using a hacksaw as the grinder is massive overkill for something so thin (as well as a bit dodgy on a ridge, even for me) and the tin snips can be awkward to use when you can't get all the way round what you're cutting. Cutting it with the saw took maybe 30 seconds, so don't worry about time when it comes to this stage! The cowl is then a bit of a PITA to fit as you cut the liner to the top of the pot. But you need it sticking out to get the securing band done up. So I ended up stood on the ridge trying to pull a few inches of the liner up to get access. Eventually, I got it done but not with out scratching the back of both hands to bits on the sharp liner, the pot and cowl edges. There's no need to do the fancy folding with the securing straps, but I feel it looks more professional than just leaving them hanging. In an effort to prevent draughts, I have also sealed the cowl to the chimney pot.

Another thing to note at this point is how slippery the liner can be. It's already acting as a flue and channelling warm, damp air from the house. And by the time that air gets to the top, it has cooled and the water condensed on the liner.

As far as the liner goes, that's it fitted and all done. Well, I think so and I hope the BCO will agree on Tuesday too! The only other thing to do was the closure plate. I should really have fitted this at an earlier stage before arguing the liner and vitreous pipes into place, but I forgot in all the excitement of fitting the liner. So a slight change was made to it so I could fit it round the pipework. The hole has also been enlarged to act as an inspection hatch and will be covered over with a pair of thin metal plates. One will sit each side of the pipe so they can be easily removed in the future. I'll make these one I know the BCO is happy with this.

So that's it for now. The next update depends upon what the BCO thinks and what advice he has for me. Hopefully, it'll be good news!