Once the plaster had had a bit of a chance to dry, the electricians came back to do the final fix. I know I've said it before, but it's amazing how exciting the little things can be; The day we got lights was amazing! Just being able to walk into the room when we get home from work and be able to switch the lights on and not have to carry a torch was great. It made looking at each days progress so much easier! The mystery of the random wire in the middle of the ceiling was solved: It was the kitchen smoke alarm!
Once the electrics were in place, it meant that the plumbers could come back and commission the underfloor heating. The majority of the plumbing seemed to go well; they managed to get the system pressurised and all of the electrics wired up, the problem however came every time the thermostat tried to switch the boiler on - it would trip the electrics! The guys were here until about 20:30 still trying to figure it out but eventually came to the conclusion that it was a faulty thermostat as they could get the boiler to switch on as long as they bypassed it. They couldn't get a new unit until after Christmas so they left it permanently on and us with instructions to turn it up manually by a few degrees each day. We had to turn it up slowly so that it wouldn't crack the recently screeded floor. When it got up to operating temperature after a few days it gave us our first appreciation of how well underfloor heating actually works! We were very impressed, but it did eventually get too hot!! The problems didn't stop there... On Christmas eve we woke up to a cold house and noticed a damp patch on the newly plastered roof! There had been a leak from one of the boiler pipes which meant the boiler had lost pressure (hence switched off) and had leaked through the ceiling. The plumber guy came straight out and sorted the problem so no harm done. When the new part arrived they came and installed it and this time it worked! Underfloor heating is now working!
Back outside, although the foul waste was simple to take care of, being routed directly into the septic tank, the surface water drainage was posing a bit more of a challenge. The building plans simply stated that all rain water should go to a soak away, but didn't specify how big it needed to be. Building control weren't too sure either and so we were a bit stumped as to what to do. I knew that there was a surface water drain running straight through the garden and thought that the most obvious plan would be to connect straight into that. Building control were happy with that plan, although there was one small problem: It was blocked and kept backing up, causing flooding on the road! Having finished early for Christmas, I decided to do some investigating, rather than being idle! The inspection chamber in the middle of the garden was rather full, so I thought I'd have a look at the one at the top end. The problem there however was that the top of the garden has been used as a dumping ground whilst the build has been going on - The inspection chamber was completely buried!! I took out my trusty spade and started prospecting in the mud until after about a day of digging I managed to find the inspection chamber, knee deep below ground level! The following day I carried on and managed to get the lid off the chamber to find it completely dry with ~10" solid mud at the bottom!
I fashioned a dredging tool out of some spare wood and metal and spent the entire day scooping out mud. On the third day of digging I finally managed to remove the blockage and like a flood gate being opened, water started flowing! Nothing is ever that simple however... All I'd actually managed to do was shift the problem from the middle inspection chamber to the top one! There is still a blockage further downstream from our property but it does mean that we've added extra space for flood water to go. Since unblocking our drains, the street has been clear!
Between Christmas and new year, rather than having a nice relaxing holiday and taking a break we decided to crack on and paint the room. We basically whitewashed the walls with several coats of watered down paint and then carried on a painted the ceiling properly. We figured that it'd be easy enough to paint the walls when the kitchen was installed, but painting the ceiling when installed we could risk getting paint everywhere! It looks good now it's done though! With the kitchen painted we thought it was about time to start moving some things out of the study and back into the room where they belong! It's nice to have a little bit more space to work in when trying to prepare tea (OK so you don't really need that much space to put a ready meal in the microwave...)
Not only did we move the fridge and worktop into the kitchen, but we also brought the sink unit up from the outhouse and installed it in the utility room. It's so nice to have a working sink downstairs now! No one likes washing the dishes normally, but washing up in the bath makes it so much worse!
It's not only the kitchen that has seen progress, we've also done some extra work in the spare room upstairs. We were under somewhat of a deadline as we were expecting our first house guests for the weekend! The only jobs that remained were to get some carpet laid and to put up some curtains. We're happy with the way the rooms turned out. Bar the door handle, it's our second completely decorated room!! (only 8 more to go...)
It wasn't all progress upstairs sadly, with all of the rain we had before Christmas we got a damp patch on the chimney breast. It wasn't completely unexpected as next door are having their roof replaced and the tiles were off! The tiles are back on now though so hopefully we'll see some improvement before too long. It's still a little disheartening though... I'm just glad it's in a room we haven't properly decorated yet!
Finally, back onto the kitchen again, we've been doing the rounds of kitchen manufacturers to see what we want to go in our new extension. Of all the people we went to see, they all came up with more or less the same design and so we settled on the one which seemed the best quality for a reasonable price. In a few weeks time we'll hopefully have a fully fitted and functioning kitchen!!
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