Toiling in the mens’ room.

And the ladies room for that matter. Toilets in FE towers are unisex. I wouldn’t like to be classed as anti feminist.

Let me cut to the chase, though you’ll wish I hadn’t.

There was one of those little jobs that I have been meaning to get around to for some weeks. Fixing the downstairs Loo. (Toilet for those who are not used to colloquial English).

The problem with this porcelain edifice was that it was failing to flush without handling the flushing lever like a demented person who has been affected by Sarin nerve gas. (Topical).

Now my cistern is of the type that has a little silver handle on the front, that when activated, empties the contents in one fell swoop into the toilet bowl. Thus flushing the accrued detritus away in one foul swoop. (Hah).

Amazingly when I interrogated the web site of a well known purveyor of DIY items (Starts with a “B” & ends with a “Q”), nowhere could I find a simple, one flush mechanism. They seem to think that we all want a duel flush system. Having had to unblock the bathroom toilet on boxing day two years ago has turned me off from these spawns of  Satan.

However another well known DIY store (Begins with “Home”) actually had what I needed.

Bye now your thinking that I’m going to tell you some tale of woe as the post about my plumbing exploits I regaled you with. Far from it. I sailed through the replacement without a hitch.

What I did not realise is the built in obsolescence of the water lifting diaphragm on both the old mechanism and the new. A piece of plastic sheet less than the thickness of a carrier bag. If I’d known this before the replacement, I would have repaired the old mechanism with a piece of plastic sheet from a heavy duty bin bag.

I won’t be caught twice.

You can got to sleep now.

I may not be back tomorrow.

I’m off to my daughter’s new house to do some work there.

I have few innocent sounding jobs which in theory shouldn’t take long.

I have to plumb in their newly acquired dish washer. This plumbing should not be as difficult as this though. Just a matter of nipping down to the nearest DIY store, buying some assorted bits of plastic pipe and Bob’s your Uncle.

Fitting a couple of dimmer switches. This won’t cause my early demise as TFE has successfully completed the High Voltage course and understands that electrickery has the ability to hurt. In past years I was actually the engineer that looked after all things electric on a particular class of ship. (I admit to being thrown across the engine room by inadvertently messing with live 440 volts. Ouch, shit, fuck, etc).

A new cable to fit to the daughters hedge trimmers. (I heard you snigger at the back. Stop it).

No. The one thing that may hold me in more of a slough of despair, is that I’ve got to assemble that spawn of the devil, FLAT PACK furniture (Weeps).

Still, I shall hold my head up bravely and accept the challenge.

I shall return.

Plumbing new depths

Well in the back of a cupboard, that is.

This a tale of skill, strength, despair at times, tenacity, and finally success.

My central heating has servo operated shut of valves for heating of hot water and house heating. I’d noticed over the last two weeks that occasionally the radiators were heating up when hot water was demanded. The obvious culprit would seem to be a leaky servo valve for the radiator network. Rather than replace the entire unit (£60) I hunted around on the interweb and found a supplier that could supply me with internal spares for the valve at £15. (By the way, if you’re looking for similar central heating spares I would direct you to WWW.Bes.co.uk I ordered the parts at 7 PM. They were with me before 8 the following morning).

Now the background has been explained, now the fun begins.

A simple job I thought. Just a case of removing the servo motor from the valve, removing the old parts and replacing with new, replacing the servo motor and job done. Simples. Only tool required, a screwdriver.

Not. The silly fool that had positioned the valve unit (Me), had never thought that he would ever need to overhaul it in situ. I couldn’t get at the fixing screws. Bugger.

Only thing for it was to remove the servo valve in it’s entirety from the pipework. The only problem was that this pipework is 22mm diameter and has work hardened with age. The two connection nuts put up a bit of a struggle but nothing compared to removing the valve from the pipework. Even after slackening every connection in sight it took the combined efforts of a three foot crowbar supplemented by three foot of scaffold pole to enable the valve to be withdrawn. The actual refurbishment of the valve took a matter of minutes and I was thinking that I was on a romp for the home straight.

Wrong.

To get the valve back in place took even more brute force and I was starting to sweat like a rapist before finally the valve popped back in position between the two pipes. Nearly at the last furlong. Just simply screw the connection nuts and tighten. Top nut OK, but when I thought that the bottom nut was seated correctly on the threads and started to tighten, horrifyingly I spied a little sliver of brass sidling it’s way from the nut. Stop stop, you’re cross threading, my brain threw at me. Now your FE, when he does plumbing uses as few compression fittings as possible, and solders everything in sight where possible. The thought of  having to cut and make new soldered connections was a dreadful thought worthy of suicide on the authors part due to the confines.

However casting a glinty eye at the connection I had a feeling that it was slightly out of line and after a little correction tried the connection again. Lo and behold the nut firmly screwed up the thread (No sniggering at the back please), and with a slight squeak was firmly tightened.

And guess what? Everything works as it should, with no leaks.

Morals of the story:

1. I’ll never be a design engineer.

2, Weigh up the task correctly before you begin.

3. Never give up.

4. Employ a plumber and let him bugger it up while you snigger in the background?

5. Expect the worst. And plan for it.