The House Projects Thread

[DeskJockey]

Fair enough. Know the feeling well!

[mik]

Looks good! I can't see any ventilation over the hob, how do you handle grease/smells/steam?

there’ll be an extractor eventually - I’ve run out of money for now!

Fair point.

We have one of these. Twin LEDs in each corner light up the cooking area superbly.

[GG.]

Latest update on water pipe malarky - so we had the supply pipe replaced with 22mm barrier pipe for £350 - checked the meter outside and it had stopped turning so leak dealt with. I was feeling pretty smug...

...until the next morning when we ran the shower for a minute or so to get it up to temperature (plumber had run it but only probably for 20 secs or so) and, well, click - the themostatic valve shut off and the water stopped.

Turns out the cold supply to the shower uses a separate feed to rest of the bathroom so all it was getting was hot. There was historically a toilet in that corner so I presume they re-utilised that supply rather than running a new one The issue now is we don't have a frigging clue where that pipe runs and despite rummaging around and spending an hour with my head under floorboards downstairs I can't trace it.

As the bathroom was done only a couple of years ago and is all tiled in around that area it isn't palatable to start knocking holes in walls in there so we're looking at taking down part of the ceiling in the kitchen below to trace the pipe and connect it to the new mains pipe as close as we can to the shower.

Does anyone have any clever ideas for tracing a pipe short of just knocking holes in the wall? The problem is that there are also a couple of hot water pipes running up in that corner from downstairs so its a case of finding a specific metal pipe and the route it follows, not just "there's a pipe in the wall there".

[Broccers]

Sounds annoying. I complained to Yorkshire Water about our terrible supply and amazingly it was rectified in 3 weeks after lots of holes and their expense not ours.

[ste]

Does anyone have any clever ideas for tracing a pipe short of just knocking holes in the wall? The problem is that there are also a couple of hot water pipes running up in that corner from downstairs so its a case of finding a specific metal pipe and the route it follows, not just "there's a pipe in the wall there".

What diameter is it? A chap around here has kit he can put into a pipe and it communicates with more kit and send back a plot of the route of the pipe. It's about £350 for him to do this for you. He's doing a survey of the drainage under my house / driveway at the moment.

Not sure what size his smallest sensor is though.

[Rich B]

If there’s access below then it’s worth remembering holes in plasterboard ceilings aren’t all that hard to repair!

[GG.]

Yes I though about that sort of kit to trace it but will likely end up more expensive that making good having knocked the kitchen about a bit to connect underneath. As Rich says, hopefully the ceiling won't be too hard to rectify - plus we need to get the plasterers in to do the dining room ceiling so would probably deal with both at the same time.

[jamcg]

Latest update on water pipe malarky - so we had the supply pipe replaced with 22mm barrier pipe for £350 - checked the meter outside and it had stopped turning so leak dealt with. I was feeling pretty smug...

...until the next morning when we ran the shower for a minute or so to get it up to temperature (plumber had run it but only probably for 20 secs or so) and, well, click - the themostatic valve shut off and the water stopped.

Turns out the cold supply to the shower uses a separate feed to rest of the bathroom so all it was getting was hot. There was historically a toilet in that corner so I presume they re-utilised that supply rather than running a new one The issue now is we don't have a frigging clue where that pipe runs and despite rummaging around and spending an hour with my head under floorboards downstairs I can't trace it.

As the bathroom was done only a couple of years ago and is all tiled in around that area it isn't palatable to start knocking holes in walls in there so we're looking at taking down part of the ceiling in the kitchen below to trace the pipe and connect it to the new mains pipe as close as we can to the shower.

Does anyone have any clever ideas for tracing a pipe short of just knocking holes in the wall? The problem is that there are also a couple of hot water pipes running up in that corner from downstairs so its a case of finding a specific metal pipe and the route it follows, not just "there's a pipe in the wall there".

As a plumber I find it’s more common than you think for shower supplies to be in the loft space so check that it definitely doesn’t got upover, would explain why it’s not immediately obvious where it is- then next thing would be as suggested to start cutting holes in ceiling if there’s no removable panels in the bathroom

Another possibility- it might be worth a call to your bathroom installer, you’d be amazed at how much tradesmen remember about jobs they’ve done

[GG.]

Slightly despairing now - we can't find the pipe either in the loft space above the bathroom or where the wall the mixer unit is on meets the bathroom floor/kitchen ceiling.

Looking more and more like we'll have to channel in a new pipe and re-tile half the shower enclosure

We even managed to track down the builder who re-did the bathroom for the prior owners but he couldn't remember exactly where the pipe originates.

[Jobbo]

Today is the determination deadline for our planning application, but our planning department haven't even been in contact with the architect. I don't have a builder champing at the bit ready to start so am not going to make a point about it, but this is a fairly simple householder application for something which is only just outside the scope of permitted development (and only for a technical reason), with no objections, so I'd have thought the planners would want an easy one to improve their average decision time. Oh well.

[GG.]

to improve their average decision time.

Do they care about such things?!

[Mito Man]

Our LPA is pretty useless, we give prior notification for workshops and they’ve never replied so we just have to wait 28 days before building. I mean it doesn’t get much easier than approving a prior notification does it...

[Jobbo]

to improve their average decision time.

Do they care about such things?!

Only in a defensive way, not a proactive one where they bring down the average time to decision

[Simon]

One of the 2 new Honeywell zone valves that I put in back in January failed 2 days ago. Well, the motor did anyway. Confirmed with voltage readings across the terminals and non-movement. Ordered a new one on Monday night which arrived yesterday and I just swapped the heads over. Supplier was very surprised that it failed in 10 weeks. So was I!

[jamcg]

One of the 2 new Honeywell zone valves that I put in back in January failed 2 days ago. Well, the motor did anyway. Confirmed with voltage readings across the terminals and non-movement. Ordered a new one on Monday night which arrived yesterday and I just swapped the heads over. Supplier was very surprised that it failed in 10 weeks. So was I!

That is very unusual for a Honeywell.......

[Simon]

No doubt. The ball moves fine so it's not like the motor was under undue load or anything. But the new head is working just dandy. Must have been a extraordinary dodgy motor.

[Jobbo]

Planning consent granted (yesterday, though I've only just received it).

Interestingly it has a 5 year period to commence works not the usual 3 years; there's virtually nothing in the way of conditions (5 years to commence, must be in accordance with the approved plans, and brickwork to match existing) so it's a fairly relaxed consent.

Building regs application going in now; I reckon we'll start work next year though it would be nice to get it done before winter this year. So we'll see.

[GG.]

Happy days. I await the photo with you stood by the side door on completion

[Jobbo]

I've just read the officer's report. It's quite detailed but contained something else which surprised me: there's usually a consideration of the footprint size of the extension vs the house as originally built. Since we have a detached double garage built with the house, that's included in the footprint. But the officer's report referred instead to floor area, so took into account the upstairs space. As the extension is ground-floor only it's apparently a 64% increase in floor area from the original house (there was a 1983 extension too). But they've granted permission anyway because it's well designed, apparently

[dinny_g]

That’s brilliant Jobbo... congrats.

Look forward the the completed pics...