Bricks on roof

Dad (Soutter), remember we used bricks on the roof to keep the insulation down. Well the cement on them is just falling off. I guess it is from the wet and very cold weather???

Rat issues...

So we have some new residents, and this is one of them. Look how cute and curious he is!!!

Not very cute any more. This guy was hiding outside under our decking and we watched him on a infra red camera (borrowed from Wayne). It took a few days before I got him in the trap.
We have been hearing them run on the ceiling for a while now. I setup the camera in the loft.
I put the trap in the loft, but I haven't set it yet and I put a biscuit next to the trap. It is the round thing on the right of the trap. The council rat man said to do this, then if the biscuit goes you know it is a rat (mice can't carry a big biscuit).
Next morning when I checked the camera, the biscuit was gone!!! Time to set the trap!

More Selsey Close Photos

After talking to the Estate agent we decided to get the gas turned on, so the fire in the living room is working.

I has some help with painting on Monday.
Bathroom wallpapered and painted, the vent cover has been put on but no in this pic.

Selsey Close photos

I recessed the cable into the wall and then tiled over it. I will take pictures of the finished wall when I go back.
Floors mostly laid, more pics to follow.

Replacing the old windows

During what has turned out to be the coldest part of the year, we took on the job of replacing the old wooden (single glazed) windows with new PVC (double glazed, gas filled) windows. We replaced the bathroom and kitchen windows. Below is me removing the bathroom window.

and the new one installed!
The kitchen window I did without Alison's help and it was really, really cold! When I was siliconing the outside, I had to take me gloves off and I lost the feeling in my fingers after a few minutes and couldn't pick up small objects! The temperature was below zero at this point.

Below is the old window with stickers on the glass so when I break the pane it doesn't all shatter.

I have removed half the frame in this picture, all you have to do is cut through the frame and use brute force to get it out....and try not to damage the brickwork and plaster!
The frame is simply screwed into the brickwork at 6 points, then siliconed to seal it.

I don't have a photo of the finished kitchen window, but they all look the same in the end :-)

Bread maker repairs (Morphy Richards)

Our bread maker which is used at least once a day by Alison started to make more and more noises when working. It got to the point when it wasn't only squeaking any more it started to 'clunk'!!! After spending a while trying to take it apart I gave up and looked on YouTube. I found a video explaining cutting the bottom out of the bread maker which worked to gain access. When inside I found the main bearing had worn into an oval shape and the shaft was flopping about. You can sort of see the oval shape of the hole in this picture.

I removed the old bearing and replaced it with one that I made on the lathe out of brass.

A week later the bread maker is still working so all looks good so far!

Snow!

It snowed today and Zac spent most of the afternoon playing in the snow in the back yard. Liam wasn't quite as excited about the snow.

I hope we don't have to drive anywhere soon....

The fish pond has been frozen for a few days it is about 50mm thick and only a small patch is still open where the waterfall enters the pond.
Zac and his snowman he made.

Hornby train ride

This was taken just after Christmas and I have been meaning to post it for ages. Well here it is! We mounted the camera on one of the cars of the Hornby train.

Filling the crater in the front lawn....

One of our neighbours was having her garden landscaped and she was throwing out a skip full of topsoil (really nice soil!!!). As I am not shy about skip-diving, I spent a few days breaking my back loading up the poor Berlingo with soil and dumping it in our hole in the front lawn.

Sadly this photo doesn't quite show how much soil we (Alison helped) moved as the first few loads just filled the hole to ground level. Only then did we start adding to the mound. Hopefully when the ground thaws, we can start to spread it out.

Roof insulation (warm roof)

I was trying to think of a was to insulate our front flat roof over the winter. Hopefully we will be replacing it this year some time. So I didn't want to spend too much money and time on doing it, but something needed to be done as the ceiling was so cold it was constantly wet and dripping with condensation!!! I decided to insulate the top of the roof as getting inside the rafters was going to be very difficult and messy. I bought 50mm polystyrene and placed it on top of the roof held down with bricks and paving slabs.

I thought I had come up with something unique till I read in a Reader Digest DIY manual that this is called a 'Warm Roof' and is a know way to retro insulate a roof.

From the top it looks a bit shanty town, but from the front is isn't very noticeable.

New draw under oven

We had some wasted space under the oven which was just blanked off. I
had 4 (half) runners which I had selvages from a filing cabinet that
seemed perfect for the job.
So I welded the two halves together to get the runners to extend fully
(instead of only coming our half way) and this was the result........

Raising sewer sides

The man hole around our sewer was in need of attention and we also needed to raise it a bit so the fish would not get flooded with you-know-what next time the sewer blocked up.We had some foreign labour to help us
and some child labour ;-)

Connecting the gas...

When the guy came to install the gas tank he said that we should use the gas in the old tanks and then I can just change over to the new tank when the old tank ran out. It did involve soldering the copper pipes which I thought was the difficult part.

What the gas guy failed to notice was we needed to connect a 1/2' fitting to a 3/4' BSPT fitting. So it was a freezing cold, rainy sunday afternoon when we ran out and I realized I needed a reducing fitting in order to connect up the new gas supply. None of the shops where open and my neighbour Terry didn't have anything to do the job so it was 'boer maak n plan' time.

There was a plug fitting that the installer had left in the pipe to stop dirt getting in. I used this to make a connection on the 3/4 side and turned down a brass fitting off an old braai to connect to the copper pipes and finally got the gas flowing.

Not the neatest solution but it will do till we can get the correct part.

Straighten foot path

The foot path to the shed was

layed out for people carrying

watermelons between their thighs,

you had to zig-zag down to the

shed. So we straightened it

out to make it more usable.