Lead Pipes Woes Part 8

Water board contractors came today and dug up the street and took out the bit of lead pipe in the road and replaced with blue plastic. I must say it was fascinating to watch them dig up the concrete on the footpath ... we could have done our own garden path MUCH better ... but, hey ho - you watch and learn. One of the annoying things though was that they dug no-where nearly as deep as we had been told we had to, (neither did they add a trace wire to their pipe as we had been instructed to). They are not following their own advice! You can see our blue pipe being connected to their new blue pipe on the photo at the bottom left. They were also very efficient in filling the whole up again ... I think it will take us a little while yet ...

And here's Sunshine pulling out the left-over lead pipe from under our hallway floor - my was it heavy! And on the other end of the hallway, under the stairs, blue pipe waiting to be connected to a connecter that leads into the kitchen (which Sunshine promtly connected after I took this photo). So apart from what (we believe) is a small amount of lead in the kitchen*, we are now a lead-free household :)

*Kitchen overhaul is planned for next spring/summer so we will deal with all the lead at some point.

Lead Pipe Woes Part 7 and Hallway Part 13

Sunshine's dad came round again today to help fill up some of the pathway ditch-making. He even inscribed our names in the concrete! How sweet...

The Water Board man also came to inspect our work and he was very happy (He gave us a 9/10 considering we did it all ourselves) - so we should be getting our supply changed within the next couple of weeks.

In other news we tidied up the hallway a bit and Sunshine managed to give the stairs a bit more support by wedging in a longer piece of floorboard under the stair post and some extra wood underneath.Things are on the move again ...

Lead Pipe Woes Part 6

Ah! Things moving along now ... Big grey pipe and bendy duct installed under the front door...

And new drinking-water blue pipe (and insulation to keep it from freezing if there is any ground frost) slowly but surely installed.

Neither was as easy as it looks on the photos - lots of jigging and poking and shoving ... but its finally done! Can call the Water Board now to come and disconnect the lead pipe and connect the plastic pipe! Whoopee!

Lead Pipe Woes Part 5

In an attempt to get our lead pipe replacement mission moving along, Sunshine's dad came by today to give us some advice and help dig out the bits that needed digging out around the front step ... Thank you Dave!

Lead Pipe Woes Part4

This is SO slow going ... more digging today ... you see that pipe in the middle of the trench? No, that's not the lead water pipe. That's the GAS pipe ... so we can't even stick a big shovel in there - having to manually scoop earth out with a little spade so as to not accidentally damage the gas pipe ...

If we ever need to do this again, SO going to pay professionals to do it!

Lead Pipe Woes Part 3 and Hallway Part 11

MCP here again today doing more manual labour ...

And sometime during the last couple of weeks (I can't remember when - forgot to take photos), I primer painted up all the skirting boards for the hallway, so today Sunhine went round measuring and cutting them to size.

Lead Pipe Woes Part 2

So, our lead pipe woes continue - this digging up the front path is looking to be harder than expected. Our friend MCP has been round today to help - and this included some rolling round on the kitchen floor with torches and phone cameras under the kitchen units to try and work out what pipes connected to where...

Loft Island Part 2 and Lead Pipe Woes Part 1

Remember those "C-beams" we made yesterday? Well, if you space them out perpendicularly over the old joists (with the beams being as high as the height of excess insulation you have); then screw them into the joists from either side at an angle; you can make sturdy uprights, good enough to hold your weight.

Then put all the insulation back in , being careful to not step in between the joists and fall through the ceiling!

Lastly place down some large mdf loft sheets; mark them off; and screw them down to the tops of your C-beams; and TA-DA! A loft island to store ALL your household crap useful storage things... (don't you just love those power screwdrivers with their own inbuilt torches?!? Still didn't prevent Sunshine from screwing into his own thumb - ouch! Thats what he's trying to show in the last picture ...)

Again, the day wouldn't be right without some demolition ... as you may (or may not) know, when we were going round the house replacing the radiators, we found in our hallway a lead pipe - our drinking water. After some investigating we found that the water board would replace the bit in the road, but we had to deal with whatever lead we have within our own boundries ... so here is Sunshine beginning to dig up our front path to try and get the lead water pipe out...