Home "Improvement"

This weekend did not go as planned.

The idea was to finish cleaning the walls, prime them, and paint them. Sounds simple enough, but I am not what the Brits call, "Mr. FixIt."

After a month of looking at bare, mismatch colored walls (which was an improvement over the previous wallpaper), it was time to get them painted. With some difficulty, we moved the wardrobe that came with the flat into the spare room. It isn't a very nice piece of furniture, which may be why it was left behind, but it also doesn't fit into the hallway while assembled, which is another good reason to abandon it. After an hour and a half of taking apart and putting back together, it was out.

The room was now empty minus the bed, which we could work around. The only major piece of the puzzle left was the removal of the radiator. We watched the YouTube videos, bought the proper tools, and got a late start at it.

Things went wrong pretty quickly. The draining of the radiator wasn't too difficult, but when I tried loosening the other side of the radiator, the nut wouldn't budge. It was so tight that the entire radiator shifted and bent the water pipe, which caused it to leak. The leak started off slow, but became worse as I tried to fix it. I couldn't get it to stop and I couldn't get the connector detached. I turned off the water supply to the flat and drained the pipes as best I could, but the heating system was still full of water.

After trying in vain to find the right tools around the house, I made a run to Asda just before it closed in order to buy something that could make the leak stop. Asda is more of a grocery store, but it is also open until 10:00pm on Saturday, which is 5 hours later than just about anything else. No, they did not have plumbers tape, but I picked up a hose, some zip ties, a sealant strip, and a bottle of wine.

When I got home, the leak was still going, unabated. Without having much of a choice, we decided to take the whole radiator off by disconnecting it where the pipe met the radiator rather than where the connector met the radiator. This meant there there would be an exposed pipe with no stopper.

My right arm, newly out of the cast, is still not completely usable. I disconnected the radiator as quickly as I could while Kate moved to cover the pipe. While we did try to be quick, there is only so much you can do with a hundred-or-so pound radiator and one hand. As I pulled the radiator off, my right hand gave way and a 4' high fountain of sludgey radiator water spouted from the pipe. I tried to cover it with my right hand, meaning an even more tenuous hold with my left. Kate swooped in and she covered the fountain, but not before getting sprayed all over. The next two minutes we spent trying to stop the water while somehow propping up the radiator that was still connected to the wall bracket on the opposite side. It was fairly difficult.

The first thing we tried was to use the cork from the wine bottle to plug up the pipe. In my haste to get the cork out of the bottle, I mangled it a bit. It was also too big for the pipe, so I tried to whittle it down to size, which meant more mangling. On to plan 'b.'

Due to the high pressure of the water, there was no way to get anything to plug it. Maybe if we had a proper rubber stopper, yes, but corks and towels, no. The hose was the only other option. We cut it up and rigged it with the zip ties so that the water would flow through the hose into the bathtub. That somewhat worked, but we ended up losing a lot of water and couldn't get the hose to sit on the pipe properly.

We used various methods to catch the water and get it out, all of which were somewhat successful. In the end, the water pressure abated and we were left with a soaked carpet and detached radiator. By this time, it was about 1:00am. I turned on the electric heater and dehumidifier to try to help with the sopping wet carpet and we passed out.

The next morning I was up by 6:30am (the days are getting longer once again) and I checked the carpet. The heater didn't work at all, so I moved it closer and waited for Kate to get up. She woke up a while later to the smell of burning plastic. I had put the heater too close and it started melting the carpet. Remember, the water supply to the house is still off at this point; good thinking on my part. On the plus side, the carpet was still so wet that it would have a hard time burning. At the same time, it's polyester and highly flammable, so the water may not have stopped it from setting ablaze. Luckily, all that came of it was a few scorch marks. The carpet needs to be replaced, though, due to the water. It seems futile to attempt to get the water out from under the carpet and carpet pad we stopped trying.

The next day I still couldn't get the connector off of the radiator. The pipe was still exposed and the water supply remained off. It's amazing how disgusting having no running water can make you feel. When the stores opened at 10:00am, I was there to try to find the proper equipment.

Plumber's tape was easy enough to find, but they didn't have the right pipe covering. That would mean more time with the water supply off. I got home and ended up using a candle to heat the original connector. That, in combination with my over-priced, over-sized spanner wrench loosened the nut enough to get the piece off. A little plumbers tape and a few turns of the wrench and we were ready for running water and a non-leaking radiator pipe.

From there we finished up with the walls, took some furniture to the tip (garbage dump), and started the priming. The priming experience was a major disappointment. Due to the number of small cracks and unevenness in the walls, I purchased a product advertised as a simple and effective primer to smooth that all out. It was expensive (GBP 30, or about $50, plus an additional GBP 8 for the special applicator), but it looked so easy, it had to be worth it! Nope. It was nothing more than extremely expensive drywall mud. Thick, difficult, and messy mud. The idea was to cover the entire room with this stuff and basically create a new layer of wall. Terrible idea; I wish they would have been more clear in their advertising. Liquid would have been much easier.

So, after an hour of struggling with that, we gave up. Kate did some gardening and I went to get proper primer. While getting the primer, I was talking to the sales associate and, with a can of primer in hand, I asked was the difference was between what I had and the item next to it called "basecoat." He said that the other stuff filled in small cracks and covered discoloration better. Perfect! That was what I wanted; and this stuff was liquid and half the price of the drywall mud. I put the primer back and got the much much better basecoat.

I got home, read the can, and discovered it was basecoat for metal and wood. Not for plaster. Epic failure. At that point I decided to give up for the day and take a nap. The house remains full of clutter, the walls look about the same as they did before we started, the carpet is ruined, the radiator is sitting outside in the garden, and it is 11:00pm on a Sunday night.

I'm not sure how, but money-saving projects always seem to cost a lot for me. There may be a lesson in all this, but I'm going to try to ignore it. Next weekend we will be re-attacking. Hopefully something akin to magic takes place and we are in a better place in a week from now.

RwooV: Great Success

This weekend we made our way up to the Lake District. We had planned on going the weekend prior, but it didn't quite work out. That ended up being a good thing. I had the day off this past Friday, so I had a whole day to make preparations.

First of all, Friday was a very productive day for me. I booked flights for Dan and Jenny's wedding in September (multi-destination flights that take us to the middle-of-nowhere Wisconsin, then days later to Minneapolis, then back to Manchester were somehow cheaper than the Manchester to Minneapolis flights that left earlier in the morning and had longer layovers. I'm not complaining.), which will also give me a chance to meet up with the guys for a trip to the cabin (the real cabin, no offense, Adam). I also had a chance to do a good deal of cleaning, go to the auctions, and turn my Daewoo Lanos into an RV.

My excitement with Daewoo camping can be coupled with my disappointment with how expensive hostels and hotels are in Europe. I love traveling, but I don't like spending my money on places to sleep. Yes, a comfortable bed can be priceless at times, but the vast majority of the time I will gladly sacrifice a bit of sleep quality in order to be able to travel twice as long with all of the money I am saving on lodging. Sleeping on overnight trains is my ideal way to go. Get on a train, hang out, go to sleep, and wake up in the next city. With that being said, train travel in Europe is more expensive than driving your own car. Even with gas at around $8/gallon (£1.15/L), one can save money by driving. Kind of backwards in my opinion, but trains are still popular, so what do I know. At any rate, if one can drive one's own car, that means more freedom to travel away from the train routes, the ability to store one's things without having to haul them around in a backpack, and free lodging.

As for how legal sleeping in a car is, I can't say. Because of that fact, I wanted to make something for the car that would keep people from being able to see in without looking too obvious that someone is sleeping inside. My solution was to add black curtains on the sides and back as well as one of those metallic sun blockers for the windshield. If I park in a neighborhood outside of the city center, I should blend in nicely and not have to worry too much about crime. I'm less enthusiastic about trying to find a hidden corner in the middle of no where, because a car in the middle of no where automatically raises suspicion. I am a fan of hiding in plain sight (my only major concern being the condensation on the windows). With about £10 worth of material, my Daewoo became an RV that most people wouldn't suspect. The RwooV will hopefully serve us well.

The trip itself was a good time and got off to a good start. As we were leaving my flat, a police officer was standing outside my door. Oddly enough, we were just debating the legality of having alcohol in a car in the UK. Everyone else said it was legal, but I said that I wouldn't feel comfortable until I read the laws on that. Kevin told me that he talked to the police and they told him it was cool. Then he opened the door and the police were outside.

The reason for the police visit was because of the kids in the neighborhood (the ones who have so far destroyed my hedge, broken a window, broken three sections of my fence, tore shingles off of my shed, have sworn at me, thrown rocks at me, waived their genitalia at me, etc etc). At any rate, the policeman (with a social worker standing next to him) told me that earlier that day they were vandalizing someone's property and the old man who owned the place came out to take pictures of them. Well, the "children" broke his camera and beat him up. I'm not sure how badly, but the cop said that it was bad. Because of that, they were seeing if anyone else in the neighborhood had any issues with them. I was happy to tell him about all of the troubles I had. I'm not sure what they do about terrible children here, but I hope they are removed from the neighborhood. That would make my summer much more peaceful.

The drive to the Lake District was two and a half hours of increasingly narrow and steep roads. Around 11:00pm we found a place just outside of Glenridding, next Ullswater lake, to park. We spent a while looking at the stars before putting our window shades in place and calling it a night.

The next day we had a picnic on the beach for breakfast and slowly made our way to the hiking trails. We made a lot of stops along the way, but eventually we were making our way up the hill.

After an hour and a half of hiking we were at the top. We stopped for lunch and began our hike down.

The trees were a bit think and the hill steep due to taking a goat trail rather than a wider path, but we made it to the lake level fairly quickly and walked back to the cars before it even started to get dark. All in all, a very pleasant, sunny day of hiking.

York & Ingleborough

After two weekends of not leaving my house (no joke, I can be lazy), I was determined to get out and about. That was helped this weekend by the fact that there is no more sleeping in until all hours of the day on the weekends. Part of that has to do with there being more daylight, but, without getting too into the details, Kate's job has also had a direct impact on earlier weekend mornings. The parking situation at Kate's new job requires that she get to work really early to get a spot, which led to her joining a gym across the street from her office so that she didn't have to sit in her car for two hours, which leads to her going to bed really early, which has led to the both of us being accustomed to waking up earlier, which has led to more productive weekends.

The plan for this weekend was to drive up to the Lake District on Friday night, sleep in the RwooV, and spend Saturday hiking. Due to some logistical and weather concerns, that didn't pan out. By Saturday morning we had decided to hike in the Yorkshire Dales instead. Upon looking out the window and seeing that it was raining, we finally settled on the Jorvik Viking Centre in lovely York.

Augustine relaxing outside of the worlds 2d largest Gothic Cathedral.

After fighting to find free parking in the touristy town of York, we made our mile and a half walk to the city center. After waiting in line outside to get in to the museum, they blocked the door about 5 people in front of us in order to let a large group of 8-10 year olds in. Not that they seemed like bad kids, but we decided to go elsewhere. We settled on York Minster, which is the giant Gothic cathedral that has many world records to it's name.

"5 Sisters" windows. Probably actually originally called "5 Cistarian" windows because they were paid for by the Cistarian order at Fountains Abbey.

We tagged along on an hour and a half tour given by an old man who was constantly sidetracked by anecdotes going back as early as pre-WWII England. I, for one, am generally pretty happy to listen to old people tell stories, so it was an enjoyable tour. We learned quite a bit about the minster and the trials and tribulations it had gone through. One of the cool things that we were able to stick around for was an evening choir performance. We didn't go into the choir section, but we listened while sitting above the heaters in the very back of the nearly empty building. It was a nice way to end a long day of walking around the cold building.

We sat back here above the radiators while listening to the choir. We were far away from the choir, but the cathedral had great acoustics.

Today, Sunday, we were up early once again and made our way to the Yorkshire Dales for our planned day of hiking. The weather was about as perfect as one could hope. Right around freezing, but with no wind or clouds. It felt much warmer than the snow and ice would have you believe. We walked about 7 miles at a leisurely pace and had a pretty sweet turkey and avocado sandwich to keep us from getting too hungry.


The hike today was part of the Three Peaks trail in the Yorkshire Dales. We climbed to the top of Ingleborough, which is the tallest of the peaks (my altimeter read just over 2000 ft, so nothing to brag about). We had tried the peak once before, right before Christmas, but didn't make it to the top due to heavy fog and impending darkness. When we got to the top today and walked towards the trail we had done before, it seems that we were literally steps from the top last time. Maybe 20 vertical feet. Of course we had no way of knowing that at the time, but it's funny to look back and see how we snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Only about 1/3 of the fenced off areas with sheep had lambs. This picture happens to be following the 2/3 rule.

Some of the major highlights from today's trail included Gaping Gill, which conveniently enough, is described as an underground cavern big enough to fit the whole of York Minster. Seeing as we were at York Minster yesterday, that helps us to appreciate just how huge the cavern is. Also, we walked past, but did not pay to go in, the best show cave in Great Britain: Ingleborough Cave.

It may not look like much from this angle, but there is a huge underground cavern beneath that sad looking sink hole.

This reminds me of the cop that gave me a stern talking-to earlier this week because the 1" x 18" rubber faring on my car was loose. He couldn't believe I would operate a car in such a dangerous state. I held my tongue while thinking about the fact that the Brits are seriously considering making kitchen knives illegal because people get stabbed with them and the knives are, therefore, too dangerous to be legal. I think a logical person could argue that more people would choke to death from eating huge chunks of food (that should have been cut to a smaller size with the help of a knife) than from stabbings, but being reactionary and banning knives is kind of fun, in a tragically comic sort of way.

Things here are so dangerous, they don't even bother trying to hide the fact that playgrounds might as well be graveyards. We are all doomed.