Quick entry : I've taken the day off from work and will go shopping, as I could use some nice clothes. Hopefully the weather won't be too bad, though I'll be prepared for wind and rain, lol.
Tomorrow it's probably off to the movies, see trailer below.
In order to find and repair the leak I blogged about yesterday, I took out my shower completely. Which leaves me with no shower, nor bath for the time being. Not as pleasant as I'd like, but one can wash at the sink too, at least for a while.
After finding the leak we decided to take the radical approach and seal off the complete section of water there, since it was just feeding the shower - which I had taken out in order to reach the plumbing, remember?
Once the section was sealed off, we checked for more leaks and turned on the boiler again. Which overheated in a matter of seconds, resulting in seals coming loose, water dripping from joints and steam coming out of my faucet in the kitchen. Ouch! Luckily no one was hurt and we managed to shut it down before really bad things happened. To be on the safe side though, we closed the gas line and water intake to the boiler itself as well, effectively taking it out of service till it can get repaired and serviced by a qualified technician. Which you - of course - have a hard time finding these times of year.
To make a long story short : I went from excessive hot water leaking somewhere under my shower to no shower, no warm water and a broken boiler in under 16 hours. Still I dare call that making progress, I really do. Because, if you look at it from the right angle, that old shower was destined to be taken out anyway, the leak had to be stopped no matter what and the boiler was eventually due for replacement and a servicing at a minimum. It's just all happening at a less convenient time, grin.
Anyway, that seems like a good note to end 2011 on and in 2012 I think I'll do some more construction, replace broken boilers and eventually throw a bathroom party with loads of naked people enjoying hot baths and showers, lol. Well, the bathroom party may not have "loads" of naked people, but I promise that I'll throw a party once it starts looking less like a construction yard and more like a real room with walls, tiles and such.
Stay safe, be healthy, have fun and all the best for 2012!
I just called my customer to check whether it would be OK not to come in to work tomorrow. Whilst that may seem as a nice day off from work, it is quite the contrary. My neighbors just rang my bell to announce that they heard what they though was water running, for the last two hours or so. Since I had used a bit of hot water earlier - I did some dishes - that wasn't too surprising, but since the sound kept on, they decided to come check. I headed off to the boiler room and noticed my heater was on full power, heating water, which shouldn't be happening if no hot water is demanded.
I checked my bathroom and sure enough... there was a bit of a leak visible, but nothing major. However, when I leaned on my shower, the complete enclosure was hot to the touch, so I think I know where the leak is situated : under my shower, excellent. Instead of a slow day at work and a nice and quiet evening later, it'll be an early morning, cutting away a wall - at least partially - to see whether I can locate the leak, then assess the damage and find a way to fix it.
Since I don't know how bad the situation down there is, I'm already mentally prepared to take out the complete shower - which was on the to do list anyway, though not this soon - and replace all of the pipes in order to avoid more issues in the future.
Off to bed early, deconstruction derby in the morning :)
Yes... there is no reason to feel bad, sad, angry or upset about it. It is what it is and I'll deal with it accordingly. I already called in the troops and dad will be coming over in the afternoon to see what we can or need to do. I bet that gift voucher for the local DIY store I got for x-mas will come in handy sooner as I expected, grin.
As the end of 2011 approaches at neck breaking speed, I just wrapped up a letter to my tenants, informing them that monthly provisions will be increased starting January 2012, and - unfortunately - that they have an outstanding debt due to the fact that they seem to heat the place up rather well, pushing heating costs through the roof.
I've got no clue how they'll react - I don't usually have to interact with them all that much, they pay on time and don't bother me, so I leave them alone as well - but I've made sure that the letter is in line with legal regulations and I've referred to the proper stipulations in the contract.
I can imagine their new year starting off in a better way, but unfortunately this is the way it'll be I suppose. In order for them to feel a bit less pressured, I've included an option to pay off the outstanding debt in two terms - which should make the pill a bit easier to swallow. There is no point in me losing good tenants, so I'd rather give them some extra options opposed to getting them into financial trouble.
Anyway, enough administration and drafting up things for today, off to bed I go.
Oh, the visit to the dentist this morning was pretty damn swift, I was in and out in under 20 minutes and my teeth are looking swell again :)
PS : I'll try to write out that mail tomorrow, but I got caught up in this whole tenant and monthly provisions administration thingy.
Dammit! For the third time this year a piece of my front tooth has chipped off... I'm gonna try and get hold of my dentist tomorrow to get it fixed for a last time. I guess that if it comes off again, we'll need to come up with another and more permanent solution. I'm not pleased :(
In order to end this post with something a bit more positive, I've just bought x-mas cards and I'll be sending or handing some out this year :) Yay me...
I finished closing up putting the last opening where a door will be installed somewhere next year, hopefully. I had already done quite a bit of work over the week, but then my jigsaw broke down and I was forced to stop. I picked up a brand new circular saw a couple of days later and it cut through the plate like a hot knife though butter today :)
I'm a bit concerned about a couple of drops of water that I noticed dripping from a wooden support beam when I was putting up some final sheeting, but not too concerned. I assume that rain had accumulated somewhere between the support beam and a piece of wooden board and that by drilling into it, the water drained, because there are no apparent signs of a soaking anywhere else. if so, I'll deal with it accordingly, but not now.
Off to watch an episode of Fringe (Season 2). I need to get some good night's rest tonight and catch up on sleep.
The weather is taking a turn for the worse, quite some rain the past few days, but it's especially the strong winds that are causing me to concerned : when I came home today, part of the covers I had attached to keep the building site clean and dry had gotten torn away. Wind speeds are predicted to rise even more this night, so I'm rather certain that I may be facing a small disaster in the morning.
As soon as I noticed what happened, I took out the ladder and started reattaching things as good as possible, strengthening where I could, but I fear it won't survive the night after all. Which sucks balls... and not in a good way.
Tomorrow evening I'll be unable to do any fixing should things have gone wrong again during the day, and on Friday I've been invited over at my sisters place for a chat and a meal, which will only be the start of my evening, grin.
Birthday party invite on Saturday, but as that's later during the day, I may be able to do some more work on the house in the early afternoon, depending on when I get up. Or rather, when I get out of bed. I've not been feeling to well the past couple of days, and I hope things are clearing up soon. Feeling under the weather is not what I call much fun.
Off to watch the news and then take care of some other bits and pieces that need attention.
I don't know what message nature was trying to send me today, but after an 11h long day, I was driving home and nearly hit... a cow. Yes, a cow, in the middle of the road. After assessing the situation, I called the cops and spent another 30 minutes waiting for them, and chasing cows around.
Well, I didn't chase them, and they didn't chase me either, but I did shoo them around a bit, to keep them off the road. They didn't do anything but moo and eat grass.
After the cops arrived, I pointed out where the cows came from and where they went to - apart from the 5 or so that were still on the road - and wished them luck. We all cracked some jokes about the situation and then I headed off home.
It's been a long day, time to hit the bed in a couple of minutes :-)
Some, if not most, people will consider me strange, weird or even a freak, yet I'm rather certain most of my readers won't be surprised at all if I state that I enjoyed watching a documentary titled "Man over woord" that I just caught the first episode of on Canvas. It took me, as a viewer, upon a rather interesting trip explaining the origin of certain words, dialect and common spelling mistakes and how or why they are so difficult to prevent or spot.
I've always had an interest in language and as such I'm a huge fan of word games, playing with words and language, the various meanings of words, related to the context they're used in. I find it relaxing and challenging at the same time, which may appear to be a contradiction in itself.
Seriously : if you have any interest in the origin of the Dutch language, take a look next week.
Sure...the lion is king of the jungle but airdrop him to Antarctica...and he is just a penguin's bitch.
It's foggy outside and temperature is around 5° Celsius, even though it feels like 2°. However, I'm rather pleased, as it's November 13th and there has not yet been any frost. I hope we can get most - if not all - of the support beams in place today, so I still have a chance of finishing off the outer wall before winter really hits.
It may still be early for most people - especially on a Sunday - but I've already dried my clothes, washed my dishes and prepared to start building in about an hour. While I'm typing up this entry, my mind is trying to figure out how to tackle some of the issues we may come across when placing the support beams. I'm on a multitasking spree it seems, grin.
Note to the IRS : how about refunding me my excess taxes next week? I could use the money :)
I've just finished construction for the day, and I've made a calculation as to what material I'll need to finish the walls. Truth be said, it was kind of disheartening. A quick calculation tells me I'll need at least 50 more blocks to raise the inner and outer walls to the level of the roof, and I didn't dare count the blocks needed to finish the outer wall completely.
Apart from it all becoming rather tiresome, the financial impact is starting to become important as well. After all, this is all just structural work I'm doing, the functional elements and materials (plumbing, electrical, tiles and such) are not yet on site, nor ordered. Still I'm staying optimistic and hopeful that I'll be able to get the room weatherproof before the winter really hits (crosses fingers and hopes for a few more weeks of relatively few days of rain nor snow or frost).
Off to watch Paranormal Activity now, last night I decided to watch I, Robot instead.
Yesterday I went and ordered the support beams I mentioned in my previous post, so I'll be able to put those in place next weekend. Tomorrow - I think I'll abstain from doing any work today - I'll raise the walls a bit more so everything is more or less in place to get those beams installed next weekend.
Went out with S. last night, went to see Paranormal Activity 3, which was - if you ask me - not a freaky as PA 2 was, but it was still pretty good and entertaining. It gets my recommendation :) Since I haven't seen the original Paranormal Activity movie yet, I picked it up on Blu Ray, and I may decide to watch it later tonight. As we were having drinks after the movie, S. said that a new TV series titled Fringe was rather interesting as well, so I googled for some more info and it seems like fun indeed. Can't wait for it to show over here.
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