Stove top fan revaluation

Every once in a while, something comes up which challenges your perception of how things work. When we were down at the in-laws over the Christmas holiday period a new addition was sitting on top of the wood burner, a stove top fan. Now, I've be suggesting one of these to the father in-law for a while as I had heard good things about then when I had been looking at wood burners for our house, however, as we went for a recessed burner, we cant have one.

The fan in question was much like the one above and when we first saw it, it was running nicely on top of the burner. The wife asked how it worked and I preceded to tell her that it worked due to the thermal currents created by the burner and the heat sink arrangement at the back of the fan. In simple terms, the air around the heat sink heated up, rising, drawing in more air over the blades of the fan and as the burner got hotter and so the there was more air current, the fan would start to turn, helping the air to circulate. Sound like a solid theory to me and seems to fit with all of the physics that I know. But then on closer inspection I spotted this;

Photo is a bit dodgy, as I was taking the photo while the burner was on and very hot and the fan was spinning at a fair rate of knots and I didn't fancy loosing a finger or something! Anyway, wires? Why would a fan that worked on air pressure and thermal currents need wires? The father in-law wasn't sure either, he was of the same opinion as me and hadn't taken much notice when he had placed the fan on top of the stove. We discovered this fact at about 23:45, just as we were heading up to bed, so doing what any sane person would do, we left it until the morning to investigate. Er, no, actually we launched in to a whole series of theories and investigations, finally culminating in discovering that stove top fans generally work in one of two ways.

1) Electric or more specifically thermoelectric. In these, there are two plates separated by a small gap, that, when heated to different temperatures create an electric current that powers a motor connected to the fan. This is the most common type of fan and is the reason for the heat sink at the top, which is there to ensure a heat difference between the top and bottom plates in the "battery". https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stove_fan is a good place to get a better explanation.

2) Mechanical or Stirling type. These use a small engine, which runs thought the expansion and contraction of air. Its kinda hard to explain, mainly as I don't really understand it myself, but the basics as far as I can tell are that the air heats up in the hot cylinder, pushing the piston up and turning the fan blade at the same time it expanse in to the cold cylinder, pushing that up to. The air is then forces in to the cold cylinder where it contracts and is drawn back in to the hot cylinder by the momentum of the fly wheel. Once in the hot cylinder in heat up again and the cycle repeats. Its a lot easier to see what i'm talking about here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine 

So, all in all, I learnt something, mostly that I didn't have a clue what I was talking about. I have since discovered how stove top fans really work and also learnt a bit about Stirling Engines, which seem to be pretty cool.

Its at time like these that I wonder what else I have misunderstood over the years. I suppose time will tell.

Fire!

So, after a long, long time, I have finally finished the front room! it only took about 18 months and the last piece was the fire. It was supposed to be sorted for last winter, but that didn't happen, but it is ready for this winter!

I dong have any pictures of the first part of the work, as it involved me up on a set of roof ladders, manhandling a six flexible flue liner down the chimney, which is only about 7 inches wide and not overly straight. As you can imagine, trying to get 6 meters of liner down the chimney and not fall off the roof took all my effort and photos were pretty much the last thing on my mind. The wife helped out as well and I would have loved to get a picture of her standing at the bottom of the ladder, with hard hat with attached ear muffs! She was worried I would kick a tile or something down. But no, I survived, didn't break any roof tiles and managed to get the liner down and the chimney pot in place, although there was a point about a meter from the end where I thought it was all going to go horribly wrong. The liner stuck solid and I had to try for several minutes to try and jiggle it around, moving it up and down as best i could. All that seemed to happen was that it stretched and compressed rather than actually moved and I was getting quite worn out by all the physical effort. You couldn't grab it from the bottom either as it was just to far up the chimney to grab by hand, lucky though all the jiggling worked and the liner shifted and slid the last meter or so in to place. 

Above is the liner fitted to the stove pipe with register plate in. The liner is untrimmed from its original length, my calculations were a little off, I was planning on it reaching down to the bottom of the picture and then trimming it to length. As it happens its actually exactly the right length for what I wanted, which was great! If it had been shorter I dong quite know what I would have done as we ordered it about a year ago and I'm not sure they would take it back!

In order to get the plate in I had to channel out the sides of the chimney, using a couple of sds chisel bits. I went to jewson's to get them originally, but at over a tenner for one I decided against it but as I left I noticed the local shop next door (its a big local shop, bigger then the jewson's ) and they had makita bits for less than 3 quid each! Excellent, point and half inch chisels bought for just over 6 quid including vat! They made mince meat out of the chimney breast.

There is now a straight section and angle (135?) with door section installed beneath the plate. The door in the angle section should allow me to sweep the chimney with out having to worry about getting the front room dirty. Ill need to buy an new brush head for the rods and I will have to install some sort of access in to the garage, but as the hole needs bricking up anyway, that shouldn't be a problem.

Before anyone asks, the stuff around the pipe at the bottom is glass wool, a inert mineral wool that won't burn at all and is a good insulator. I know it went burn as its the stuff that i recovered when I took the last fire out and while some of its a bit discolored, its not burnt at all.

Ready to rock and roll

I have only had the fire on once so far, just to test the flue and joins and also to "fire" them or set them, as per the instructions. The fire cement around the register plate didn't quite get fired, it didn't get hot enough, but being as its in the position it is and its a inset fire I dong think it ever will get as hot as its supposed to, as the only heat is comming from the radiated heat given out by the flue, which was roasting.

I would add that I did smoke test the fire before I did the first burn and we have carbon monoxide alarms in the room, so it want a completely blind test of its integrity.

Fire in full swing

There will be some experimenting with the fire over the next few weeks, as I play around with the settings to find out where it burns best abc gives off the beat amount of heat. As were burning spare wood and off cuts, the quality and type of wood will vary, so it will be interesting to see how this effects the fire and heat output. There are several lumps of aged oak and what looks like mahogany in the pile as well, so they will be interesting to burn! Either way, were finally ready for winter!

Velux window no.2

So, with the summer fast drawing to a close, it was time to get a few of those little jobs outside done. One of the jobs that needed to be done was to get the Velux window fitted in to the bathroom. After having done the one in the young ladies room, it was a fairly simple affair to get the next one it, as I had learnt a lot of lessons. Firstly, cutting the hole in to roof went quite well, as I got the hole the right size, compared to the first attempt, when the hole was a little squiffy. The second job was getting the tiles off the roof, a job that took a long time for the first window. It didn't take as much time, but it was still a pain. I broke less tiles, and it took less time, however my plans to get the tiles off didn't work at all. I bought a slate ripper to get the tiles off, by ripping out the nails. It didn't quite work that way, but I managed it in the end. 

window in

Once the window was in, it was just a case of reinforcing the roof struts, what was done before plaster boarding, filling and painting.

Now, the pictures look quite dark, but the difference the window makes to the bathroom is massive. Previously, no matter how light it was outside you still need the light on in the bathroom, now you can be in there until quite late until you need it on. The window is frosted but it makes no difference to the amount of light that comes through. Overall, I'm pretty impressed with my second effort at putting in a window. Next up in the window fitting will be the end windows, in our bedroom and the spare room. These should be easier as they are just standard windows.

Play room

In the last post, I mentioned that I had taken over one of the rooms as my work room and the kids had taken over the front room. Now, this isn't the playroom that's been taken over, it's the spare bedroom or guest room. So why aren't the kids using the playroom? Well, here's why!

The over view

The toy free path

Now, this is actually fairly tidy! It can be a challenger to see any of the floor at times, although it can be better at times. The room doesn't have any real storage space, mostly just trying to shoehorn boxes in to shelves built for clothes. The new playroom, when it's built, will have lots and lots of storage! 

As for when it's built, well, that's  another question!

Trains trains trains!

Over the last few weeks while I've been doing the downstairs bathroom, I've taken over one of the other rooms as my work room to store all my tools and stuff, this has forced the kids In to the front room. This has some advantages, as it give plenty of room for building train tracks. Most of these were built by the little man, with only a few modifications to get all the tracks to fit by myself.

The wooden railway

We started with the wooden railway, and it went through several expansions from its original, simple loop. As I said, most of it was done by the little man, but it occasionally needed some readjustment when two 'male' or 'female' ends came together, or when curves didn't quite meet up. 

The final layout

Track master

Once we got bored to the wooden railway, we advanced on to track master. Again most of this was done by the little man, with only a few modifications from myself to get the tracks to fit. My one main contribution to the railway was the bridge across the middle.

The bridge

This was fun to build, and a bit of a challenge, but it worked really well and the little man really loved it. It is something that we've not done before and was only possible thanks to the Thomas's daring drop track that the little man got for Christmas. Although, I think Grandad has got us all beaten.

Grandads railway

The train bug seems to run in the family, although grandads railway is a lot more expensive and complex, but the little man loves playing with it and now Grandad has bought the little man his own (second hand) train and carriages, Grandad also isn't worried about any of his special GWR trains getting damaged!

Bathroom update

So there has been some progress on the bathroom, not a lot but some is better than none. With the shower cubicle done, except putting the doors on, we started on the walls. The tiles are huge, well, bigger than anything else that I have used before, 600x300. The main tiles are flat but the 3rd tile up is textured, acting as a boarder tile.

The main wall, minus radiator.

Sink plumbing.

So, things look to be progressing, however, they have hit a bit of a wall. All the whole tiles have been put on the wall and its now about the half tiles. Although I have an electric tile saw, its getting started that's the problem. Once I get going with it all, I'm sure it will start flying up again. If I can get the main wall done teats a big chunk of the tiling done, although round the window is going to be a pain, as there are a lot of tiles that need cutting.

The big challange is going to be grouting. The walls are not very flat, behind where the radiator sits the tiles are sitting on a thin smear of adhesive but at the top, the tile are sitting on about half an inch of adhesive. If I just grout the tiles, it would end up using massive amounts of adhesive, at great expense for not a lot of gain. So I'm looking in to other options to pad out the bits behind the tiles, so I only have to grout the actual space between the tiles. I'm sure it will all come together in the end.

In other news, these arrived. The new velux window for the upstarira bathroom. Its an opaque window for a bit of privacy, even though the only people who can see in are those flying over in a plane! Oh well, the wife is happier with it that way and I'm not fussed. Not sure when it will be going in, probably not until I've finished the downstairs bathroom, so it could be a while! 

Sticks and stones and broken bones

Well, this is just going to be a short post, well, shorter than the usual posts anyway. As I mentioned in the last post, the DIY and my car repairs are on hold for a little bit, this is mostly due to the fact that I broke my finger 2 months ago. Yes, I did write that correctly, I broke it just over 2 months ago, but I didn't see anyone about it uuntil a couple of weeks ago.

The offending ring finger, still looking swollen Ann slightly misshapen

Now at this point, your probably wondering why I left it over 6 weeks to see a doctor (or ANP, Advanced Nurse Practitioner, because actually seeing a doctor is neigh on impossible), well that's simple, when you get hit in the hand with a cricket ball, its gonna hurt. In my case I failed to catch the thing and took it right on the end of my finger. Que sqwlling and pain, as expected. What want expected was to have said swelling and pain 6 weeks later, or as it stands about 9. After an x-ray, they have confirmed it as broken, an incomplete cortical fracture apparently, but there is nothing they can do, I just have to be careful with it and let it heal.

All this means that heavy lifting and such is probably not a good idea for a few more weeks, so its light duties for a while. I will do a little bit still, and I may do a lot of the marking up and calculations for the tiles, as they need planning. So it went be a total stop on the DIY front, just another slow period!

Bathroom update

I though it was probably about time for an update on the current build project, the bathroom. Well its progressing slowly, very slowly, as the floor took a while to sort out. It looked like it was going to be fairly simple to put the floor down as we were going for laminate, however, we hit a slight snag.

At some point in the past the floor has been wet, and by wet I means soaked over a long period, probably when the room was used as the original bathroom. I had already replaced a large rotten section, however, there was a join further across the room and this was the problem as it has swelled due to the water. The first laying of the laminate was a failure as the ridge made it feel like a trampoline! After trying to shave the wood down it was better but not perfect, so down went the leveling compound. Now, when something says it self leveling, don't believe it! I ended up with a big dent/divot in the middle which caused a problem when I laid the laminate (for the 3rd time), so down went more leveler. Unfortunately I think I went a bit over the top with it that time and ended up with a small mountain, which is just as bad as the dent/divot I had before! So after some sanding and settling, plus a ltiile bit of pinning of the laminate, the boards went down for the 7th and final time! Not its all good, no movement or bounce and with the toilet in and fixed, along with the shower tray, were all good.

The next challenge though is that I need to get the shower board in. This is not as simple as it sounds! While the floors pretty level, the ceiling is not and this leaves me with an option of either profiling the top of the board or cutting in to the ceiling. So the ceiling is getting it. Hopefully ill have it in and sorted by the weekend and then I can get the second board in and get the shower mounted. Ill probably leave the shower cubical until the tiles are done, or i may get it in and working so we could use it is we fancied.

Anyway, that's were we are at, and with the tiles sitting in the garage, ready to go on the wall, we should have been heading for the finish line. However, a broken finger has slowed things down again!

New bathroom

So this is the current project, the new downstairs bathroom. I say new, but its actually the original bathroom, that was changed in to just a toilet, and is now being moved back. Most of the stuff, sink, toilet and shower are coming across from the downstairs en-suite which is being removed. It should have been relitivly simple, but was always, there's been a few surprises!

Firstly, we had to get the stopcock moved, as it would have been in the bathroom once the new wall was in. Which is odd, as we were putting the wall back to its original position, so the stopcock must have been moved at some point inthe past.

One the wall and stopcock were moved it was a while before I gotta chance to get the rest moved. Once I did however, things got messy again. This was mostly due to moving the toilet and shower wastes. Now the shower was easy, simple 40mm pipework, but the toilet was in 4" and was a right pain, especially when your working in a crawl space under the house! It took me a lot longer than I thought it would and was a lot harder! However it is all done and dusted and more importantly its water tight.

New toilet position, the old one can be seen sticking out the wall on the left.

My work space, I quite often get told off for the mess! I just have a habit of just shifting the rubbish around the room to which ever corner I'm not using!

The next stage of the build was sorting out the woodwork. This mostly involved building the frame for the shower/cupboard space ( below). This was simple and easy and took very little time to build.

It got more complex when I started on the door area. This area was a mess of different surfaces, with lots of steps in the plaster boards. The idea was to smooth it out and build up the area around the door to make the recess for the door more snug and less makeshift. Unfortunately, things didn't got to plan. The stairs needed some repair, mainly replacing the screws with bigger better ones but the top step needed a lot more. For some reason it was build using 2 pieces and there was some movement in the structure. It took a lot of work to remove the movement, and to be honest, its still not perfect. I will replace the two bits with a single board when we redo the upstairs landing, but for the moment, this will have to suffice.

The wood work under the stairs. Not pretty but it works!

Hopefully by the time your reading this, the woodwork and plasterboard  will be complete and the floor will be down, ready for the tiles!

Change of direction

Well, this blog has been ticking along for the last few months aand I've  been struggling with the balance of the blog. I initially started this as a blog about being a stay at home father but for several reasons I have found it difficult to find the right balance between public and private and have in many respects been avoiding the blog and one mote than one occasion have considered deleting the blog and all the posts, however, I have decided to continue but change the direction.

So what direction is the blog going in? Well it won't be a dramatic shift, but the main focus of the blog will be on my DIY and my car, there maybe a few parenting posts but they will be few and far between.

There is always plenty of DIY going on, currently moving a bathroom and there is always something up with the car, currently two of the door handles don't work.

Car, Mid service by torch light

Bathroom, Post plumbing nightmare

So the blog will continue, and hopefully there will be more regular updates, hopefully!

More rooms complete

So it was the young ladies turn to have a shiny new room. In truth I finished before Christmas but we waited to get the carpet done until after we got back from our travels south at Christmas. 

It want the longest project so far, that still resides with the front room, which still isnt technically finished! However, this was one of the most challenging ones so far, mostly due to the new window. 

The room, messy as always!

So what did I do? Well, its was going to be a short little job of moving a door frame and building the loft hatch properly, it turned in to something a bit more, as is always the case! I ended up re building the whole of one side of the room aswheni went to take the door frame out the whole wall wobbled, a lot! So, new properly built wall and door frame, new window and loft hatch. I also had to rebuild the surround for the roof window in the hall way to take account of the new loft hatch.

Sounds simple but it wasn't! The wall was simple, I've built lots of walls now, im an old hand at that bit. The door frame is only the second I've built from scratch, the first was done under the watchful eye of the father in law (and master DIYer), but im pretty happy with the result, a slight twisting at the bottom but nothing g that will cause any problems for the door. The loft hatch was simple but was time consuming to get right, as I wa Ted as smaller gap around the hatch and the frame as possible.

Loft hatch

Its still bigger than I would have liked but I don't think its getting any smaller without some clever joinery, which is out of my expertise. The surround in the hallway was also relitivly straight forward, although I have made a slight error as you now can't fully open the window, as in rotate it to clean it! You can open it about 6 inches, which is about 5 more than we have ever opened it, and it works perfectly well on the just vents at the top.

Hall skylight

The real beat of a job was the window! There is something truly terrifying about cutting a whole in your roof. It was not only a worrying job but a pain in the arse one too! A must for next time is a slate ripper to get the tile nails out, as our tiles not only have nail but a ridge as well, making them neigh on impossible to get out, but after much swearing and a few broken tiles, i managed. Putting the window in was a lot simpler, it definitely played to go the extra mike for the Velux windows, fitting was simple, especially once we got the right flashing kit!

New Velux window

Im currently working on the bathroom downstairs, and there are one or two more headaches to deal with there as well!

House guest

As I mentioned in the last post, we currently have a house guest, one of my wife's old uni mates and one time house mate and close friend of both of us. Its has been really enjoyable having her visit us and has the added bonus of freeing my up from childcare duties to get on with the DIY. I've been busy moving a bathroom across the hall and trying to deal with the nightmare plumbing that the last lot leftme with! There will be more on that in a later post.

The other advantage for me is that it has freed up my evening a bit and enabled me to get on with some model painting (on my other blog), while the girls catch up on gossip and chick flicks, oh, and having a few cheeky drinks!

An easy night for the girls.

I did my share of babysitting though, mainly for the Up Helly Aa night and the morning after, as the girls had been out to one of the halls and needed the morning to recover! Trouble is there is very little open, none of the regular haunts, so we had to try somewhere new and not so child friendly.

Post up Helly Aa lunch

Finishing rooms

Well, over the last couple of weeks I have been busy with the DIY. As a result 2 rooms are now pretty much finished and ready to use.

First up is the front room,that after many many months is now ready to use and indeed has been used most nights. I say nights as during the day its kept closed and a kid free zone! New carpets and all, not that it hasn't already suffered a spillage! The wife was on duty then, so I'm home free on That one! The room isn't quite finished as we still need. To get the liner put in the chimney, so we can finish off the wood burner. 

Its not quite finished in teams of furniture either, as the TV stand is missing. Its on order but its not arrived yet, a typical issue up here! Hopefully when it arrives, we'll get the TV set up and have a look at the stereo, this is the bit I'm looking forward too! It will be good to get my stereo back again and get the tunes blasting again!

The next roomto be completed will be the young ladies room.

As you can see there is a window in the roof. This was quite an undertaking, simple in many respects, the Velux instructions are actually very simple and easy to follow, but chopping through the roof was not a pleasant experience and getting the tiles off cause a few moments of stress! But its in and while I am not convinced the thing is 100% waterpreoof, in pretty pleased with it. Hopefully when I get the different and correct flashing kit (ordered the one I though I needed, but it was the wrong one). Hopefully by the time this goes up, ill have all of the bracing properly inplace and be starting on the plasterboard. With luck we'll be able to move the young lady in to her room in a couple of weeks. Going on past experience though, its likely to be the otherside of Christmas!

DIY

So, right now most of my free time, and by free time I mean childless time, is being spent decorating the young ladies new room. Now, when most people decorate they will buy a tin of paint and slap it on the wall, not so in our house! To start the decoration process we took down one of the walls.

Now this might seem like a bit of an extreme thing to do, however, the old wall was somewhat wobbly and a little underwhelming forwhat will be a child bedroom. The new one will be a lotmore substantial and will give a little bit of extra space in the room, along with improving the layout.

Its all pretty easy right now, nothing complex, just some rewiring for the new lights and sticking up some stud work and plaster board.

The upturned stool is acting as child guard! Toddlers and power tools don't mix very well!

By the time that this post goes on-line, I'm hoping to have put the skirting and door frame on.