Home DIY

seeking a bit of advice here.

my girlfriend and I are fortunate have a nice little place to go to on the weekends that I am refurbishing but it only has a wood burner for heating on the ground floor. the next two floors get no heat, you would think heat would rise up but it doesn't seem to, it just sits on the ground floor.

so to heat the next floor I am thinking of running a coil of copper pipe inside the woodburner, it's a diy rocket stove type arrangement, so it would be suited nicely to this as there is a gap between the fire chamber and outer case. the coil would be in the burner and running out and up to the next floor where it would be plumbed in to a radiator and working on a thermo-syphon to heat the radiator and circulate the water.

this is just my basic thinking, plumbing isn't my forte. I am presuming that I will need a pressure valve of some kind or over flow? would that be right and if so, any pointers?

Can you not fit an aftermarket back boiler?

This may inspire me to actually finish the job, never heard of a card scraper before but I can see i've been desperately in need of one - once all the old varnish is off I actually quite enjoy the final sanding by hand but that looks just the ticket

Bladed scrapers will also do the job - but the card is more effective at getting the pressure and width of coverage right.

You don’t have to get all of the finish off but the more you do get off the fewer sanding pads / paper will be sacrificed.

Went through 5 80g 150mm pads on this lot. + 2 120g + 3 detail sander pads

the issue is more the pipework and the need for pressure release valves etc. this is the part I'm not clear on what is needed, as a back boiler would still need this. even so the woodburner is just made out of an old calor gas bottle so I doubt there would be many aftermarket options.

It is.

You haven't seen ours. It was rotten when we moved in two years ago. We've not made any attempt to sustain it, though we do wipe and clean thoroughly regularly. But I can actually peel sections away with my fingernails. Thinking stainless steel sealed walls/floors/ceilings that have a sprinkler pumping out bleach twice a day when we start 'Kitchen 2021'. Until then we'll just try not to die.

Oven?

Thinking stainless steel sealed walls/floors/ceilings that have a sprinkler pumping out bleach twice a day

Always wanted to do that with a bathrooom.

We've had wood countertops for almost 5 years, no issues yet.
Our sink area is an integrated porcelain on steel unit from the 30s that has drainboards on both sides - wood right next to a sink area would be crazy.

AMAZING. Love the Dyson mod.

Got some wax down

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Looks good @Howard. What wax?

Just put this pine floor down in the in-laws cabin. It’s going to be covered in vinyl (fuck knows why he wanted 110mm wide pine boards rather than ply or chipboard) so finish didn’t have to be perfect, and hence having visible screws (again, his request). 3 days solo. Joists in, insulation and tape, tongue and groove boards and then skirting. Knackered.

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Smeg apparently.

Had to mend that too.

Everything in this place is nice but none of it really works; the previous previous obviously splashed cash on it only for the previous to spend three years fucking it up.

Even if your worktop has started to rot there will be good wood under there somewhere. You just need to remove the rot. You can always splice new wood in if it’s too far gone.

wood right next to a sink area would be crazy.

You can do it but it requires careful design.

Issue with this one we’ve inherited is that the tap exit is too high so you get a lot of splashing with even a dribble of water.

Also routing a draining board in to it is proper madness.

I wouldn’t bother starting from new, but you’ve done a great job rehabbing the thing.

Also routing a draining board in to it is proper madness.

My favourite detail.

Previous owners here had a flash smeg which we enjoyed for 2 years until it broke. And now we haven't had an oven for 3 months because we paid NAC to provide a part and apparently they're still waiting and I just want hard food.

to heat the next floor I am thinking of running a coil of copper pipe inside the woodburner, it's a diy rocket stove type arrangement, so it would be suited nicely to this as there is a gap between the fire chamber and outer case.

I'd try and get a stainless steel pipe for the coil inside the burner. Copper probably won't last long in the acidic hot gasses.

We have a Vilager wood/multifuel stove with the internal back boiler.
That's a stainless steel multipass heat exchanger and the rest of the piping is copper.
There's a mains fed header tank with a float valve for filling and also external vented overflow for float valve failure or boiling, which takes care of the expansion/contraction.

The heating pump and its temperature sensor is up in the loft, and takes a while to switch on to get heat to the downstairs radiators. The convection flow is sufficient to heat the two upstairs radiators.

Having storage heating and the stove, I've been looking at infrared panel heating and have just ordered one for the bathroom.

@Howard your kitchen worktop revival looks amazing. well done!!

Sheeeet

Now I’m worried

Nice sauna

This evenings fun has been replacing the bathroom extractor fan ducting. It's a Vent Axia 100t inline fan, but has a fairly long duct.

It's nearly a 6m run and going from 100mm flexible to 100mm diam and 110x54mm rigid has made a noticeable difference in how quickly the steam clears.

Before hand, the fan would pull the door open by 3mm. It's now pulling it open by 8mm

cork flooring going in next week + chimney getting swept #noamey

love too DIY*

*pay a man to DIFM

nice restoration - on a side note i never understood the idea behind those wooden draining board things given the way wood reacts to wet

edit: just caught up, i see this has been addressed

Also routing a draining board in to it is proper madness.

O hai

In our defence, we do have a dishwasher.

The worktop has been in about 6.5 years now. I oil it about twice a year. It's a bit battered but held up better than the mastic and grout (because I'm crap at masticing and grouting)

Your refinish looks great.