Category: Phase 6

Installation of Utilities (Header Tank, Hot Tank, Water pipes, Air ducting etc) and Automation

Created Oak Utility Panels

Today, we decided to complete one of the last things to do inside our Cloakroom, namely making two Oak panels for covering up two Utility Channel “holes”. We found a planed plank of Oak timber on our rack in our garden shed. We must have had some left-over pieces from a previous job couple of years ago. It was a large enough piece to fit the requirements of making a 125mm tall panel cover and long enough to cover up two holes measuring 365mm (one near the toilet) and 400mm long (near the basin). These Oak covers will overlap the holes by 12mm on the top and bottom edges and at least 25mm at the beginning and end of the covers. This will protect the edges of wallpaper all around, but the larger overlaps will allow for magnets to be stuck into the wall and the Oak, to help hold the panel in place. Our piece of Oak we pulled out of the shed was 1200mm long by 160mm wide. We first trimmed it down to 125mm using our bench circular saw and then got out our router. We used a large 19mm straight cutter to cut away the back to form the lip on the top and bottom edges first. We noticed on our test piece revealed that the cutter would “chip” off huge splinters as the cutter was travelling along the Oak and hit certain grain in the wood which ripped large chunks off. So, we changed our approached and very delicately cut a very slim 1mm groove instead of trying to do 5mm in one go. This worked much better and this allowed us to carry on cutting the rest of the wood away without causing these splinters. We then changed over to the chamfer cutter to cut a 45degrees slope on the front, to make it a softer profile. Now, we can chop this long piece into two smaller lengths, measuring 425mm and 460mm each. Next, we trimmed all four corners off and applied the chamfer again on each end. Finally, we switched back to the straight cutter to remove the back material to make the larger lip at the ends.

The last job was to fit some small magnets to both the Oak panel and into the wall surface as well. We found twenty little round ones measuring 6mm in diameter and 3mm long. We drilled a flat bottomed 6mm holes in four locations, two at each end of each panel and glued them in with superglue. Now, we put magnets on top of the ones buried in the wood so that we could mark on the wall where we would need to drill those holes. We put a blob of gel paint on the magnets and that successfully marked the wall when we carefully placed the panels back in position. We drilled the holes and at this point, we thought that the 3mm length would not be long enough to be successfully glued into the wall, so we changed over to 6mm length ones instead. We put on parcel tape on the back of the Oak panels and then put the magnets back on, put construction glue into the holes in the walls, making sure that all the dust have been removed, and finally, very carefully put back the panel on the wall, with the sticking out magnets squidging into the glue. We put a spreader clamp across to the opposite wall to help hold the panels in place while the glue sets.

Oh yes, We gave the Oak three coats of Acrylic transparent varnish to protect the surface from dirty fingers and grease.

We now have two Oak covers, ready for switches, displays, speakers, microphones, buttons and all sorts to be installed later on!

19 November 2024
Cloakroom Decoration Phase Two, Final Top Coat For Floor And Sliding Door Installed

We proceeded to paint the ceiling in the Cloakroom a nice sky blue colour (to match the colours in our wallpaper), but we also wanted to create some fluffy clouds so we cut some paper and stuck them to the ceiling, to cover the air vent and the three lighting units. They are of variable size and shape.
We then decided that the clouds are not working so we painted the air vent the sky blue colour, to make it blend in more, and dab various colours of grey and white and blue to make the clouds more fluffy.

Then, we painted the alcove where the vanity unit is going, including either side of the door entrance. This is a blue grey colour that approximately matches the colours in our wallpaper.

Now we are ready to apply the final finishing top coat of resin to the floor. It is a pale grey colour. But, first, we sanded the rough surface, to reduce the obvious join lines and other bumps and rubbed around the edges. We noticed that there were holes so we filled them up with more filler.

Cloakroom floor filled and sanded

After, we were satisfied with the condition of the floor, we proceeded to paint the final resin top coat all over.
While the resin was still wet, we sprinkled icing sugar all over the surface, to help roughen up the surface, to make it a better non-slip surface.

Topcoat applied and sugared

After a day of waiting for the resin to fully cure, we then got a bucket of hot water and poured it all over the floor. Because we deliberately had a small slope rising towards the doorway, none of the water escaped the room at all. We used a sponge to stir the water, to dissolve the sugar and then picked up the dirty water with a couple of sponges. We repeated again with more hot fresh water and sponged it dry. We now have one finished flooring, fully waterproof and easy to clean right around the whole room, including underneath the toilet.

Washing the Sugar off

The next job is to lay on the wallpaper we have bought for our cloakroom. It is special wallpaper and we carefully lined each strip starting with the one immediately behind the toilet and then working one way, leftwards towards the door, and then doing the final two strips to the right of the toilet, coming around on to the linen cupboard and turning a few inches on the side wall. We then carefully trimmed the bottom edge so it neatly terminated to the skirting and then did the same at the top. We had to dab a few edges and joints with more paste to help stick it down.

The next step in decorating the walls, is to put on several coats of varnish all over the wallpaper, to provide a protective and water resistant surface. We put on a third coat immediately behind the toilet itself because it will get even more scrubbed as you would expect.

We then sliced a thin piece of oak off one of our planks and then run it through our router to give it a gentle moon crescent shape. We rubbed it smooth and then gave it a coat of PU varnish with a mid-brown dye. We stuck it on the edge of the wallpaper that just came around the linen cupboard corner. This will protect the edge of the paper from being damaged.

Then we noticed that some of the blue grey walls were showing signs of wear and tear, probably caused by when we were doing the vanity unit and the lower shelf underneath. So, we gave the grey walls a touch up coat of paint.

The next step is a very important one, is the mounting of the toilet!! We carefully cut through the wallpaper to where the two pipes needed to come through the wall, then the two bolts sticking out, ready for the toilet and finally, the square push button module for flushing the toilet. We followed the instructions for measuring the length of the two plastic pipes, one for supplying the flushing water and the bigger pipe to take away the water. We then push the toilet on to the two bolts and made sure that it was level. We tightened the nuts until the toilet was nearly back against the wall, at which point, we ran a line of clear PU sealant between the edge of the toilet and the wall and finish doing up the nuts tight. We carefully scraped any excess away.
And finally, we installed the flush buttons module. We connected the tiny air pipe from the cistern and then clicked the module into place. It has magnets to hold it tight. Very clever.

We then press the button .. and it flushes !!
And no leaks !!

The other thing we did was to connect up a temporary tap to our cold water supply. It is an ordinary tap, with a multi turn knob. Nothing fancy. We now have the ability to have running water. We got soap in a bottle, plus also a bar of soap. We did buy a plug for the sink but it wasn’t a very good quality as it doesn’t hold the water for hours and hours. We will have to find another one.

We then ordered a large mirror measuring 600mm wide by 1200mm tall. It is a frameless and also has hidden hooks so it hangs slightly proud of the wall. We also bought a toilet roll holder and a hand towel holder, plus also a toilet brush and finally, a small swing lid rubbish bin.

Cloakroom Finished 1

Cloakroom Finished 2

The last thing we did for the Cloakroom, was to install the sliding door module. We didn’t get as far as implementing the compress air system because we decided that the sliding mechanism we spent a few weeks designing isn’t working as well as we hoped. We will mount what we got and make use of it for now, but, we will use a different sliding mechanism in the future and replace this one with a new one. We probably will move it to the Kitchen because it is likely that the sliding doors will be rarely used.
So we managed to get the module up inside the wall and screwed it into position. We then got a sheet of OSB board and sliced it up into two 450mm wide by 2100mm tall pieces. We then cut a narrow piece of MDF board and glue that to the edge. Next, we bent a couple pieces of aluminium 40mm wide flat bar to make a couple of L shaped brackets, with a slot cut in the top to allow the hanging of the two halves of the door to hook onto the carriage. We then cut a couple of finger grooves on the edge of both doors, on both sides so that one could open and close them. The last thing we did, was to use short length of draught excluder brushes and mount them near the bottom of the door, one on each side of the door so that the brushes are very slightly pressing into the surface and this holds the door nice and steady.

Temporary Cloackroom sliding doors

This is just a temporary doors, as it is only 11mm thick. We will replace them with proper 45mm thick ones with frosted patterned glass later on.

28 October 2024
Vanity Unit Designed and Created

We started another job recently, this time to design and create our Vanity Unit for our Cloakroom. We wanted a simple design, in a natural darker colour, to match the décor and not to be too big, or too small, but just right! We always liked the design of the basin bowl to be “cut” into the vanity work surface itself so that everything is flush and smoothly flowing from one surface into another.

So, the first job is to design and make a mould for the bowl itself. We glued together five layers of 25mm thick insulation boards, the largest one measuring 270mm wide by 450mm wide, shaped like a letter D. Then, the next layers were consecutively shrinking smaller around the curvy parts, but aligned up on the flat edge. It is now looking like a domed shaped pyramid, with the steps to get to the next level. We then, used a surfform shaper to remove the excess material from these steps, to smooth out the whole thing into a gentle curving bowl.

Starting the bowl blank

We then scraped around the flat back edge, to give it a pleasing softness to the two outside wings and scraped all over the bowl to improve the shape.

We then covered this foam layered object with two-part wood filler material, to fill in all the holes that accidentally get created and then sand it more thoroughly all over again. We repeated this process several times, patching small areas with more filler, until it was looking good.

The last piece to add to the mould, was the reinforcing drain hole layer. We will need to drill a hole in the bottom of the bowl eventually, therefore, it would be good if that area of the bowl should be reinforced with extra layers of glass fibre when we come to make the actual bowl itself. So, we found an old 100mm diameter disc and chamfered one edge with a flat 45degree slope, to make the glass fibre strands to bend and lie into the mould without sticking up. We stuck this wooden disc, which was only 11mm thick with more of the wood filler and then filled in around the edges, to make sure that it doesn’t have any “concave” hollows or pits, for the finished product to accidentally get stuck to the mould when we try taking them apart!

We noticed that the edge around the top of the bowl mould was rather jagged and we couldn’t get the wood filler to stick strongly enough so we went on to Plan B.
We laid the mould flat on a large smooth board with had parcel brown tape stuck to it and then covered the whole thing with Gel Coat resin and leave it to set.

Blank filled and sanded

While that was setting, we got some 10mm thick cement board and sliced it up into two 300mm wide pieces. We then glued them together using PU gun foam glue and flattened them together with six 25kg concrete blocks. Next, we very carefully measured the gap in the Cloakroom where the Vanity Unit is going, into the alcove that is formed by the Linen cupboard. We needed to measure both the widths at the back and front, plus also measure the angle of the wall surfaces which turned out to be 89.6° for the left back corner, and 91.6° for the right back corner. The back width was 755mm and the front edge measured 760mm wide. So we transferred these measurements to our double thick cement board and sliced the left and right edge very carefully.
In order to help us fit this cement board “worktop” into this alcove, we got two pieces of battens and screwed them onto the wall at a point so the top surface will be at 800mm off the floor. Even though we were very careful in slicing the cement board, it still needed rasping on some parts of the left edge, to make it slide in and fit right back against the wall. We also had to rasp the two corners because they are gently curving as well.

When we carefully cut around the edge of the mould, to release it from the flat base, we noticed that there were still missing chunks around the edge, the resin is transparent so we couldn’t see how much resin there was and also we were running out of that particular batch.

We took this opportunity to install a releasing mechanism to our mould, by drilling a 6mm hole right through the middle so that we could glue in an air pipe. We also widen out the entrance to the hole, the one at the bottom of the bowl, so that when we come to glue the flexible pipe in, we will seal up the joint between the resin skin and the pipe itself.

so we stuck the mould back down again on the base (after putting more parcel tape over it) and mixed up a little bit more resin, this time adding a bit of colour, green. We blobbed a line of it all the way around the edge of the mould and also we dribbled some into our new hole to doubly make sure that the compressed air won’t “peal” off the wrong layer !!

While that coat of filler was setting, we went off to cut two more pieces of cement boards, but this time only 200mm deep, and glued them together with the same PU foam glue as before, weighted down with four concrete blocks.
Then, while we waited for that glue to set, we sliced 50mm wide strips off a 12mm thick cement board, to start making the upstand strip that will go around the edge of the vanity unit. We carefully drilled screw holes through the base board and up into the upstand pieces. We had to replace one piece because we didn’t drill out the pilot hole wide enough to allow the screw to go in without breaking the hard cement strip apart. We were successful the second time around after testing various sizes. It needed a 3mm pilot hole and a 3.5mm clearance hole, to allow the 40mm long 3.5mm wide screw to go in fully.

By this time, the glue had set so we got our 200mm wide strip and place on top the other base board, because the same shape and size also fitted very well at the lower shelf position. So, we placed the larger piece on top of the 200mm piece and sliced off the excess ends. We rounded the back two corners, just like the base board and both of them slid into place very neatly.
We positioned the batten for the lower shelf so it just sat slightly higher than the waste drain hole going through the side wall. We drilled a clearance large hole through the batten and then screwed the two pieces on to the wall. We decided that we only needed two of them, a left one and a right one only.

We then painted them the same grey colour as the rest of the wall. We did the other battens for the main vanity unit as well.

One of the last things we did at the end of one of our days doing this job, was to finish filling in the mould around the edge with the wood filler. We now can get that nice and smooth and we had enough time at the end of the day, to coat a final top-coat resin all over and let it set overnight.

Upon the following day, we trimmed off the various drip marks hanging off the bottom of the mould and then proceeded to polish the mould with layers and layers of wax. We had a special tin of wax release substance that is especially designed for glass fibre resin production where the wax is put on to the mould so that the resin cannot stick to it and should pop off fairly easily .. we hope !!
We put on six layers in total, each layer needing 15minutes for the wax to dry before applying the next layer.

While we waited, we got on with another task of shaping the 50mm wide upstand pieces that we previously have cut and screwed. We put on a 50mm radius curves on the beginning of the two side upstands, and then, routed a quarter round on the front edge of all four upstand pieces. We continued to use this quarter round cutter to trim the front edge of the flat top of the vanity unit, on both top edge and bottom edge, to form a bull nose profile. We also did the same to the lower shelf as well.

Now, we dived into the deep end and went ahead to cover our basin mould with three layers of glass fibre, with regular resin on each layer, and allowed it to cure and harden.
We then trimmed the dangling “curtain” of glass fibre off the bottom of the mould, tidied up the edge

Bowl with initial fibreglass layers

Then we attempted to “blow-off” the finished basin off the mould by squirting in compressed air down the air pipe we had installed .. but .. alas .. it didn’t work!! OOOO Boy!
We tried to jam two crowbars deep into the foam base of the mould, tied some string between them and tried yanking the mould off .. but .. alas .. NO Joy! It broke the foam material.
This meant that we had to destroy our lovely mould! We hacked out all the foam and started nibbling the inner mould layer. It seems that the glass fibre basin part had stuck to our mould in several places, hence why we couldn’t release the mould. It seems that the waxing process didn’t do a complete coverage all over the mould. We are not sure to why. Phew!!
It took us several hours to rip the foam stuff out and then carefully, chip away the thin layer of resin from the basin bowl. We ended up with a couple of spots that needed grinding to remove the excess material. We eventually got our basin bowl out of it .. But, we will have to make another mould for the other wet rooms that contains a vanity unit with a basin. Phew!

Struggling to remove the foam plug

Cleaned up!

Now, we can mark out the cut out shape for the bowl, on the cement base board of our Vanity Unit, and proceeded to cut the piece so we ended up with the bowl fitting snuggly into place. We blunted the blade on the jigsaw as it is very hard cement material.

Now that we have a boundary between the flat surface of the vanity unit and the bowl, we now can position the locations for the soap depression, plus also for the nail brush and the plug itself. We set up the router to use a hemisphere cutter bit and using a pre-made template (a piece of 6mm MDF board with a 100mm circle for the soap dish, an oval elongated shape for the nail brush and a smaller round one for the plug) and carefully cut away the cement material until we had three depressions, neatly arranged around the edge of the basin bowl, starting on the left hand side and finishing with the plug depression centred, above the overflow outlet and the drain hole. There would be room for a bottle of liquid soap and then finally, the spout itself to give a gentle fountain of water etc.

We then glued the basin bowl into the cut out zone of the cement base board, using lots of PU construction glue which is very sticky and very tough once it is set. We left it 24 hours to cure and harden. We stuck a couple of bricks on top to hold down the bowl (which is upside down) sitting on our work table.

Glued in the top

Then, we proceeded to put a little vertical piece of the same cement sandwich board we had left-over, to form a little barrier just under the front edge of the vanity unit and connects to the curve of the bowl. We did this on both left- and right- and sides. We use a small piece of 20mm wooden batten to help secure these pieces into place and then we put a gentle quarter round on the lower edge to remove any sharp edges, before we continued to glue these two pieces into place using 5minutes PU glue, we also stuck down the four pieces of our upstand that goes around the edge of the work top.

It is getting there .. !

The next task is to fill in all the corners with two-part resin base filler, to smooth the transition on all the joints, to provide a curve so that the glass fibre can be encouraged to bend around the corners without breaking, or popping clear of the resin before it had set.

While we remembered, one of the final use of the router, was to cut another quarter round on the edge of the basin bowl that is touching the cement work top, again to allow the glass fibre to bend down into the bowl itself.

We put in more filler around the upstand and use a 22mm tube to form a curved profile on all the 90degree corners and that was rubbed down smooth.

We built a little “stand” to hold the vanity unit up and clear off the table so we can apply the fibre glass and resin all over, without sticking to the table etc.

So, after rubbing down all the fillings, we blasted the whole thing with compressed air and move this and the stand to the Garage and stuck on two layers of glass fibre with resin all over the top surface and bowl.

Fibreglassed all over

While that was curing, we got the second shelf and drilled a large clearance hole at the back of the shelf, centred. It is a 50mm wide hole to allow the push fit plumbing right angle connector up underneath so it can receive the waste pipe coming down from the trap and the bottom of the bowl itself. We then made a quick and easy legs to hold up the shelf, using two small pieces of OSB and carefully screwed two long screws on each narrow ends of the shelf, through a small piece of plastic pipe to act as a spacer. The whole thing held the shelf well clear of the table.

Upon the following day, We then trimmed off all the sticking out straggling strands of glass fibre and turned over the whole thing so we could resin and apply more fibre glass underneath the vanity unit and especially doing the front half of the bowl, to strengthen it so it will be much stronger and resistance to being bumped into in the Cloakroom.

While that was setting, we also did the second shelf and we covered it in glass fibre in one go, doing both sides at the same time, including going over the drain hole as well.

Lower shelf resin coated

After lunch, We proceeded to trimmed all the loose strands off both the vanity unit and the second shelf. Then rub all over everywhere and we put in extra filler here and there, to touch up areas that became a bit too thin after sanding the lumps away. We also thickened up the edge around the bowl and filling in air gaps that accidentally formed during the second stage of putting glass fibre on. We also decided to put the white filler on all the flat surface, to help remove much of the gently wavy surface.

All filled and sanded

At this point, we are reaching the moment where we need to apply the final colouring layers, but, we do need various plumbing bits and pieces, like the over-flow and the drain hole, to come from our suppliers.

So, in the meantime, while we waited for our plumbing order to arrive, we got on with colouring up the second shelf, with the final dark grey with a hint of blue in it. We also collected up a collection of tiny pieces of glitter of various colours, sieving out all the larger lumps. We put the shelf back on the support stand so that we could coat both sides in one go. We mixed 200g of the grey / blue mixture we previously settled on. We experimented with lots of different shades of greys and different levels of blues as well

And we settled on this darker shade of grey and were happy with the blue content as well.
So we coated the second shelf with the grey colour and while it is still tacky, carefully sprinkled on our tiny pieces of glitter all over, on both sides of the shelf. Then, later on, several hours later, we applied a protective clear coat of resin which is designed to help seal everything in and provide a very smooth finish.

By now, our plumbing items arrives, a over-flow plastic pipe so we drilled a new hole into our basin bowl, just below the rim, using a core drill of 27mm diameter and then digging out a little bit of the cement board underneath and behind the bowl. We then glued this plastic right angle pipe in with lots of the plastic filler, covering up the threaded part and over the flange at the back, and squashing it all together by using the nut to push the filler tight into the thread and the surrounding area. After it had set, we sliced off the plastic nut and the remaining pipe that was sticking out into the bowl area. We sanded it smooth and then touched up some small hollow bits until we got it lovely and smooth.

The next job was to install the drain hole and plug. It measures 41mm across on the threaded section and the flange is 61mm across. So, we used a 44mm core drill but we added an extra piece of wood, cut into a circle, a piece of 3mm thick plywood, also cut to a 61mm circle and positioned it behind the core drill bit. We stuck on a small piece of 60grit sandpaper on the wooden disc and then locked the core drill on to its holder. We then got a middle position in the bottom of the basin bowl and drilled through the thick layers of glass fibre and resin material from underneath first, then turning over the whole thing, continued to cut the remainder of the hole from the bowl side downwards. Then, we did continue grinding the surface away using the little sanding disc we had attached so it created a little hollow for the flange of the drain hole to sit neatly into place and just be below the surface. We chamfered the hole a little bit to allow the plastic moulded drain hole unit to fit in better etc.

We then trimmed down the long threaded part so there was just enough thread left to attach a solvent weld adapter to let us fit a right angle 32mm waste pipe piece, to bring the waste pipe back towards the wall and then turn to go down towards the second shelf and the large clearance hole we have already made.

The last thing we did for this particular day, is to coat the grey / blue gel coat on to the under side of the vanity unit all over and then sprinkle our glitter everywhere. We used a small fan to provide a gentle wind to blow the glitter up onto the vertical surfaces. We have just been holding up a pinch of the sparkles about 2 feet above the target area and sprinkle it that way. but, that doesn’t work so well for vertical surfaces so we used a little fan instead.

Upon the next day, an interrupted day with a external meeting to attend, we put on the final glossy top-coat resin on to the back half of the vanity unit (it is still upside-down) because the grey resin is very slightly tacky and we felt that turning it over wouldn’t be a good idea without causing problems like getting stuck etc. So, the top-coat went on to cover up the grey and provides a very hard finish.

We had a little bit of time before lunch so we took our finished second shelf, cleaned off all the dribbles around the back edges and fitted it in our Cloakroom. Well, not actually fitted exactly, I mean, with glue and everything! Just resting there on the support battens so we can sort out the waste plumbing pipes that will be coming down from the bowl. We are using push-fit plumbing parts, to take the waste water through the trap (which is above the shelf) and then turns a right angle immediately underneath the shelf. Then, a short distance at an angle to a second bend but this time only a 45degrees bend before a longer straight run all the way to the final socket that is buried in the linen cupboard wall.

Waste Plumbing connections

Just before lunch, the glossy top-coat has harden completely so we turned the whole Vanity unit over and then applied the grey / blue gel-coat mixture all over the top surfaces and inside the bowl, to complete the coverage.

Then, after the aforementioned meeting, we use the last hour of the day to apply the glossy top-coat resin all over the grey surfaces, all in one go so that we do not get a join line or something.

The last job to do was to clean all the back edges, similar to what we did to the second shelf and tidied up the drain hole so it will provide a flat surface for the attachment to fit snuggly down tight, which we sealed in with black sealant. We then finished off the last bit of the waste pipe from underneath the bowl, including connecting the overflow output and join into the vertical trap. We cut down the long excess lengths of the drain hole attachment so it fitted closer to the bowl and reduce the unsightly views of waste pipes etc.

Vanity unit complete

That pretty much finishes the construction of the Vanity Unit for our Cloakroom. The next job is to make our waterfall tap and we have some ideas which we would like to try out first. We may have to buy a waterfall tap but they are difficult to find without any mixer handle built-in.

3 August 2024
Hall Hatches Improved and Ready for Bolts

While we waited for our latest modification we have done to our basin bowl mould, we decided to do one of the tasks that have been outstanding for quite a while now, which is to do two things. One was to glue in the captive nuts in the lid. We noticed that sometimes, they would pop out when we push in our special hatch keys, to screw the handle and then lift the hatch up, but instead, would pop the nut out. So, we went around all twenty-three of them and glued all these captive nuts back into place using construction glue. We also populated missing ones as well.
The second task we did to these hatch lids, is to drill out a clearance embedded hollows, to take a 14mm washer and hide the head of a bolt so that both are below the surface. Then, we drilled a 6mm hole through the rest of the material which will allow a 35mm length bolt to poke through and will connect to another captive nut that will be screwed into the framework of the floor joists. We have positioned four of these “fixing down” points around the four corners of the hatches, 60mm in from each edge. We will have to glue a block of wood into each of the corners of the framework, but, we can do that later on.

We had selected two of these hatches, to test out this technique last week and glued in a 63mm square block of wood in each of the four corners, and so we could see that when the 6mm hole was drilled, it went into the block underneath which was widened out to a 8mm hole, to allow for the captive nut to be itself screwed in as well. Then, the lid was bolted down nice and tight, to stop the various clunking noises when walking up and down the hallways.
It worked very well.

Right, that is another job done .. well half done .. we still have to glue in those wooden corner blocks .. but that it another time .. while we are waiting for glue or paint to dry somewhere!!

22 July 2024
Hot Water Tank Kitted Out and Installed Into Utility Cupboard

One of the jobs we have been working on now and again, in between other jobs, is putting together all the internal bits and pieces for our Hot Water Tank. The heat exchanger is now ready and we slid it into the tank. Then, we aligned the three pipes inside, with their elbow bends on top, and drilled clearance holes for a series of tank connectors, one for the 28mm pipe and two for the 22mm pipes. Plus also another 28mm one for a short piece of pipe, to pair up with the other 28mm pipe that goes down to the bottom of the tank. That covers the two main types of water flowing in and out of the tank. All four needed their elbow bends to be soldered into place.
But, that is not the end of these tank connectors, we then did another one for a 15mm pipe, a piece of copper pipe which we put a 90degrees bend on it and that will be a cold water feed to top up the hot tank if necessary. The final water type tank connector we inserted, is for the overflow relief pipe, just in case the filling mechanism didn’t halt the filling when it should have done so.
All those connectors were mounted just under the flange at the top of the tank, on the long side, and they all have external right angle bends, ready for plastic pipes to be inserted in.So, on the short side of the tank, we then drilled a series of holes, this time, for the electrical types of connections going in and out of the tank. The first two were float switches, for controlling the cold water filling system. They are positioned so one will detect the water level dropping below the 100mm mark which will cause more cold water to be fed in. The second float switch is positioned just underneath the overflow outlet so we can detect a failure to halt the filling process and cut off the electric supply to the pump or valve etc.
Then, the next holes to drill out, were seven holes, to allow nylon glands to be fitted, which has a screw cap that tightens down on electrical wires (two of them actually have 10mm plastic microbore water pipes coming through as these are conduits for two temperature sensors to be inserted into the water). The other five glands will have a bunch of electrical wires going to a mixture of 50V DC heating elements and a couple of 230V AC Mains heating elements, to dangle down inside the tank near the bottom.

Hot tank with everything plumbed in

Now having fitted everything that will go inside the Hot Water Tank, we moved it into the Utility Cupboard, to end up in the corner, tucked out of the way.

But first, we need to put in a solid block of PU insulation foam boards, to surround the tank, to insulate the tank, with a thickness of 100mm all around. We had a collection of 25mm thick sheets that were left-over from other jobs so we put in four layers on the bottom, measuring 800mm deep and 500mm wide. Then, we put in a piece of DPM plastic across the whole area, sandwiched between the third and fourth layers, to act as a captive water tight barrier, so we can detect any future leaks, using an electronic sensor. This is a last ditch detection system so that we are made aware that the tank is leaking somewhere and that we have to rescue the situation.
Next, we put in four more layers of the PU sheets, this time, the left-hand side of the tank. They are 800mm wide and went to a height of 1800mm for the first three layers and a slightly shorter 1700mm high piece for the final layer that is next to the tank and fits just under the flange.

The third block of insulation is the back wall, this time measuring 400mm wide and a similar height as the previous load. We jammed them in so it keeps the left side layers nice and tight.

Start of hot water tank insulation

We can now man-handle the tank into position, sitting on the block of insulation and shoved over so it is tight next the left block. We then resumed sliding in more sheets, this time, only measuring 700mm wide but we could only get 90mm of foam boards into the available gap, which we achieved by putting two layers of 25mm sheets and a single 40mm thick sheet. Also, we reduced the height by 100mm as well, because all the pipe connections are in this location. We will probably fill in this gap with glass wool insulation later on once we have fitted the various pipes into place. We are also likely to slide in an additional 40mm PU board that will fit in between two CLS wooden legs that are part of the cupboard framework. That will provide some extra insulation as well.

The final step in covering up the tank is the front and we put in two layers of 25mm sheets measuring just 300mm wide and 1600mm high, and a final 40mm thick one to finish off.

Fitting last of the insulation to the hot tank

The final piece for the tank, the lid. We got a small left-over piece of 12mm cement board and cut it down to fit on the full dimension of the tank plus the flange around the top, and cut it to fit. We stuck a couple of layers of 40mm foam board on top as well.

That concludes the assembling of the Hot Water Tank and fitting it into the Utility Cupboard, with its insulation completely surrounding it. We will do another soak test and this time, rig up an electrical circuit and heat up the water to a good 90°C to test everything. This is a good time to do that as the electricity prices are very cheap during the night, plus also, we are getting lots of solar at the moment, which will help reduce the cost of heating up 288litres of water and then letting it cool down by natural means so we can find out how long it takes with the amount of insulation we have put on.

17 July 2024
Repair the Hot Water Tank

At last, we tackled the annoying problem of fixing a leak in our new Hot Water Tank we constructed a few weeks ago. Just to recap the situation, we discovered that our mould we had made to shape the fibre glass resin on to, had little ripples in the release tape we had stuck on. These little ripples has create little grooves in the finished resin surface. One of these grooves was deep enough to breach the inner skin and this allowed the water to escape. That is the situation .. O Boy!
So, we tackled this problem by having to climb, or rather, crawl inside the tank which is lying on its side. We vacuumed the inside and then rigged up a fan to blow forced air into the tank, to make absolutely sure that we are getting fresh oxygen and removing the chemical vapours. We went through the whole tank and scrubbed all these grooves with acetone, to clean out them and prepare the surfaces ready for a fresh application of more resin. We have to do this work in two stages because we cannot turn ourselves over to work upwards, so, we had to rotate the tank over.
We mixed a small quantity of resin and added some yellow dye, which turned the red colour to an orange shade. This will give us a feedback to where we had applied the resin. While wearing our mask with the activated carbon filters, we proceeded to dab each of these grooves. We turned the tank over and did the other half as well.

Sealed up the defects in Hopt Tank
We left it to cure and harden overnight.
Now, it is time to give it another leak test, we got out our garden hose again and started filling. .. In the meantime, while it was filling, we went to find a piece of 12mm cement board, traced the outline of the top of the tank and sliced it into a lid. This will sit on top, on a ring of rubber around the edge and keep the steam and hot air in the tank.
Oh No !! !!
We still have the same leak as last time !
After trying to see where the hole is, on the inside of the tank, we had the idea of using compressed air to blow backwards from the spot where the water is steeping out and force air through the skin and hopefully make air bubbles appear on the inside. We eventually stuck on a 4inch square piece of thick plastic, with a ring of butyl thick glue around a circle and then clamped it on over the site. We carefully sent small burst of air into the white plastic pad, through a hole in the middle and .. we had a stream of air bubbles blowing into the water!

Plate attached to allow air injection

Injecting air to find the leak

Bubbles showing where leak is

We got a dark wax crayons and drew a small circle around the site where the bubbles came out. It had to work underwater!!
Then, we drained the tank so that the level of the water was 6inches below the “hole” and then drew a wider circle using our marker pen. We sanded heavily this zone, to make sure that the surface is well “roughened”, to help stick the new layer of resin over that spot. We also heated up both sides with a hot air gun, set to 100°C maximum, to thoroughly dry the fibre glass and drive out any moisture trapped within the fibre glass itself. It needed to be as dry as possible so that the new resin will stick properly. We rubbed the entire zone with more acetone, to soften the resin and make it more attractive for the new liquid resin to stick better as well. We mixed a small amount and then applied it to the 4inch zone inside the tank. We had left-over so we painted the wall near the top of the tank, where we are planning to have various connections made to pipes etc.
Again, we left it overnight to allow the resin to cure fully, before refilling the tank back up to normal levels again. To see whether we have fixed the leak .. or not!!
..
No Leaks!! Hurray! Yippeeeee!
At last!
We left it full of water all day and it is looking good.
We now have a repaired Hot Water Tank! Ready for the next stage of fitting the connectors and the heat exchanger coils ..

10 July 2024
Constructed Hot Water Heat Exchanger Coils Plus Other Pipes and Sensors

We have been spending a day here, a day there, whenever we were waiting for glue to set, paint to dry etc. etc. and got on with the task of designing and building a heat exchanger coils for our Hot Water tank sitting in our Utility Cupboard. We wanted to have a system where we could run in various hot water, or indeed cooler water sometimes, to transfer energy into, or out of, the tank. We are going to use lots of copper pipes, narrow 10mm wide copper pipes, and bend it into a coil, to form a tall rectangular spread out maze of pipe bending this way and that way, to form a column. We want to make four of these, so that they stand in a line, inside our Hot Water tank. They will be connected to a 22mm copper pipe and a tiny little manifold which will allow four 10mm pipes to join into the 22mm pipe. The 22mm would then go up to the top of the tank and exit to the outside world.

So we were thinking of doing a series of “figure-of-eight” loops, wrapping the copper pipe around two 110mm waste pipes, set apart very slightly, making sure the overall dimensions kept within 150mm by 300mm. In fact, we made sure that the longer length didn’t exceed 270mm so that there was room to slide the finished article into our tank. We found some left-over waste pipe, made two equal length, measuring 250mm and then cut little slots at one end, all the way around, to form little bendable tabs. We heated up the plastic to bend these tabs out and then we screwed the two pipes onto a block of wood.

We then started trying to bend the copper pipe around these template, but discovered straight away that the thin walled copper pipe kept on buckling and didn’t want to bend smoothly around. Oh Dear!

So for Plan B! We decided to use our miniature pipe bender tool, designed to cleanly bend these microbore pipes but at a much tighter radius, of around 20mm, forming a bend that would be only 40mm across for a full circle. We still tried to use our existing template, to bend the copper pipe with right angle corners, and 60degree in the middle when we wanted to make the “figure-of-eight” shape but it was proofing very difficult. It was a matter of getting precise distances from one bend to the start of the next bend, to apply the bending tool in that precise location, to end up having the copper pipe going around the two upright plastic waste pipes. We had a little chaotic set of coils.

Trying out pipe bending

By the way, we were using old copper pipe we had from a previous project some 15 years ago, so we were not losing material here with our experiments!!

What we ended up, as you can see in the photo above, is a random collection of lengths and gaps, which gave us the idea that if we change our approach slightly, like for example, if we build a rectangular box and, instead of the two plastic tubes, we mounted two wooden pillars using 63mm CLS timber, to ensure that we had maintained a cleared section to allow the insertion of the immersed electrical heaters as well. This box measures 270mm long by 130mm wide.

Frame to constrain tube bending

We did another test run and it was much easier to randomly bend the copper pipe at various points, so long as it obeyed the basic requirement of going around each pillar in a figure of 8 movement, it doesn’t matter where or what path the copper pipe takes. It looks quite reasonable.

So, we committed ourselves to using our freshly bought boxes of 10mm copper pipes, and proceeded to bend one column of random lengths and angles, to bend the entire 10 metres of the copper pipe, all into that limiting rectangular requirements. It took a couple of hours to do the job, but we ended up with a column, vaguely rectangular in shape. We pulled the approximately thirteen loops out, stretching it out to about 1metre tall.

First heat exhanger formed

On another day, while waiting for the Cloakroom paint to dry, made two more “coils”, this time only taking about an hour to do all the bends. The third one had a slight crumpling up of one of the bends so we had to chop that out and replace it with a new bend and soldered the replacement back into that location.

Then we did the fourth and final one the other day. We now have four of them, ready to be assembled together later on.

On another occasion, while we were waiting for a new tin of acrylic varnish to arrive, we got on with the job of assembling our four coils, to form a single module, ready to be slid into the Hot Water Tank. So, towards this aim, we put together a rough and ready simple template of our hot tank, just the back and two sides, measuring 600mm wide and 300mm high, and 1700mm long, emulating the shape and size of our tank. Then, we put in 100mm wooden blocks at the top, to make sure that the copper coils do not occupy too far up the tank and we did a similar thing at the bottom, but this time, only a 50mm blocks so we can guarantee a buffer of water underneath the coils.
We then stretched out all four coils, to fill the majority of the space. We noted that we could, and did, slide in pieces of 18mm and 22mm thick boards in between the coils, including on the outside too and that helped keep them much neater and separated from each other.

Now these four separate coils needs to be connected together. I mean the actual copper pipes at each end, so that the water coming in, and out, of the tank, via a 22mm copper pipe, can be split up and flowing around the four group of coils, transferring the energy in one direction or another.
We got a very neat brass adapter that fits to a 22mm size copper pipe and four 10mm holes, arranged in a two by two grid, on the other side. We managed to carefully bend each separate coil “tails”, sometimes with an extension piece, and connect each tail into this adapter. Then, we cleaned all the joints, put on flux and then got our gas torch to heat up all the joints and melt solder in the joints.

Heat Exchangers Base

Heat Exchangers base manifold

The 22mm copper pipe went up the middle and pokes out the top end.

We then repeated the process to the other end of the coils, and soldered the adapter and joints in a similar manner. This time, we put on a little short piece of the 22mm pipe. Both of these pipes will have elbow right angle bends but we will do that later on when we got the whole thing inserted into our tank.

We then bend a small piece of 10mm pipe, into a “U”, to make a “foot” to take the weight of the heat exchanger and also maintain a 50mm gap at the bottom of the tank. That was also soldered into place too.

Then we slid in a length of 28mm copper pipe down through the coils and anchored that into place by twisting some thick copper wire we found in our left-over cable scrap box. We also threaded some more of the thick electrical wire (we stripped off the plastic coating) and anchored the coils together as well, to stop it wiggling around.

Heat Exchangers in place

Another additional little task we did, was to twist little pieces of wire on the outside of the coils, between it and the walls of the tank, to provide a simple way to make sure that the coily module will sit nice and centred in the tank and keep away from the wall surfaces. We had to solder these pieces into place, to stop them twisting out of alignment.

All these pipes (the two 22mm ones plus also two 28mm ones) and also a 15mm filling pipe that we haven’t mentioned yet, will all need a tank connector mounted at the top of the tank, to allow the copper pipe to gain access to the outside world. But, we want to slide the copper pipe right through these connectors, but that can’t happen until we have grinded an internal flange away. We used a 16mm HSS drill to ream out the 15mm tank connector, and used a tungsten carbide grinder to do the job in the four larger connectors.

Tank Connectors reamed out

finally, we could do a “leak” test at last! We connected up our compressed air adapter which we had previously assembled, using various plumbing bits and pieces, joined to our tyre adaptor. We push it on the 22mm pipe, blasted air down inside the long coily pipes, to remove any rubbish. Then, we put on an end stop on the other 22mm pipe and built up the air pressure inside the pipe. We had a hissing sound!! We squirted some soapy water on everything, to track down the source of the hissing noise and eventually located it to a repaired section where one of the inline joints was leaking. It took us two goes to plug the gap in the joint with melted solder. We then tested everything again and this time, we held tight! Our testing adaptor has a digital pressure gauge and we put in 3.90bars of air and it stayed steady for a couple of hours, only very slightly dropping to 3.88bars, which is probably as a result of temperature change. We had squirted more soapy water on all the joints and see if bubbles formed like a little miniature volcano .. but none developed. Yippee!

The last thing we did, was to slide a length of plastic 10mm pipe down in among the coils, to serve as an temperature probe. We sealed the bottom end with a brass end cap compression fitting, to make it water proof, but also, to provide a good metal heat sink to help warm up the thermometer sensor that we will slide down inside the 10mm plastic pipe. We even put in a blob of thermal transfer paste, to help improve the connection between the thermometer sensor and the hot water that it will be measuring near the bottom of the tank. We did another one, but a much shorter one, to measure the top of the tank.
That concludes making the Heat Exchanger module !!

The next job is to patch up the tank itself and then we can install the heat exchanger in for real, and connect all the pipes through those tank connectors to the outside world!!

6 July 2024
Sorting Out Pipes and Doing the Floorboards

We have been tackling our Utility Room, to sort out the pipes that have been “coiled” up in a untidy bunch for quite a while now, so that we can assemble the rest of the floorboards in the room. Why you may ask? It is because we actually want to get on with implementing and building the main Air Ducts that runs around the triangular void space up on the first floor, and we are going to use our left-over sheets of the 22mm thick floorboard pieces. But, we need some to finish off the flooring in this room, our Utility Room first! It would be really annoying to discover later on that we don’t have enough of these specially made sheets that has proper tongue and groove joints on all four edges and they cost an extra premium for that.

So, we have been sorting out the water pipes that are bunched up, all coming from various sources all over the house. There are a pair of pipes from each of our five Energy Modules, a pair of pipes that goes to and from the two extreme corners of the house, ready to connect to our Swimming Lane, and finally, an additional pair of pipes, this time coming from our Garage and the Thermal Solar System that we will have mounted on the roof.

But, first, we had to lay down the other half of the Swimming Lane connection that comes from the very very far corner, outside the Patio area. So, we had to lift all the hatches down our Hallways and across the Great Room, and slide in a single length of 15mm plastic waterpipe, connecting to the length of pipe that is coming underneath the Great Room flooring. And terminating in our Utility Room. Hence why we wanted to get that done now so we didn’t forget it later on.
We sorted out the bunch of pipes so that all the high filling pipes were grouped together, all seven of them and then the second bunch had the low filling point pipes. Then we cut two 95mm round holes through the cupboard wall underneath the flooring level, as high as possible and separated by about 100mm between them. We then pushed the collection of pipes through these holes, untwisted them and then anchored them up the wall, ready for further work later on.
This includes connecting two 22mm pipes to the Garage’s Solar System as well, and having that coming around and joining with the other pipes.

The other major pipe we sorted out, is the circulating hot water system, using our 28mm pipework. We needed that pair of pipes to curve around and enter into the Cupboard as well. So we drilled two 38mm diameter holes near the other holes we did earlier, over near the air ducting so they were relatively close to the Hot Water tank etc. The hot water only needs to connect to the pump, a flow rate sensor, temperature sensors and a couple of isolating valves plus also a couple of draining points.

Plant Cupboard Incoming pipes

Now that we got the pipework sorted, we now can complete the floorboards for the Utility Room, making sure that we use enough chipboard floor pieces, to cover the entire room. We won’t glue or screw them down because we still got a lot of stuff to do underneath in that space, like building the Air Ducting and putting in several more conduits for connecting data cables etc.

Utility floor completed (1)

Utility floor completed (2)

We needed two and a half more boards to get it all done.

It was quite tricky in getting the last section done, the doorway area going into the hallway. It was a funny “L” shape piece, with a little notch cut out as well, to fit around the corner of the cupboard. The last piece was relatively easy and only needed to glue on an extra 50mm wide strip of the chipboard floorboard to finish the job.

With that now complete so we can start working on building the Air Duct upstairs !!

24 June 2024
Installation of a Variety of Conduits from Tech Cupboard

Today, we spent all day installing a whole load of a variety of conduits, all coming from the Tech Cupboard, but going off to many different destinations, to serve the different rooms up on the First Floor. We wanted to get these conduits installed, travelling through the First Floor joist space, to route the various diameter pipes through some of the joist and then pop up into the edge of each of the rooms.
The first one we did was for Work One, which is situated near the Great Room end of the house, over the Kitchen and Bedroom One. It had a mains 230V conduit, a low voltage DC conduit, both of these were using black 20mm plastic pipe, and a third bigger flexible 40mm wide conduit, to hold a number of ethernet CAT6 cables, and even perhaps a fibre optic cable as well. All three needed to to travel from the Tech Cupboard, starting at the ceiling line, and also avoiding the Steel C-Channel structural steel element that joins the steel legs together, drilling holes through the webbing, the middle part of the I-beam joist, and getting through some noggings as well. They came out of the Tech Cupboard, cut across the Hall Two, and then across the Cloakroom, before shooting upwards through three holes that have been drilled through the CLS timber and floorboard.

Work 1 Conduits through ceiling

Conduits arrive upstairs (1)

This was the main reason for doing this task now, is that we wanted everything that it going over the Cloakroom, to be implemented so we could mount up the final element, the ceiling and get it sealed and ready for painting.

But, once we started this task, we felt that it would be a good idea to complete installing all the other conduits that serves the other rooms upstairs. So, the next destination was both Work Two (located over the Entertainment Room) and Work Three (that stretches over a whole bunch of rooms, like the Bathroom, Tech Cupboard, Knick Knack Cupboard, Bedroom Three and the Utility Room as well). We needed another double set of the three conduits like before, which are located much closer to the Tech Cupboard this time. It needed only to come out of the cupboard and immediately bend upwards just outside the doorway, in Hall Three, to go through five different holes. The sixth hole was only another couple of feet away across Hall Three and goes upwards near the metal leg. All six holes were drilled through the CLS footplate similar to like the other place.

Work2 & 3 Electrical conduits

Conduits arrive upstairs (2)

The final conduit that we needed to put in, is a 20mm black pipe which will supply DC power cables and one House Bus network cable, all the way up inside the Skylight Chamber. It went straight up through the floorboard, right next to the metal leg and then straight up this metal leg until it is right up high enough to reach the Skylight Chamber, a solid box that will cover up the ventilation extraction points, the solar panels and also provide lighting for these spaces upstairs.

We now have a neat line of conduits, all with their labels, anchored up near the ceiling, four coming from the low DC power section, three fatter pipes positioned over the Network Patch panels and the further three pipes anchored over the mains voltage consumer units.

Tech Cupboard DC & Network conduits in ceiling

Tech Cupboard mains conduits in ceiling

This concludes this task of having conduits, empty at the moment, ready for wires to be threaded later on, and all we need to do next, is to put in a couple of lighting conduits between the three lamps and to install a extract air vent boxing up inside the joist space above the Cloakroom. Then we are ready to install a fermacell board across the ceiling, round the inside corners and get the surface ready for painting.

13 June 2024
Installing Utilities underneath the Cloakroom and Beyond

We started putting in the Utility pipes and ducting underneath our downstairs toilet, which we are calling by its traditional name of a “Cloakroom”, which is a very odd name as there is no evidence of cloaks or hats or sticks at all!
We wanted to make progress on implementing an actual toilet, fully flushing and everything, including having a working hand basin as well. So to achieve this goal, we needed to make sure that we have installed all the necessary pipework, and air ducting, that goes under the floor, to the other Ensuites behind, including going upstairs too.
Our downstairs Hallway have various Utilities travelling down its length, the major Air Duct travelling down the middle of the house and both hot and cold water in the side branch. So this is where we need to “tap-off” several feeds to each of our surrounding smaller wet rooms, like the Ensuites, toilets and shower room upstairs.
So, we started by putting in two manifold “distributors” in a line, and connected to our pressurised cold water. Each of these manifold units comes with three 15mm side branches so we have six in all. Four of them will be heated up by the hot water and fed to the following destinations; the Shower Room upstairs, the Toilet’s basin upstairs, Work Room Three’s Sink upstairs and the Cloakroom’s basin.

We installed a length of 15mm plastic water pipe, insulated in 75mm thick tubular foam for our cloakroom downstairs and left it sticking out of the wall, ready to be fed through holes in the wall boards when we get that far. The other end will be connected to our hot water mixer / heat exchanger unit which is located in the hall, along with a motorised valve so the computer can control the flow of water going into the basin. Then we did a second hot water 15mm pipe wrapped in more of that 75mm foam insulation material, went up inside the wall space to the First Floor joist and then sideways to head to the back of the upstairs toilet and then turned upwards and be ready for plumbing into that basin. There are two more hot water connections, the shower and workroom sink, to be done later on as these don’t cross our Cloakroom.
The other two 15mm connections are straight direct cold water feeds to the cistern for the upstairs toilet and the cloakroom downstairs. They were threaded through the walls from under the floor and is now waiting for the equipment to be installed.
Then we put in a 32mm wide waste pipe that connects to our main waste stack, drilling out a side connector and inserting a rubber bung that has a 32mm hole to take the waste pipe coming from the basin. We terminated this pipe 6inches off the floor, sticking out of the wall that separate the cloakroom from the Linen cupboard. Again, we will have to drill a clearance hole through the wall boards when we come to fit them up.

Cloakroom Water supply

Now it is the turn of the air ducting.
The air ducts needs to travel all the way to the far Ensuite (number Two) and we decided that we needed to build the framework for both Ensuites flooring so we had legs to attach these tubes to. See
Ensuite 2 floor framing (2)

The following air tubes to install, were the orange flexible 50mm diameter conduits. Another long one to take fresh warm air to Ensuite Two, to approximately half way on the back wall, ready to plug into a left, and right, distributor, one for the Vanity Unit, and the second one in the Shower area. These are much slower and are used to provide a constant room temperature gentle air flow to keep the room fresh and dry. Of course, this utility will slow right down, or even stop, when one is having a shower. Anyone would feel a draught when one’s body is wet all over, one would feel the chilly breeze!!
A similar air conduit is installed for Ensuite One, to swing around and terminate about half way in the middle of the back wall, opposite the entrance way.

The next orange conduit is for the Cloakroom and then the Linen Cupboard, needing only short lengths but this time, we connected a right angle bend on the ends and carefully positioned it so it points into the room. The Cloakroom will have this fresh air come underneath the Vanity unit, again slowing right down when the room is occupied. The Linen Cupboard had the 90degree bend pointing upwards near the back of the floor and this will provide lovely fresh warm air constantly inside the cupboard and keep our linen dry and fresh.

Air supply for linen cupboard

The final orange one is being another 50mm flexible conduit to supply fresh air to the upstairs toilet, so it has to travel across the Cloakroom and then bend up inside the wall body (the wall that separate the Cloakroom from the Ensuite One) and then travel sideways inside the First Floor Joist space, to reach beyond the boundary of the Toilet, at which point, it will turn upwards and plug into another right angle bend, to poke out just underneath the Vanity unit like this cloakroom.

Air supply for upstairs WC

The final piece of air ducting to do, is another rigid 68mm brown pipe, for another high-speed hot blast, going to Ensuite One, just the other side of the dividing wall from the Cloakroom. This will also turn up inside the wall space and pop out around chest height too.

Air ducts under cloakroom

All these air ducts will be connected to our main Air Duct, using specially design “collectors” that draws a controlled amount of fresh air out of the air stream, concentrates it down to a smaller diameter, passes through either a water based radiator, or an electrical heater, plus also an air flow rate sensor and a temperature sensor too and then further reduce in diameter to fit either these 68mm pipes, or the 50mm diameter conduits.

This concludes this piece of work, putting everything we need underneath the flooring, in the Cloakroom, and we can now glue and screw down the floorboards at long last. We then can start building up the walls!

27 May 2024