Having been badgered by my wife for just about all of the close season to get some DIY tasks around the house and garden completed, with the first few weeks of Supply League appointments for match officials out yesterday, I thought I'd better get a move on.
So it was back up in the loft to tackle the over active header tank inlet valve. We invested in a new inlet mechanism yesterday and a larger float (to shut the water off sooner). I found I didn't have the correct size wrench (doh! poor workman, etc.) so I swapped out the float and that seemed to do the trick.
From there it was straight outside to complete the cleaning out of the gutters for the conservatory. We bought a new hose for this purpose 2 weeks ago after I had removed two or three Triffids from the gutters and found at least a centimetre of silt lying in the gutters, along with old leaves, a discarded slice of salmon from a barbecue and some tin foil. Unfortunately we didn't have the correct attachment for the taps and a trip to B&Q saw a new multi grip attachment solve that issue.
At first I was just going to blast the water along the gutters but then I was overtaken by some madness and spent nearly 90 minutes scrubbing cobwebs, dead insects and spiders off the exterior of the conservatory and found it was actually white underneath all that gunk.
The final task was to install a new washing line. I was taking down two anchor points and putting up a dual line system (please contain your excitement). I had to drill out the fence posts to insert rawlplugs but I didn't have the correct size of drill bit (see the pattern developing here?). I sufficed by using a smaller bit and the using an old attachment to widen the hole. 30 minutes later and the line was up.
So brownie points earned all round and all my manly things have been done! I then put my feet up to watch some cricket (which I usually hate but the England vs India Test seems to have a lot going on) and then some of the Bulgarian Grand Prix (which I usually hate but there have been some good races recently). Now it's time to fire up the barbecue and have a couple of beers on the last football free weekend of the summer ...
So it was back up in the loft to tackle the over active header tank inlet valve. We invested in a new inlet mechanism yesterday and a larger float (to shut the water off sooner). I found I didn't have the correct size wrench (doh! poor workman, etc.) so I swapped out the float and that seemed to do the trick.
From there it was straight outside to complete the cleaning out of the gutters for the conservatory. We bought a new hose for this purpose 2 weeks ago after I had removed two or three Triffids from the gutters and found at least a centimetre of silt lying in the gutters, along with old leaves, a discarded slice of salmon from a barbecue and some tin foil. Unfortunately we didn't have the correct attachment for the taps and a trip to B&Q saw a new multi grip attachment solve that issue.
At first I was just going to blast the water along the gutters but then I was overtaken by some madness and spent nearly 90 minutes scrubbing cobwebs, dead insects and spiders off the exterior of the conservatory and found it was actually white underneath all that gunk.
The final task was to install a new washing line. I was taking down two anchor points and putting up a dual line system (please contain your excitement). I had to drill out the fence posts to insert rawlplugs but I didn't have the correct size of drill bit (see the pattern developing here?). I sufficed by using a smaller bit and the using an old attachment to widen the hole. 30 minutes later and the line was up.
So brownie points earned all round and all my manly things have been done! I then put my feet up to watch some cricket (which I usually hate but the England vs India Test seems to have a lot going on) and then some of the Bulgarian Grand Prix (which I usually hate but there have been some good races recently). Now it's time to fire up the barbecue and have a couple of beers on the last football free weekend of the summer ...
