After our week off, it was back to the en-suite refurb we were working on. As is always the way when you return to work after a break, it can take a while to get back in the swing of things again. But this was soon forgotten when we saw the arrangement of biscuits that had been left out for us to choose from. The level of hospitality on this job has been first class and very kind. But we were here to work and started to get the job moving again. Stu ran in the last of the water feeds to the shower head while I ran in the extractor ducting. Once this was done we could start to board out the en-suite with Hardibacker which is a water proof cement board. We got the lower half of the room boarded, then set about tanking the floor and wall areas. This involves rolling on a water proof membrane to the board so providing a water proof seal. The next day we finished off boarding out the room. Once that was all done, the last job of the week was to tile the floor area.
Monday to Wednesday of the following week consisted of tiling the walls and then grouting the tiles to finish them off. On Thursday Stu plumbed in the towel radiator, and while he was doing that I put the sink, pan and cistern together ready to be fitted into the en-suite. Unfortunately poor old Stu was having one of those days when nothing was going his way and everything took longer than he planned, I know that feeling! Next item was to have the sparky wire in the electric shower unit, extractor and new down light. As there wasn’t much more we could do until the electrics were activated on the following Monday we took the Friday off.
This week Stu and I were travelling out to Cambourne near Cambridge to carry out an en-suite installation in a former loft conversion. On Monday we put together our materials list and then headed off to do some shopping, popping into around five different merchants.
On Tuesday I started stripping out the soon to be en-suite room, while Stu set about running the hot and cold water feeds up from another en-suite below. Getting up and down two flights of stairs every time was certainly keeping us fit; maybe we should have installed a lift first. Stu drained down the heating system and then plumbed in a new towel radiator in the existing bathroom the following day, while I put in some new structural support timbers for the new floor area and then laid new floor boards on top. On Thursday Stu had to plumb in the correct size towel radiator in the bathroom as he had fitted the wrong towel rad on my say so. I got my towel rads mixed up and Stu fitted the wrong one in the wrong place, whoops! After that he ran in the first fix hot and cold water feeds to the en-suite toilet, sink and shower unit. While Stu did that, I ran in the shower waste pipe work, put down the wet room shower base and fixed some additional floorboards to give a one level floor. I then started on putting in some new stud work to create some new false walls.
Stu had to re-hang the living room radiator on Friday due to the fact the youngest member of the family where we were working had been using it as a warm seating area and nearly had it off the wall! Stu then ran in the sink waste pipe while I finished off the stud work and started to insulate the new walls with cellotex insulation ready for boarding on return from a well deserved break.
