WC float

Another thing that's been irritating for years: an intermittently not entirely closing wc float valve.

When you've woken up, bathroom, pee, flush, wash hands, back to bed, and... psssssh! drip!

pssssh! drip!


drip!



drip! drip!

*groan* Out of bed, fiddle flush button, back to bed. *grumble*

Our friendly neighbour told us once that in these cases there usually is a piece of grit or a small stone, or something in the little valve mechanism. Just take it apart, clean, and it's fixed. That's been true a few times. (Thanks, Joseph Knapp!)

Replaced the gasket of the flush valve some time ago, which temporarily fixed it.

But still, at times it would still continue dripping. And, the stop-mechanism didn't work properly anymore. And now it had returned once again.

But, as this is an Ansteystyle installed loo, there were some problems. The tap that connects the wc to the water pipe does not close off entirely. And, as the nuts on the flexible hose were a bit rusted they could not be turned, so I could not disconnect the loo valve. Well, I could, but only by first taking the plastic float valve apart inside the cistern, so I could turn the plastic bit to screw it out of the flexible hose's nut. Meanwhile water would spray from the flexible hose. In Dutch we call that a "water ballet".

Indeed, also this time there was a little bit of rubbish in the mechanism. But when I reinstalled the valve, a bit of (old) plastic broke off, water kept spraying, engineer Jansen kept on cursing, took pictures of the offending interior of the cistern, and went off to the Almacen del Installador for new plastic bits. And a new flexible hose with turnable bolts.

Reinstalled all in less than 10 minutes. All fixed, and we now have a working stop button!

Woke up yesterday night. *drip!* .... *drip!*
But, those were crickets or some insect, outside, making exactly that sound.

The Doors - study R (2)

This was the worst door. Broken. Eaten. But, work, polyurethane glue and some metal reinforcement can do a lot.

Basic construction is nice heavy planks, with thinner wood panels. Hole-and-pegs in the corners.

This door was varnished, stained, or whatever, with a dark brown stuff. Took that off where necessary for reconstruction, but left part of it in place because I do like the darker colour. You can use wood oil with a colour, but I don't have pigments for oil. So, all natural here. Some hidden edges still have some nasty green paint. Left that there for posterity.

Where there are a lot of holes from wood nibbling critters I have not spared the filler paste with fibre.

This one needed some reconstruction...

The Doors - the bathroom (1)

There are quite some nicely made old doors in this house. Real craftmanship, heavy wood. But, also: old, nibbled at. One even broken apart. Here's our bathroom door, one of the 5 doors that need(ed) work.

Apparently largely untreated, un-varnished, un-oiled, un-whatevered. Have I just sanded away the patina of two ages? Well, I won't try to sand away all old scratches and dents.

Who knows what these doors have witnessed. Life, death, sex, murder? They're more scratched at the lower half than above. Probably they were kicked or bumped into quite a few times during the ages.

Finished:

Work in progress:

Gutters, garage, cave room and terrace - finished!

In "gutters-or-no-gutters" we discussed that we opted for ground floor gutters. This is how it turned out:

This should prove one of the most important measures: there's a slab of concrete under these tiles, where there was sand and gravel before, allowing water to reach the back wall, which indeed was damp on the inside, too.

Any water splashing down ends up in these canals. The new andaluz tiles on the walls protect the walls. The staircase has turned out quite nice too. We think. Oh, the hand railings need to be put back still.

The terrace is now tiled:

Still some wet spots in the garage when it rains heavily:

That is caused by water running off against the wall, where a little bit still seeps into the wall and below. We'll put row of small tiles on the wall there, or use that terrace-rubber-paint.

The garage floor was painted with spcial paint for garage floors:

The cave has it's new Kerakoll breathing plaster. And you can see where the walls are still damp, a few weeks later:

This will slowly dry out in time. Moisture that until now was trapped under "plastico wallpaint".

This is now the front of the house:

Not strictly necessary for protection, but for appearance.

ITV: two seats or four?

ITV is Spain's APK, the yearly check if your car is still roadworthy. Mine was not, this year. Why? Because the technician at VERA ITV decided that my two-seater roadster has four seats.

Just to remind you what a roadster is: "A roadster (also spider, spyder) is an open two-seat car with emphasis on sporting appearance or character" , from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadster_(automobile)

Anyway. This car has a very nice space behind the seats that you can use to put the dog, the tent, or guests that need to experience how it is to travel to Switzerland by car without any leg room. Below the lid there are two tiny children's seats. No suspension, no safety seat belts, and no leg room for children either. If the lid is down you don't see them.

Went back to ITV Vera to talk, but no. Insisting, they said well, tomorrow morning the boss is here, talk to him. Talked to him: 4.

Anyway, changing the documentation was out of the question, I needed to go back to Lorca, 50 km away, to have them change the papers.

Not that it matters for anything. No tax issue, no safety issue. Quite the contrary, these two children's seats are unusable for children too. And does that mean that I would have two seats without a seat belt, and thus the car is not roadworthy? (No, the rules at date of production count.)

In Lorca they frowned, and counted two. Or four. They offered to retrieve the original data for this type of car from the archive, so if I returned in an hour they'd decide what to do.

Went shopping at the Mediamarkt that is there. As horrible a store as in the Netherlands. Huge, and hugely noisy.

Back to ITV Lorca. They added a note to the documentation, that the car has 2+2 seats. And a stamp, to make it official.

But, 50 km back, to ITV Vera: there is no signature! And without a signature, I would surely understand, they could do nothing. (See my -two- fuming ears?) Can you call ITV Lorca and discuss? No.

50 km back to Lorca. A paraph (short signature)? That is not necessary for changes like this. But they were as kind as to add one. Can you give me an ITV approval? No, unless you do the whole technical check, and pay. More fume.

50 km back to Vera. Where I should have chosen "reparacciones" instead of "other" appointments. Half an hour later I had my sticker.

The technician asked: "why have you come back here? You could have done the change in Lorca, as we're the same ITV company!"

Yes right. I think you're all named Manuel and you all are from Barcelona.

Engineer Jansen will file a complaint about BOTH ITV's, and demand compensation for 200 km driving and a whole day of his time.

Cave cupboards

The cupboards in the cave. As the plaster needed replacing this was the opportunity to do up these.

Of course, ansteystyle. What did they do? First they made the cupboards, mounted them on the floor and wall, no back or side panel where the walls are. And only then they plastered the cave walls. So, these cupboards were a few to 5 centimeters into the wall. The walls are curved. So, I now needed to take (saw) off some of the back of the cupboards to make them fit the newly plastered walls.

Sanded the woord (heavily, grain 50/80) to take off the stain that was on there. Then 120. Two tung oil treatments on the inside, 4 on the outside. Before the last two treatments grain 400. And lo! SHINE!

Aluminium tape between wood and walls, for protection.

Another job well done by engineer Jansen.