With only limited work around the house yesterday (I did get the radiator mounted in the shower-room - and without any drama), it was time to crack on with the DIY and decorating today.
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| The fruit of yesterday's labour |
I painted the decorative metal work outside of the shower room window black, as well as the hinges and locks on the window. The toilet door's hinges got the same treatment. Then it was down on my hands and knees with a chisel removing any of the carpet glue that I could shift from the first floor landing - and gaining a nice blister in the palm of my right hand for my trouble. Taking a couple of hours, that was probably the biggest job of the day.
Then it was out with the jig-saw and a profile tool to cut the hardboard to fit around the door frames and then laying it in place on the landing floor. Two sheets down. One more needed - but there's a large, heavy, radiator in the way. Do I want to try and move it, given my experience with the much smaller radiator in the shower room? Or do I do a bodge job and work around it?
I reckon, if I disconnect it, I should just about be able to man-handle it out of the way (though there's no way I'll be able to remount this one alone). I can expect the water to spray out again - but at least this time I'll be ready for it. And looking at the arrangement of the inlet and outlet on this radiator, I have a cunning plan...
Unlike the shower room radiator, the one on the landing has the inlet on the same side as the outlet. So, if I disconnect the inlet first then, once the outlet is disconnected, I should be able to tilt the radiator in such a way that both are pointing 'up' and therefore no water will escape. What can go wrong?
I proceed with the plan. As I disconnect the outlet the water squirts, at pressure, as expected. But I quickly tilt the radiator - except I don't. It won't budge. There's already a literal waterfall running down the stairs as I reconnect the outlet to stop the flow. Why wouldn't it tilt?
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| The jet of water reaches all the way to the toilet |
On inspection, the reason is clear. Connecting the radiator to the stairs is a fairly discrete bracket - so discrete I'd missed it on first inspection. No wonder I struggled. I undid the bracket and tried again. Water once again squirted out but this time I was able to tilt the radiator as planned. In fact, had it not been for that bracket, the plan would have worked near perfectly first time.
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| The offending bracket - bird's eye view |
I now carefully tipped the radiator the other way to drain it in a controlled manner. Care was needed to not only avoid adding to the deluge on the stairs, but to avoid dropping the radiator - had I done so, there is no doubt that very serious injuries would have eresulted.
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| Success! |
Next, with significant difficulty due to the weight, I dragged the radiator out of the way. The laying of the hardboard could wait until tomorrow - it was shower time as I was once again soaked in brackish radiator water.
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