eddie-brown.net blog

Apparently GHD Hair Straighteners are *the* thing for all girls with curly hair (I am not sure what the in-thing for all the straight haired girls to curl their hair is… but i digress…)

So it happens that I know a guy who is rather good with electronic hardware. The sort of chap who fixes his fridge and washing machine, builds his own bike lights, etc….

In May 2007, he posted about repairing GHD Straighteners, and one thing led to another, and now he has put all his knowledge on line. GHD-Repair.co.uk of course.

Vicki knows the above – and appears home oen evening with some GHD’s belonging to a friend. So browsing the website, no light, on a GHD3 indicates a dodgy connection to a heater element, ah, yes as it comes apart whilst trying to undo the terminals to check the resistance across the elements.

One new element later, and they work. All I need to do is get a new plug as there is no way I am letting someone use the flex in the state it is in at the plug strain relief currently….

And for those who are not so inclined to play with something that one is going to plug into the mains, there is a GHD repair service instead.

So, time off work at Christmas – its obviously time to start doing some DIY. Job No.1 was to change the taps on the basin in the bathroom.

I bought the taps from ToolStation.com as they are far cheaper than going to B&Q…. to be honest, the quality isn’t too bad, especially considering what I was replacing.

Here are the taps before I started…

First job was to shut down the water, and empty the hot water cylinder. This is achieved by closing the cold water feed to the hot water tank, and shutting off the water supply to the house. Then opening the taps in the downstairs toilet (as the lowest taps in the house) whilst opening the pressure release valve on the cylinder.

Next I could remove the flexible hose from the base of the tap – for this i had purchased an adjustable basin wrench. To be honest, there was no way i could have completed the job without it. Never mind changing taps under the bath….

and then remove the retaining nut at the bottom of the tap – using a basin wrench.

So that’s a tap removed….

All I had to do now was pretty much the reverse, and that’s the taps installed. I had bought some new fibre washers to fit inside the flexible hoses, but discovered that it didn’t look like the existing rubber washers would come out, so rather than try remove it, i used the existing. Fitted the cold tap first, and turned on the mains water. no leak. success. I then fitted the hot, and turned back on the cold supply to the hot water cylinder. that seemed to be ok too.

Trying to asses for leaks straight away was difficult as there was condensation, so I left the taps for a while (without *obvious* leak) and checked again periodically. It all seems to work…

P4250028 –
Originally uploaded by eddiebrown.

With any luck, I’ll get the patio finished tonight. I think there are about 3 hours of work left to do…. Its a lot easier once the sand bed has been prepared (and even easier if someone else keeps supplying me with bricks, its getting up, fetching bricks and getting going again that takes time.)

Bank Holiday weekend will be spent excavating the remaining crap from under where the lawn should be, then putting down the better (and de stoned) topsoil, and finally a lawn on top. nice.

Well, that’s the plan.

The Patio has now over run. The main problem has been excevating the hole. The first spade depth was easy enough, but below that has been hard going. Guess I now know how much topsoil the builders added. and as for the rubble layer…..

The pickaxes borrowed from my neighbour have been most useful.

Then there was loads of faff about putting in edging boards, and working around fence posts. The builders put in fences using a hole, the post and Postfix, rather than using Fence Post Spikes which my dad has always done… the result is having to deal with concrete blobs which are both essential to keeping the fence up, and almost in mid air by the time i have dug out surrounding soil.

And now I discover I should have got 2 (bulk) bags of sand in the first place….

Still, the good news is that I have now managed to get about 25% of the bricks down. now we are really having to wait for the extra sand to finish the job. I guess my evenings next week will be quite busy.

This weekend, I can always start moving soil around the garden, and bagging the grotty subsoil ready for taking to the tip.

Then we can start on the lawn….

Yesterday I was working at home. This is a useful facility from my employer whihc allows me to be at work, but also at home and so available to take delivery of, say a new patio and garden paths.

Of course, the patio and paths were delivered in kit form. That is to say a had 24 paving slabs, a 488 block pack of paving blocks, and a bulk bag (up to a tonne) of sharp sand. Amazingly the delivery was without a hitch, there were no cars in the way, and the chap from B&Q was able to drop the three packs onto my drive.

But it was time to get it all round the back of the house….

The blocks took a couple of hours to carry through the house (I didn’t want to damage any after all) with vicki helping to stack them up on the paving round the back. Most of the stack will be OK where it is throughout building the patio until they are laid.

The slabs went into the garage. no need for them for a few weeks, but it was convenient to get them delivered too!

And as for the sand…. using 2 off 22L plastic boxes i barrowed sand round the back, and then tipped it into a spare bulk bag i had acquired (thanks dad.) used planks to get up the steps around the house, but it wasn’t as bad as i thought it would be. another couple of hours work though….

So a busy day. All I need now is time to actually do something with it!

Oh, and about another 100 to 120 black paving blocks as we had a nice idea about some edging…..