Today’s lesson was not about plungers as one joker suggested…grumbling…we aren’t advanced enough for that yet…I mean, I can’t wait to get to the really cool stuff like drumming with plungers! And no, I didn’t roll my eyes then…much.
Instead today’s lesson was all about heating. Central heating. Underfloor heating. Radiators. Heated towel rails. Boilers (I still can’t connect one to gas mains, so don’t even go there–but I can do a few things with ’em). Flow and return. Storage tanks. Hanging radiators. Hanging heated towel rails. Hanging Greg out to dry…snigger…that’ll come later. Closed circuits as opposed to open ones. Vented and non-vented heating systems…I’m ticking them all off my list of stuff I now know. You’ll all sleep well tonight knowing all that, won’t ya?
Other stuff covered today…guttering–that’s like playing with big lego bricks. Drains–ew! That’s all. Just ew! And some more soldering.
This time we had to do it in situ. So the shower unit was mounted on the wall and we had to make the attachments to connect the copper pips and solder them in place…against the wall…with the shower and basin around.
I used a piece of plywood covered with a flame retardant pad. It only takes six or seven seconds to heat up the copper enough to get the solder flowing and make the connections solid and water tight. My soldering was perfect…yes, I am buffing my nails on my shirt, thank you very much! I did however have one tiny little drip off one of my compression joints. Damn it.
Greg however, played a blinder. When it was his turn I think he forgot to count out the seven seconds. It’s the only reason I can think of that he held the blow torch on the ‘T’ joint while his bit of plywood developed flames…and scorched the basin…and the shower…and caused smoke inhalation for the rest of us. Other than that and the fact that it still leaked it was fine. Lol! Instructor used it as a way to teach us how to re-sweat the joints and try to fix the leaky joints in situ too. Worked much better the second time around…or the could have been my hallucination after all the fumes!
Tomorrow we’re putting together a whole bathroom. From scratch. Raditor, heated towel rail, bath, toilet, basin…and we got to make it look neat–yeah, we’re screwed already–and it has to be water tight. So Greg’s on compression joints, I’m handling the blow torch.
Anyone got a spare pair of safety googles? I think mine melted today….
Andrea Bramhall 