Archive for August 14th, 2007

It never rains but it pours

Grandad August 14th, 2007

I am not a happy bunny.

It started last night. I was in the kitchen. Herself was in the bathroom.

“It’s raining again” says Herself.

I looked out the window. “No it’s not” says I.

“Oh Sweet Mother of Divine Jeezus! Oh F*ck! Help!!” says Herself from the bathroom.

I went in to see what the fuss was about.

She was right. It was raining. Inside the bathroom, but not outside.

We have a hot press in there, which is a very large storage area for our clothes. Loads of shelves packed with sheets and towels and items of clothing. It also contains the immersion heater and the central heating plumbing which makes one area of it look like an oil refinery - loads of pipes and dials and valves and wiring. And water was pouring down onto all of this from above.

Herself screamed about all the clothing getting wet. I was slightly more concerned about the water pouring over the electrical panels.

Immediately above the hot press, on the flat roof is the main water tank.

“Sh*t,” thinks I “the f*cking tank has sprung a leak”. My language goes to pot when I’m stressed.

So I flushed the toilet and turned on all the taps to drain the tank. [Good tip there - flushing a toilet is a great way of draining a tank!]. Then I went outside and shinned onto the roof.

So there I was at about three o’clock this morning, up on the roof, in the pitch dark. It had started to rain at this stage, so I was wet as well. The tank was fine. So was all the plumbing. But the weatherproof casing that surrounds the tank was full of water. and the only thing I could do was bail this out by hand.

I would say I got about 20 gallons out, in all. It stopped the waterfall in the bathroom. So I tidied up and went to bed.

I didn’t sleep much, because I was waiting for the roof tank to fall into the bathroom. And I had to get up at eight to let in the flooring Lad.

So now I’m banished to the box-room because the floor is still going down. I’m tired. I’m aching all over. My hands are full of scrapes and splinters. I’m cold because all the doors and windows are open, because of the sawdust. Sandy is terrified because the Lad is using a nail gun and the bangs frighten her.

I still don’t know where that water came from.

I blame Global Warming.

Living in a bouncy castle

Grandad August 14th, 2007

A few years ago, We got a floor put down in our main living area.

There was a floor there already, but Herself decided she wanted a new one.

We ordered a nice solid-oak flooring, and I went off to work, knowing herself would look after the lads as they laid the floor.

When I got home that evening, the floor looked lovely. It really brightened up the place. Herself was happy, and who was I to argue.

A couple of years later the problems started.

A whole area of the floor started to rise up in a bubble, so when you walked in it, it was like waking on a bouncy castle. This made live difficult if you were carrying something wet and hot [like a cup of tea].

We got the bloke out who laid the floor and he said it was our fault! We were letting the floor get wet. The incontinence hadn’t kicked in at that stage, so I told him it wasn’t damp - it was bad floor laying and that he hadn’t left enough room for it to expand. He told me to f*ck off and he left.

We got in an expert. He told us two things - the floor was very badly laid, and that it wasn’t solid. It was, in fact cheap veneer. We had been had.

We couldn’t find the receipt, so we couldn’t bring the b*st*rd to court [which we would have]. Apparently the bloke in question has a reputation for being an out and out cowboy. I could thing of better terms.

I can’t name him because he would probably sue. He is that type of little sh*t.

Let’s just say that he works out of north Wicklow, and his surname sounds like a neighbouring country. If any of you want his name, just e-mail me and I will gladly tell you.

It got so bad that there were bumps all over the place and I had to start screwing them down. So our floor sprouted a rash of screws that looked awful. And I got more and more p*ss*d off with M*** B******.

In the end we decided to cut our losses. As I write this there is a very pleasant young chap laying a solid oak floor and is happily ripping up the old crap as he goes.

It has cost me an arm and a leg [that'll teach me to walk past when he is cutting planks] but it’s worth it.

There is a huge pile of ripped up cheap timber flooring that is growing on the lawn. When the job is finished, I’m going to bring that pile down to the b*st*rd’s shop and dump it in the doorway, and then set fire to it. With luck, it’ll burn the whole place to the ground.

If he complains, I’ll say it couldn’t be me.

After all, my floor was too damp to burn.

Wasn’t it?