My sauna now has an access door
Given the hiding I've unleashed on this house over the last few weeks, an update is in order.
With the sky window in place (highly recommended - looks classy and the ventilation is tremendous) it was time to gut the room to make preparations for a kitchen. A weekend of huffing and puffing and I had the furniture cleared. Since then I've had a constructive outlet in case any frustration begins to build. Ripping into the wall and floor with a hammer really takes the edge off.
This weekend I spent some time deliberating over a new floor covering. I'm going lino for the ease of install, the softness under foot, the ease of cleaning and the stability. I brought a few samples home, but I'm none the wiser. Fortunately I've had some valuable input from the fairer gender.
Mid week I had an electrician come in to fit the kitchen and nearby rooms with some new power outlets. One of the big motivations for the work was to establish some sort of order amongst the chaos that is 90 year old wiring. In particular I was aware that access under the house was terrible, thanks to an inconveniently positioned old fireplace, and access to the roof was even worse - there was no manhole!
Months ago I invited the next-door neighbour over (he was born in my house - on the kitchen table, in fact) to show me where the manhole used to be. He hobbled into the back area and slowly raised his cane, pointing to the spot in the old kitchen near where an exhaust fan was now installed.
After meeting with the leccy I started to see a great deal of justification for installing a manhole. While he was busy cutting holes in the walls I figured now is as good a time as any to rip the exhaust fan out. That left a convenient peephole into the roof, but with no small children near by to throw into the roof, the hole was going to have to be enlarged. I drew a rough guide on the ceiling and with a run of the reciprocating saw and an explosion of dust, a manhole was born!
This weekend I had an opportunity to square the hole, install a border and cut a cover to size. Who knows how many years it has been since anyone has been in the roof, but there certainly was some dust to disturb. I made a good and proper mess.
There's something disappointingly plain about the result. Even those tell tale signs of an arrested fall from the ladder on the wall to the right were gone after a once-over with a cloth and spray.
Oh - after spending some time in the roof this weekend I actually came across the original manhole. My neighbour was right - it was right near the exhaust fan, but not quite where I installed the new one. Under a layer of dust and insulation fibre was a small trapdoor, which when lifted revealed some patchwork over a small hole - right above the bathroom wall that can be seen just to the left of the new manhole!
With access to the roof established, the opportunity presented itself to do a couple of wiring jobs. I came across some bargain ceiling fans in Bunnings and thought I'd whack one of in each of the two secondary bedrooms. Shouldn't be too hard right?
After twelve hours of crawling through the roof, dealing with incomplete and crappy hardware kits, breaking tools and screws, unraveling 90 years of accumulated roof wiring and generally having a ball of a time, both fans are installed and operational! Same old story - if I had to do another one it would probably take about an hour or two. Plenty of lessons learned!
All of a sudden it's almost midnight on Sunday, and I've spent the weekend on a ladder or in the roof. I celebrated tonight by putting my newly discovered rice skills to good use, cooking up about 1.5L of rice to satiate a weekend of sweat. One more week of work to go and then I can spend two weeks doing reno's non-stop!
