Peter and Natasha

Written by Peter, on 13-02-2009

Views 393

It was a red sun this morning even way after sunrise.  The smoke from the bushfires has started to dominate the sky finally.  A wind change seems to have brought it to the eastern horizon.  As the day moved on it became more and more hazy until the only hills I could see were the nearby Long Forest landscapes.  Otherwise, it was nice working conditions at last, just a gentle breeze, sunny and warm.

I put the excellent slope I achieved on the ensuite down to luck and maybe a tiny bit of cleverness.  But I wanted to do the bathroom properly, as it's a much larger area and with a bath in there as well, potentially a much wetter place in more need of drainage than the ensuite. So last night I sat down with a piece of paper and suddenly it all seemed to make more sense (see photo).

I needed a 30mm drop to make up a 1 to 100 gradient for the floor.  This was based on the greatest distance between the waste point and the outside corner being 3m.  I discovered that it was just a simple case of dividing it into: 0(normal level), 10, 20 and 30(waste point) sections and joining the dots in squares. Fortunately the squares theory seemed to check out.

Mind you, when I started marking it for planing it didn't seem so easy.  The joists weren't always located in the spots where the 0, 10, 20 and 30 markings were to go.  My mind was starting to scramble!  Then I remembered what I do whenever I need to do accounting and challenging numbery things like that.  Beethoven piano sonatas.  Marvellous.  Back on track.  It all started to make sense again.  So eventually I got it all marked and moved on to planing.  I couldn't work out a safe way of cutting it with a circular saw so it was planing all the way.  Very tedious. My back was already sore but this really pushed it, and all the crouching has been hell on my knees (I'm starting to sound like an old geezer) but I got there in the end.  It's all necessary preparation for the work to come.

I know there are other ways to do it but generally they involve cement and we've used quite enough of that already on our foundations. Or tiles, and we're not going for tiles either.

What I'm thinking right now is woohoo! it's the weekend and that means I get Natasha back to help me.  A bit of romantic Valentine's Day building.  Jeez I'm a smoothie (a banana one).

Comments from Friends & Family (2)

Add your comment

Posted by Peter, on 15-02-2009, 1. waste slope Your comment is indeed pragmatic, sage, rosemary and thymely. While baths can indeed have overflow drains built in, our waste is more for the shower, but also the bath. With internal strawbale walls we have to take extra precautions not to have standing water get into the walls, as this has a serious effect. Water is in fact the biggest enemy of strawbale and although we will need panelling to resist water, we want to be sure about it.  Plus, I love playing with jigsaw puzzles!   » Report this comment to administrator » Reply to this comment... Posted by Sue Mills, on 14-02-2009, 2. Bathroom Just wondering why you need a sloping floo and a waste thingy in the middle of the bathroom? Many baths have an overflow vent thing that plumbs into the waste pipe to prevent overflow accidents. that would be simpler surely, although this advice, however sage and pragmatic it may be, is probably too late as you've already done it.   » Report this comment to administrator » Reply to this comment...