Bother.
I'm having a duvet day because I haven't really stopped at all for over a week and I hit my stamina limit. Everything has just got on top of me and I need to take a step back for a day. On the way back here from home last night I got a slowish puncture in my back tyre and need to deal with that so I've allowed that to be an excuse for the day.
I haven't entirely stopped though. I'm trying to put a plan together for dealing with a problem that cropped up yesterday.
For years we've been sealing and re-sealing the edge of the bath. The sealant kept on breaking down at a section where the pipes and cables for a shower used to go up the side of the bath and the gap between the tiles and the side of the bath was quite wide. This has lead to a drip in the kitchen which has wrecked a foot wide circle of the ceiling. The seal has been gone for the last few weeks (again) and I filled it with silicone again on Friday. On Saturday Jo was showering while I was baking downstairs and I got wet.
Yesterday Jo took the side off the bath so I could work out where the water was getting through. I found the leak. 5 minutes of directing the shower at the sealant failed to elicit the slightest leak. It wasn't until I was spraying blind with a torch that I managed to get water showing.
The grout had split between two tiles about a foot above the bath side. Light pressure had the wall wobbling at that point. I called Jo up to show her and when I pressed, that section of wall caved in. The original leak has allowed the damp to get in and the plasterboard has rotted out. I'll need to remove the bath, remove tiles all the way to dry plasterboard, maybe replace some floorboards and then put it all back... except that the tiles won't all come off in one piece. So I need to budget for several square metres of tiles too.
I haven't entirely stopped though. I'm trying to put a plan together for dealing with a problem that cropped up yesterday.
For years we've been sealing and re-sealing the edge of the bath. The sealant kept on breaking down at a section where the pipes and cables for a shower used to go up the side of the bath and the gap between the tiles and the side of the bath was quite wide. This has lead to a drip in the kitchen which has wrecked a foot wide circle of the ceiling. The seal has been gone for the last few weeks (again) and I filled it with silicone again on Friday. On Saturday Jo was showering while I was baking downstairs and I got wet.
Yesterday Jo took the side off the bath so I could work out where the water was getting through. I found the leak. 5 minutes of directing the shower at the sealant failed to elicit the slightest leak. It wasn't until I was spraying blind with a torch that I managed to get water showing.
The grout had split between two tiles about a foot above the bath side. Light pressure had the wall wobbling at that point. I called Jo up to show her and when I pressed, that section of wall caved in. The original leak has allowed the damp to get in and the plasterboard has rotted out. I'll need to remove the bath, remove tiles all the way to dry plasterboard, maybe replace some floorboards and then put it all back... except that the tiles won't all come off in one piece. So I need to budget for several square metres of tiles too.