Jim'll Fix It?

Just when you think it can't get any worse............


The house has gone from complete chaos to something worse than that in the last two days. Partly due to the freezing conditions, and the fact that there is temporarily no heating in the wet room; it has one outside wall and one against a very cold garage - this meant that the cement for the floor former didn't go off over the weekend, so when Nigel and Mike came to continue with the plumbing on Monday morning (yes we were surprised to see them too!), they had to put plan B into action and relay the former. Bugger. That'll be another day or two for it to go off - this time with a heater in there.
Ho, Hum. Gordon has been today and made a start on the tiling in the other half of the room, so all is not lost. Anyway, now you get a better view of the former. I bet you're thrilled about that!!



That's not the end of it though. We have had a worrying smell of woodsmoke in our bedroom for the last few days. The chimney passes through our room, and our worst fears are that the liner has cracked.
On recommendation from neighbours and Nigel, we got in touch with a local Chimney Sweep/Wood Burner Installer/Fireman - Jim - who, bless his little cotton socks promptly arrived this morning.
This of course means that having the house trashed already, we had to completely strip the front room down in anticipation of lots of soot. Curtains, pictures, ornaments, lamps. You name it, they had to come out of there and go with all our other misplaced possessions around the habitable bits of the house.

To cut a very long story only slightly shorter; It appears that the stove was not installed particularly well and Jim has put in a fix which - if we cross our fingers - appears so far to have cured the problem. If it doesn't - then it means our worst fears were probably correct.