Another day, another early start! We had an electrician booked in to arrive at around 8am to wire up the extractor fan, wire in the new shower unit and de-wire the old shower pump. We were also finally expecting our bathroom suite delivery which failed to turn up the day before. Long story short, the toilet was out of stock and Victoria Plum hadn’t informed us of this, but decided to just withhold our order! A little annoying, but everything was sorted swiftly to ensure a new toilet would be dispatched with the rest of our order to arrive today. And it did – THANK GOODNESS!
Anyways – back to the renovation! The electrician turned up and took WAY longer than we thought necessary to wire in the extractor fan. I’m talking three hours. We had the EXACT same job done in our own bathroom by a different company, which took less than 30minutes. I’m pretty sure the guy on the job was an apprentice and he left (three hours later) leaving the extractor fan unit un-connecting, claiming he would come back on Monday to finish the job. Fear not, I did not pay him at this moment in time.
He did, however wire in the new shower unit and de-wire the shower pump.
Once he was finally out of our way, we began the plumbing. We capped a couple of pipes that were no longer needed (as there will be no more bath tub!) and we moved a couple of pipes ready for the new basin in its new position. We decided to use compression pipe fittings for the entire installation, purely because we thought this would be much faster to use – and time was certainly of the essence! We then began installing the waste pipes, which of course meant more drilling through to the outside.
The new SDS drill we had purchased specifically for this job (and also drilling the hole for the extractor fan) decided to set alight and pack up altogether. Seriously. 2 days old. Not impressed. However luckily it packed up just as the last bit of drilling finished and we were still able to go ahead and fit the new pipes.
We then began installing the new bathroom suite, putting everything into its new position and connecting as much as possible..
Here’s a little glimpse of the new bathroom suite! We managed to get everything connected up except for the toilet which required an extra flexible pipe we didn’t have and the shops had already shut! We also realised that the previous electric shower unit had actually been connected up to the gravity-fed water system… which er, isn’t quite right and probably accounts for the reason why they needed the extra shower pump! We tested the shower on this connection and it kept flashing “low water pressure”. We then re-connected the shower to the water mains – as electric showers are MEANT to be connected and voila, high water pressure, no pump required. Talk about dodgy installations!
Whilst it seems like we didn’t achieve much through day 2 (and yes, we were still behind!) tightening pipes and making sure nothing leaks takes far more time than you would ever imagine. We had actually purchased tickets to go to an open-air cinema that evening, which we had to give up as we were so far behind on this renovation. I was beyond GUTTED, but Grant’s parents need a full working bathroom upon arrival home and since we were so behind, it was kind of necessary. Still gutted though.
Ah, renovation problems.
Head back tomorrow for days 3&4 🙂
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