Make a cast on old pipes

It is true what they say. Having a house is a constant source of work. An old house probably generates additional issues, especially if owners after owners have been playing around with trends, personal taste and whatever. A big house with a complex structure will also generate quite some tasks.

I think we got jackpot of complexity and infinite amount of tasks to deal with. 

In this case the fault is somewhat ours. 

When we moved in 2012, we relied on a quite cheap/old house incompetent building company, that helped us with the major renovation we did. 

One day, one pipe in the basement started to drip water. We looked up and thought that the pipe for some reason just broke.

Some of the workers we had, took and broke the insulation around to pipe, to check its state. 

It turned out that the issue was due to the fact that the radiator had been removed at the end of the pipe, and with a change of water pressure, the water of course started to go out of the open pipe.

As the insulation was broken, they took some modern one and just wrapped it around the old pipe.

The pipe with its modern insulation

Nothing strange with it, except that the "cut" around the old insulation has looked like crap and well, I hadn't had major plans to do anything about it (well, after 9 years, what do you expect... that this is prio 1?) for a while.

Close up around the fracture in the old insulation

I have recently had a visit of a building engineer who, when checking other issues with the house, looked at this and told me: "Arianna, you need to fix this asap".

It turns out that such old insulation is usually full with asbestos, and that is ok until one breaks and touchs the parts. 

Now, I have been there fixing the laundry for 9 years, so I suspect that, if any asbestos, I have had some exposure to it (although I have never touched for any reason that part of the pipe).

Nevertheless, she recommended to buy some plaster rolls, that I suspect are usually used for molding plaster items or even broken limbs.

Starting to roll the wet plaster rolls

Without knowing what I was exactly doing, I dripped the plaster roll, one by one, in cold water. 

I took them up and started to roll them around the pipe.

I wasn't very prepared and the floor got a bit messy

I wans't really prepared, so plaster started to drip from the pipe a bit everywhere. Eventually I put some form of floor cover and that made life easier. Luckily it is reasonable easy to clean plaster up.

At the beginning my technique was very much suboptimal. It turned a bit better by the end, although when comparing with the old insulation (which probably had plaster rolled around it too), one sees an abyss of different. The old ones are smooth and even and perfect. What hands for doing such a job!

The critical point that was supposed to be sealed

By using the plaster rolls, I am basically sealing the asbestos risky point and, as a bonus, I am also making the modern insulation looks a bit more like the old one.

The final result

It wasn't easy to make it even there

Another point got sealed as well, since I was at it

Considering this was the first time I used anything like that, I am quite happy of the result. The old insulation has leaked a bit color on the plaster, as of course, it got wet. But it should be enough to paint it a bit. In theory I should use lime paint on it, but since those are two micro spots that needs some adjustment, one of us should be able to just paint with whatever we have around. 

So, that's the next step. Problem is that now when I look at the pipes, I just see spots where I would like to preeventively patch all of this...

The water gauge

Few weeks ago, VA syd (which delivers water among other services) sent us a letter that it was time to change the water gauge. On the back of the letter it also provided instruction on how the water gauge needs to be installed and so on.

I went in our basement and checked the status and I noticed that of course, all those "requirements" stated there were missing from our installation.

The old water installation

The old water gauge and one of the valves

Basically, the water gauge needs to be mounted on a console and both valves around it needs to be of an approved type.

The water gauge we have had been installed 2009. I wonder why now all of a sudden they had all these rules and so on to respect.

The other valve and a little tap

It sounds almost as they are enforcing a change just for the sake of providing extra additional work and material: afterall, my valves and the rest of the piping had been there probably from whenever running water came to the house (1920?) so, it lasted just hundred years afterall.

It reminded me on how they push to change windows....

The new installation

So, now we have a bunch of new valves. A console that is properly attached to the wall, with a new, fancy, digital water gauge and a couple of new pipes.
Forced modernization...

No more "tic, tic, tic, ..."

Let's say that our kitchen would need some form of care and refreshment there and then. The oven has broken twice, then it has been the turn of one of the plates, the layout is impractical, the doors of cabinets are torn and unfresh, the floor is completely messy and so on and so forth. Though we are still holding to it, while I am dreaming of putting back the wall between the kitchen and the serveringsingång, move the "kitchen" towards the chimney as it was possibly originally and so on and so forth.
Since the only original piece of kitchen cabinets have traces of its first paint to be dark green, I have also fallen for that style, although originally I was shocked by it.

I did find a beautiful kitchen pic once on Instagram, but I can't find it anymore...

Anyone, with the head full of ideas we have not done anything towards the kitchen. But the kitchen has cried out for help almost since we moved, since the tap has barely worked properly ever.

The "good" thing is that in the past 4-5 months it had added an annoying constant dropping, in addition to some form of water pond leakage on the base of it.

I got fed up. 

Sometimes IKEA can deliver!

And today, finally, the pain is over! We got a brand new, water efficient, not ticking annoyingly, tap!

This is not an isolated pipe

Taking care of an old house means you have to learn fast. One of the most important things we learnt is this: Always assume that the former owner is a complete moron. 

Our bathroom has a small space between it and the outer wall of the house. This space contains piping for warm/cold water and sewage. Nothing strange so far. However, a knowledgeable observator quickly sees what's wrong with the image below: THE SPACE IS NOT ISOLATED! So, in worst case the temperature inside the space could reach minus degrees with frozen pipes as result.

This is not an isolated pipe

Even as laymen we realize that this is not according to any standards, least of all the Säker vatten guidelines. In short: it's the work of a complete moron.

We need to do something in case we will get another harsh winter. Following the suggestion of Skånsk rörentreprenad we will put isolation around the pipes. A quick visit to Bauhaus revealed that they have everything we need. After careful measurements we will buy the sufficient amount of isolation and mount it before the winter storms starts blowing.

Bauhaus: not only a great school of design