"Heat Leak" Towel Radiator

The bathroom radiator is a unique and interesting one. It has been a long thought out project, has taken a lot of planning, and is a quirky idea which we thought would be good for a few reasons. As with all these things, they are at the same time uncomplicated and also very difficult, in some paradoxical way.

The purpose of the radiator is to be "permanently losing heat" when the fire is on, to decrease the chance of a run-away solid fuel fire boiling the water in the back boiler. The capacity of the radiator needs to be 10% of the stove, in our case 1kW for the 10kW output, which is a significant amount. With 17m of non-insulated 28mm copper pipe, this should be met with a temperature difference between the water and the air of around 70 degrees C. 

The mountings are brass munsen rings, screwed in to the wall posts with 5 x 70mm screws (many thanks to the Joiner for sundries). The whole thing is removable via 2 compression fittings at each end, and there will be a bottle air vent trap at the top just in case it's required. There will also plan to be an immersion element in the bottom in case the radiator heat is needed but the fire is not needed/wanted.

The towel hanging and clothes hanging space should prove very valuable... 

Here is some of the build, with thanks to Auren for lending a hand.

Initial weld of L-sections, so that angles were not welded in error which would translate across the radiator.

Pre-second welding, setting out all the pipe and connections with the L-sections

New Zealand plumber, holding our ingenious heat shield  - slates stuck to plasterboard. This is during the final weld.

Kitchen Installation

With Alastair on site, we decided to have him take on the kitchen next. He has installed hundreds, and with 19 years experience we couldn't go wrong.

Setting out the island and the units

The "cladding" goes on

Preparing the worktops

Sash clamps holding the 2 pieces together on the island

Cutting out the sink unit

"The jig", square and sash clamps... and the mini grips. Useful stuff!

Squaring up. (Run 1).

All done

Lovely finishing on the worktops thanks to Alastair's keen eye. 

Flooring

Alastair and Jaimin have installed the flooring - 13.5/3mm engineered oak boards, brushed and oiled, fitted with a click-lock system. 13.5mm is the total board thickness, 3mm refers to the layer of real oak on the top of the floor board. Once it was laid, Jaimin oiled it with Osmo Polyx Matt hardwood oil. Once coat on Saturday and one on Sunday, to protect the floor and prolong the life of the wood.

In the beginning...

In the end...

I want to live in a house with an upstairs

Finn is intent of having a house with an upstairs, given that we are currently in what the grown-ups call a "bungalow". So Alastair (local joiner who did the plastering) has been on hand to push things along. We now have pine stairs fitted, which came as a pre-fab kit from StairWorld.com.

New Year, new paint

It's been quiet at Broombank for a few weeks. Jaimin has been working offshore, then Christmas and winter happened which meant little was done. Lucy managed to paint the upstairs in full, leaving downstairs to be painted over the past week. This was completed on Sunday by Lucy and special guest star Heidi. During the past week Lucy, Jaimin and the kids(!) have managed to team up and get it all covered.

Bare plaster paint was applied to the mare plasterboard walls. This was painted over with a single coat of Valspar Matt Putty White. The ceiling was painted with Cuprinol Pale Jasmin, one coat on the boards and 2 on the joists. This was the same in the bathroom although the boards received 2 coats. The kitchen wall was coated in Valspar Matt in "Gina's Eyes" blue/grey.

Very good team of painter

Boarded and Cladded

After a good build up of momentum, punctuated by James's solid input and (as mentioned in the last post) hiring a local joiner (Alastair Robertson) for the plasterboarding, we have completed a major phase.

The plasterboard is fitted and now needs taping:

The roof light surrounds took a long time to complete but are now done, as well as the final strips of cladding.

James worked hard to get the bathroom roof light surrounds as tidy as possible with a lovely outcome.

Ceiling cladding, bathroom boxes, plasterboard continued

For anyone that has been wondering if we'd ceased operations, let's just say we've had a hiatus. July was taken up with work and August was taken up with the devastating and tragic loss of a close friend, Ben Abrahams, who featured on the blog a good few times.

Though it seems trivial, the work has kicked off again and progress is as follows:

The ceiling cladding is 90% complete and only requires 2 strips to be ripped using a table saw to fill in 2 gaps - one above head height to close the ceiling up, and one on the south eaves. The north eaves are all done. The window reveals also need to be done, but again table saw will sort that fairly quickly we hope.  Rockwool was placed in between the bathroom boxes and the cladding as soundproofing.

Above the stairs. Some boxing in required but not much.

The bathroom boxes and the south side of the bathroom are complete, fixed and faced, and plasterboard has been fitted to the same wall. The yellow/cream board is Tilebacker (waterproof) and the blue is Moisture Resistant.

We have got a joiner in to help out and speed up (and improve the quality of) the plasterboarding, and he is making good progress:

James and Jaimin also cut out new MDF resistant windowsills for the bathroom, as they will last longer than the planned plywood ones.

Next up we need to finish the ceiling cladding completely, and once the plasterboarding is done, internally anyway it will be on to priming for paint.