Concrete

We had a new wall mounted boiler put in before Christmas, and more recently the various holes & etc where the old boiler was were made good, this including a natty repair - involving a small sheet of plasterboard and some glue - to the under side of the concrete slab, originally intended to hold up the wall and chimney over the cooker recess, probably a solid fuel kitchen range given the chimney - left in the snap above. But possibly a gas cooker. Perhaps in the 1930s you got to chose. Since then, central heating arrived which involving making one or more holes in the slab to take the various (copper) water pipes that that entailed. All a bit of a mess really: perhaps a modern drill would have done better than bashing through in the 1960s. Sadly, the making good did not include taking out what was left of these old pipes or making good the top side of the slab. An omission I did not notice until it was rather too late: it should have been done before the plaster board was stuck up.

So an opportunity to play with concrete again. For this quite small job, I thought Wickes rather than Travis Perkins, and, not liking the ready mix options there, settled for a bag of hoggin and a half bag (12.5kg) of cement. Which together cost about as much as the packet of Swedish hack saw blades to be used on the pipes. Impressed that Wickes sold spare blades, even if you did have to buy a packet of them.

In the event, I was able to get the big pipe out, but failed with the three small ones. Those I cut up a bit, bashed over a bit and capped off with blue-tac And plugged the big hole with a cork from a wine bottle, wrapped in an appropriate length of a torn up cotton pillow slip.

An elementary bit of shuttering, but not so elementary that it did not involve getting out a fair number of tools.

Got out the sturdy mixing tray, in which one large and one small mix of concrete was spot on. I drew the line at getting out the sieving screen, one more thing to clean afterwards, but I did remove most of the larger stones from the hoggin by hand. The concrete was perhaps a little strong, but I dare say it will do; at least no-one is going to catch themselves on a pipe end. Concrete now covered with wet cloths to season it. 28 days?

I shall probably take the batten off, but leave the two wooden bars in place: they will come away eventually, but in the meantime, while the concrete hardens, they will stop the edges getting chipped and be easier on an arm that knocks against them than said edges.

Thinking about whether I need to tidy up the bit of cable.

But no further excuse for not getting on with the kitchen fitting.