Rain, 6°C

Not moved into my new house yet but did call in to drop some stuff there. I decided to switch on the mains water. While eating a sandwich, I could hear dripping.

That is a sickening sound to hear. Water was coming through the kitchen ceiling. Immediately, I turned off the stop cock and rushed upstairs to find the source.

It’s that big nut. White tape was visible and it looked askew on the thread. Next, adrenalin.

Here it is after my repair. The top nut was cross threaded and not fully screwed down. With the weight of the water gone, the tank may have tilted preventing the nut lining up straight when the seller drained the system.

It looks like they opened the joint to drain the tank with a syphon. I can’t find a drain tap below the tank so I did the same with a hose into the bath

It was then that it occurred to me what happened. The seller drained the tank as described above.

Next step. Once drained I cleaned the joint with a wire brush and put new PTFE round it before winding the nut back down.

I hope that’s right. A plumber is coming on Wednesday so he’ll let me know.

Finally. I drained the heating circuit again so it can be refilled with some corrosion inhibitor added.

Moral: keep an emergency repair kit, spare pipe, hose clips, and some flexible threaded pipe.

The surveyor got it right, that wasps’ nest is the biggest I’ve seen too. I’ll get a picture another day.

Should I open a separate blog to document the work on this house?

Warm, 18°C, windy with a few showers.
In one corner of my living room is a damp patch in the wallpaper. Coincidentally, it’s above a ventilation vent. It’s the vent that housed a wasps’ nest last year, if you remember. There is am easy way to investigate, take the vent out and have a look.
The result, one surprise and one confirmed suspicion. First, the surprise- I have cavity wall insulation. Having lived here for 20 years, I should have known.​​
I scraped out some mortar and pieces of brick. They must have been the means that carried water involved wall inner layer. The mortar was quite damp to the touch. Guilty as charged. As you can see in the photo, there is a stubborn piece that is tightly wedged in. It has refused to budge today, but I’ll have another go tomorrow.

…but is it enough?

7°C, sunny and dry. Light wind.

Remember that wasp nest in my house last summer? I decided to investigate it today. The tent was ready to pull open after I cleared the nearby ivy. The interior volume was filled with paper structures to a volume of about 1 litre. The tent gap a hard plastic tube connecting the interior and exterior walls of the building. Lining the tube was a complete layer of paper honeycomb cavities. Inside that layer was a 3 layered structure which was effectively 3 floors. Some of these floor had dead eggs or larvae.​

fascinating isn’t it? Up to last October, I heard their daily routine start at sunrise. The buzzing must have been workers ventilating the nest. All summer, there was that sinister chewing and cutting sound. None of that has affected the vent. It must be the sound of paper construction amplified in the tube.
There aren’t many dead wasps in there. Either they had already left, or the pest treatment dispersed them. I’m glad really. I like to think they lived their year’s lifecycle to its normal conclusion. They disperse after the spawning and live a more solitary life until the first frost.
The tube now has some of the honeycomb shelves back in place. Wasps don’t make nests in old sites so this should deter them next season.
I’ll never know about the other nest, it’s entirely inaccessible in that roof space.