Day 166: Unmentionables

Friday 20 August 2010

I did have before and after photos for today's blog but since I know some of my regular readers read this blog over breakfast or with their morning coffee I decided not to publish them. Unfortunately your imagination and my prose is probably going to be bad enough.

With regard to the van today has been a bit of a washout, on Wednesday I used the last of my PU wood glue so I popped along to the timber yard after work. Unfortunately unlike everyone else who closes late on Friday they close early at 17:00 instead of  17:30, so no adhesive. Then I planned to hang the wall that I have been working on all week using the solid brass hinges I had left over from refurbishing the house. Turns out I swapped all the brass plated steel ones in the house with the solid brass ones (not that I remember doing it) and the steel ones that I had removed have all gone rusty.

If you recollect when we got back from Sumners Ponds at the weekend, I emptied the toilet cassette and discovered that the drain in the inspection chamber in our driveway was blocked again, so with a free evening I decided to attempt unblocking it myself.

The inspection chamber contains a branch and an interceptor trap, and unfortunately the trap has blocked again despite the council cleaning it out after my neighbour's (the ones we get on with) drains backed up a couple of months ago. Luckily there is an overflow route in the chamber which allows some of the effluent to flow through but the solids build up until the incoming pipes block.

The first job was to flush the solids out and down the overflow using the pressure from my regular hose taking great care not to spray anything out of the chamber. Having revealed the entry to the interceptor trap I switched to the fine high pressure jet lance on the pressure washer (this thing rarely gets used as it is capable of cutting into concrete), and quickly cut through the solidified fat and had the drain flowing again. Probing with a rod I found that I had only partially cleared the blockage and ended up extracting a couple of fetid disposable nappies.

Now the only people who have a child who is still in nappies is the neighbour we don't get on with, and I was already to confront them, but decided to finish off, and have a shower first. However having cleaned up I checked the water and sewerage plans for the house the drain serves us, the other three dwellings in our terrace and the two dwells in the next door block, so whilst I have my suspicions I have no proof. 

The forecast for the weekend is dire, so we shall be staying at home rather than going to the beach tomorrow, staying overnight and going to Hunstanton Kite Festival on Sunday. Still it does mean that I can get back on schedule with the van and be ready for the next trip.

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