Hey friends,

Once again I'll dive right in.

You'll remember I was feeling nervous about cutting the soil stack and had hoped the plumber would do it for me because pipes = plumbing in my book. The reason he didn't want to is that if the angle grinder bit in a little too much the kickback might throw him off the ladder and his income protection insurance wouldn't cover it. He'd 'seen it happen'.

Okay fine. When I did my trial run on the inside bit of pipe I could see his point, there can be a bit of kickback but only if you were to lock your elbows into your chest would it be enough to actually throw your whole body off a ladder. However with the ~60cm radius of blade my angle grinder takes I wouldn't be able to cut the back of the soil stack closest to the wall anyway, so I needed a different approach.

I came across this long 230mm metal cutting blade for a reciprocating saw (I have a corded Parkside from Lidl) designed for such a task and I used that to make the top two cuts where I was highest off the ground. The first cut went pretty smoothly but even with long breaks to allow the blade to cool, it had blunted by the end of the second cut. Perhaps I should have used some cutting oil. The good news is there was no kickback and no sparks.

For the last and lowest cut I reverted to the angle grinder which made much quicker work of it and I then finished the cut off with the last bit of life of the reciprocating blade.

The resulting piece pulled off the wall easily and I managed to stagger with it over to the lawn to drop it:

As I expected, and very much hoped, the top section of soil stack stayed in place just fine but to be sure I've propped it up with a 2x4. The resulting bit of pipe on the right I smashed with a hammer as before and filled in with expanding foam. Once the new PVC soil stack section is in I'll make good with pebbledash to match.

Phew! Good to get that task out the way but it was nowhere near as tricky as I feared.

Back in the bathroom, or just outside it, there's 2 gang 2 way switch that controls the hall and landing lights but with no back box. I figured I'd tackle this while I had the studs open lest I dropped the cables down the stud wall later on. I went with a plastic back box but the flanges that are made to pop behind plasterboard don't give enough room for lathe and plaster so I took a square out with my multi-tool and replaced with a scrap of plasterboard instead. Quite a neat job if I do say so myself.

If you're newly subscribed to this newsletter you will have missed my indecision last year whether to upgrade my corded tools to cordless and if so, should I go for a DIY enthusiast level brand (Ryobi, Erbauer et al.) or pro level (Makita, DeWalt, Milwaukee etc). In the end I went high spec with the DeWalt brushless range of tools and bought a 7 piece set to accompany the pair of nail guns I had already. I haven't talked about them much since, most likely due to hedonic adaptation, so time for an update. They are brilliant.

DIY is so much faster and less curse-filled when you're not having to run extension leads, swapping plugs in and out and generally

tripping over or getting wrapped up in cables. It's a revelation quite frankly and I've used every single one of them in this bathroom project so far. To recap I have:

• First fix nailer
• Second fix nailer
• Drill
• SDS drill
• Impact driver
• Angle grinder
• Multi-tool
• Circular saw
• Jig saw

Since then I've not expanded my collection save for a DeWalt hedge trimmer but I had a problem I couldn't easily solve with the tools I have. This stud was so bowed that there's no way I can attach tile backer to it. Or if I could the tiles wouldn't be flat:

As you can see by the additional wedge on the concave lathe and plaster side it must have been bowed when it was installed a hundred years ago. So I know it's not a structural issue and it's fine to leave in place. To remedy this I need a new tool, a planer, which I found brand new on ebay for £100 which I thought was a steal.

A few passes and the stud was flat with the others. It's not going to be the most used tool in my collection but it'll get me out of a jam now and then.

Speaking of jambs I had to move the stops on the doorway to reverse the door to open inwards into the bathroom. I pried them off with a crowbar, removed the nails and moved them over, leaving a space the thickness of the door.

To mark out the location for the hinges to chisel out I tried out another of my Trend freebies - inflatable wedges. I thought they might be a bit gimmicky but they're fantastic for making fine adjustments by adding or removing a smidge of air. Great for fitting windows too I reckon.

You can see I've added in a bit more tile backer where I can too.

Lastly I cut my downlight locations. It was a bit tricky as I had joists in the way of exactly where I wanted them but I think they'll come out okay. There were a couple of considerations:

1) Avoid having a downlight directly above the sink as it won't be too flattering. 2) Have at least one line of lights inside of the bath, otherwise a shadow of the bath screen will be cast onto the outer wall.

I think this photo makes them look like they're in a weirder position that they are but you get the gist.

As for the downlights I'm opting for the same as before but with IP65 rated bezels. This will mean avoiding that large encased type right above the shower which I've seen in a number of bathrooms. Instead they'll all be uniform. The bulbs will be 3000K so a warm white but less yellow than the 2700K bulbs you might use elsewhere in the house. 4000K is common for bathrooms too. Total lux will be 292 ([400lm per bulb x 5 bulbs}/6.84m2) which is very high but they'll be on a dimmer switch.

Casting around on the net an interesting issue has cropped up regarding the extractor fan. While it has one permanent live wire so that it continues for X number of minutes after the lights have been switched off, the switched live wire is what gives it the message to come on in the first instance. When LEDs are dimmed right down the power they use is so low it might not reach the threshold for the fan to turn on, or so some people say. I think this will have to be a see-how-it-goes scenario and adapt accordingly.

👋

Hit "reply" if you've got any comments on this week's newsletter – otherwise I'll see you next time. Have an epic week :)

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