Workmen - an apology

It seems that I have been a little hard on our electricians. The interesting tv aerial arrangement which featured in today’s quiz was actually there already. It doesn’t explain why they plastered round it though.

Apologies were also forthcoming from the fellow who’s supposed to be acting project manager. The painters who had been sent to the wrong room (Ah, you thought I made that up did you?) got going on Room 5 and despite shortage of time and working around plumbers, carpet fitters et al. have worked miracles so that although not finished, the room is perfectly usable.

The furniture has been moved back to Room 2 so we can put it into position tomorrow. And the workmen will be back on Monday to continue with room 2 and Tuesday to continue with room 5.

The all new Spread Eagle Quiz

How well do you know your workmen

Test your knowledge of British workmen in our fun quiz below.

Q1) Workman says “I’ll be there first thing Monday morning”

He means…
a) I’ll be there first thing Monday morning
b) I’ll be there first thing Monday morning unless something more important turns up
c) I’ll turn up at 3pm on Thursday with neither explanation nor apology, do fifteen minutes work and then bugger off again until the following Tuesday

Q2) Workman tells you the job will cost £250.

He means…
a) He has carefully costed the job and the lowest price he can do it for is £250
b) He could do it for £75, but he has a new conservatory to pay for
c) He can say what he likes because the final bill will bear no relation whatsoever to the estimate.

Q3) Workman tells you that the timber is all rotten and will have to be replaced

He means…
a) the timber is all rotten and will have to be replaced
b) some of the timber is rotten, but it will save him time to replace all of it
c) A lot of timber has come into his possession recently

Q4) Workman encounters a problem

What does he do?
a) Comes and explains the problem, outlines his proposed solution and checks that you are happy with it.
b) Uses his initiative to work round the problem as best he can.
c) Goes home

Q5) Workman accidentally sets off fire alarm

What does he do?
a) Comes to find the owner, apologises, takes steps to make sure it won’t happen again
b) Asks the owner to disable the alarm in the area he is working
c) Does not attempt to find the owner and ignores the alarm.

Q6) You tell the plumber where you want to put the bath, but mention that the joiners are working on the floor. You ask him to check with the joiner that the flooring work is finished before he installs the bath.

What does he do?
a) Speaks to the joiner and makes sure that the flooring work has been finished before continuing.
b) Does some other work until the joiners are clear of the bathroom.
c) Goes home.

Q7) The electrician is told to install a television aerial at head height for a wall mounted television. The cable for the television currently comes through the window and runs along the floor.

What does he do?
a) Comes and tells you there is a problem, suggests a solution and waits for your approval before continuing
b) Leaves a fish wire in place so that a new cable can be pulled through later
c) This…

Q8) The supervisor on a hotel refurbishment project is informed that a certain bedroom is urgently required on a particular day.

What does he do?
a) Informs his men of the urgency of the work and co-ordinates them efficiently.
b) Tells the men what needs done, but does not mention the urgency.
c) Sends the men to decorate another room which is not needed at all that weekend and does not mention anything about the urgent room.

Q9) A workman tells you that the job will be finished on Tuesday

He means
a) The job will be finished on Tuesday.
b) The job will be finished next Tuesday.
c) The job will be finished on some unspecified Tuesday in the distant future.

Q10) A contractor presents you with his bill

Do you
a) Pay it promptly
b) Laugh hysterically
c) Faint

How did you do?

Mostly a:
You sweet innocent thing! You have clearly never seen or employed a workman in your life. Keep it that way.

Mostly b:
You have either been very lucky or live in a modern flat

Mostly c:
Congratulations! You clearly have excellent experience of the ways of tradesmen. Go and have a drink - you probably need one.

Inhabitable

… but not quite finished. That’s the state room 5 will be in by the close of play on Friday. Room 2 won’t be finished, but the folk who were going in there can be fitted in to other rooms.

Both rooms will be completely finished by the end of next week…

I SAID, ” BOTH ROOMS WILL BE…”

Oh, never mind.

Some bad news and some good news

It is looking increasingly doubtful whether the two family rooms will be finished for the weekend. There is no alternative accommodation anywhere in the town (yes, we asked) so we have to provide something.

Room 5 is likely to be usable even if the colour scheme is a quick coat of white emulsion. The bathroom’s taking shape and the door surrounds and skirtings have been attached. Electrical work is finished.

Room 2 won’t be ready, Well, the bathroom won’t anyway. In anticipation of delays we haven’t taken any bookings for our other two rooms so D***’s suggestion is to use Room 2 with Room 3’s bathroom. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

Planning permission has been granted. Under normal circumstances this would be grounds for celebrations, but these are not normal circumstances so our reaction has been along the lines of “Oh, that’s nice then”

Cellar cooling
I added some pipe insulation to the feed from the chiller to the cellar cooler which has stopped condensation dripping everywhere. The air coming out of the device was about 11C this morning with an ambient temperature of 15C. The cellar temperature has dropped a degree despite it being warmer outside. Clearly the machine will take a while to cool the place significantly, but it is definitely having some effect.

It’s… ALIVE!

The cellar cooler has been installed, filled and set to work. It has been whirring away enthusiastically for ten hours now and the temperature in the cellar…

…is exactly the same as it was this morning.

However, the kickspace heater is fairly small, is designed to heat not cool and is in a not particularly well insulated room. The pipes leading from the chiller don’t currently have any insulation on them and while the feed pipe is covered in condensation, the return pipe is not. This suggests that some cooling must be taking place. The room thermostat is at the far end of the cellar and it may be that the cold air doesn’t reach it.

And the room feels colder. We shall leave the machine running overnight and see what happens.

Renovations
A BAD day with a capital B. The plumber left at lunchtime to attend a funeral. Naturally enough he didn’t tell anyone that he was leaving, so no plumbing work was done. No joinery work was done either as they were waiting for the plumber to fit his stuff. We now have four days until the rooms are needed and it’s going to be very tight.

with that in mind
I decided to leave the premises and headed out on my bike to the Cross Keys at Ancrum where I had an excellent dinner, several very nice pints and some enjoyable, relatively intelligent converation - a rare combination in Jedburgh!

You can’t get the wood you know…

Here in all its glory is the (mostly) finished cellar cooling device…

The unit at the right is a fan heater which runs off the central heating. A fan blows air through a heat exchanger which has hot water running through it…

…or in this case, cold water.
The rest of the plumbing is a pump to move the water around and various valves for filling and emptying. The chilled water comes from the remote beer chiller which is situated next door to the cellar. All that remains is to connect up some 10mm piping between the remote chiller and this, er, contraption. What can possibly go wrong?
(Don’t answer that - please!)

Bathroom fittings
have arrived apart from the pop-up wastes for the two baths, one shower controller and one shower head. The shower head is in the warehouse and we hope the rest will show up before the end of next week.

We were full last night with six folk - four golfers and two others with dogs. I’d better go and start breakfast.

Bookings and cancellations

We had a partial cancellation of a big booking the weekend after next. It was from a group who are coming to take part in the Jim Clark rally which starts and ends in Kelso. In March, the same group cancelled their entire booking for the borders’ rally at quite short notice which caused us no end of problems. So it’s nice to be able to report that less than 24 hours later we’ve managed to take another booking for the room and we’re pretty much full that weekend.

Renovations

Here’s room 2 showing a certain amount of progress. Most of the work isn’t visible in the photo - plumbing, cabling etc.

Room 5 meanwhile is coming along nicely. Unfortunately I’ll need to take some of the floor up again to get the cable for the telephone/internet installed.

All the bathroom stuff gets delivered tomorrow afternoon. The joiners are going to build units to house the basin and toilet cistern - all will become clearer when it’s done.

Mad inventor
has been busy in the workshop today. Good progress has been made on the cooling device for the cellar. I expect it to be finished tomorrow or the next day.

Pulling in the same direction

Now then,

This is what Room 2 looked like today. If you saw yesterday’s photo you’ll agree that progress is being made. The framing for the new ensuite is in place. As you can see the new wall is slightly further out that the old so, if everyone’s read their plans correctly, there will be space for the bath at the right hand side. What isn’t visible is that the plumber has been busy doing a first fit of the water pipes and drains.

Meanwhile at the other end of the corridor…

The inset image is of room 5 just a few weeks ago. I’ve tried to take today’s picture from the same place. The electricians have been wiring up the new sockets, the floor beams have all been strengthened and all the floorboards are new. The plumber’s done his first fit there too. The next thing to happen is that the joiners will finish off the floor and skirting boards and then the decorators will fill in all the holes that the electricians made. The floor and floorcoverings in the bathroom will be completed. Then the bathroom will be fitted out and the decorators will come back and do their paper and paint thing. Finally, the carpet fitter will come and fit the new carpet in the bedroom. And it all has to happen in the next nine days.

Downstairs stuff has been happening too.

New floor beams (lots of them) and new floorboards. The partition wall will be replaced in line with that steel beam. Unfortunately all the heating pipes which run in front of the old lift shaft will have to be moved as the new hoist is bigger front to back.

Comments
Aarlene, I’d never heard of Rube Goldberg, the British equivalent being Heath Robinson, though looking at the Goldberg website they seem to have had a similar sense of humour. I’ve bought all the necessary bits and pieces and will disappear into my workshop for a period. If the contraption doesn’t work I shall deny all knowledge of having thought of it.

New drinks

Pilsener Urquell has arrived at the Spread. Any beer described as a “pilsener style” is a copy of this one. Light, very hoppy and thoroughly delicious.
We also have one or two weirdities for the world cup. We have a few Cusquena beers from Peru, some Carib beer from Trinidad and some Crocodile lager from Sweden. Once the remaining stock is finished we won’t be getting any more.
Permanent fixtures are Andechs Hell, Spezial Hell and Weisse, Budvar, Zywiec and Holsten Pils are also available and if you’re driving we have Holsten Pils Alcohol free.

ensuite

Room 2 currently looks like this:

A new partition will be built, possibly today, which will make the ensuite a bit bigger. Then we have just over a week to get everything finished before the first bookings.