Evil DM Mark3
2008-07-05, 09:58 AM
This is one of those times when I have done something that I will not believe I have done until I have told someone who wasn't there at the time.
It all started the day before yesterday when the shower in my parents ensuite bathroom died. No complaints there it had lived for double the highest warranty that could have been bought for it (almost 15 years) without a single murmur of problem. Turns out B&Q was having a sale and so dad comes home with a new shower. Today the instillation happened.
To get at the pipes the airing cupboard (containing the boiler and sharing its back wall with the back wall of the shower) had to be emptied. For those wishing to follow the geometry the stats of the airing cupboard are provided.
52 by 94 cm at the bottom, height irrelevant, slightly narrower than average door set at far left, 103cm tall by 43cm in diameter cylindrical boiler set on the floor and in the far right with about 0.5cm clearance on the front and right hand sides.
There are twofixed shelves and a removable shelf installed by my father (ok so two chunks of wood and a large thin bit of wood, don't knock it). The fixed shelves are slatted, about 2.5cm slats and gaps. After we remove all of the clothes and so on we realised that there was a teatowel and two rather expensive pillow cases that had fallen down the right hand side of the boiler. Like the muggins I am I offered to get them out.
First, out comes the removable shelf. Easy enough. Problem number 1. I can't see the teatowel and pillowcases. Solution? I take the car-key fob torch and tie it to the lead of an old mouse (so I don't loose it if I drop it, why I didn't use string I don't know), stood on a chair for the extra height and looked down. The teatowel is in the far right corner, the pillow cases in the near right. Idea one is to use a walking pole to pin the objects against the wall and drag them up. The pole is JUST long enough, pitty the slatted shelves get in the way.
Idea two is an evolution of idea one and has some success. Dad was using Gaffa tape (or duck tape I think some of you might know it as) in the installation. a loop of that on the end of the pole and, after four failed attempts requiring a new loop of tape I got the teatowel! I even did a little jig it had been that annoying.
But alas idea two failed on the pillow cases. Infact the end came off the pole as it stuch the the case, and parted company with the pole...
Idea three was Dad's. Dad is an engineer and as such came up with a rather more complex solution. He taped a peg to the end of the other pole (they are a pair), tied it open with a silp knot and had me sticking it down there, manouvering it and then tring to have the peg snap over the end. In other circumstances, like if the cases had been vertical rather than their frustraiting horizontal, it would have worked I am sure.
I sat down and thought. Lateral thinking I thought, come at the problem from another angle. And then it hit me. Taking one of those things you put under a door at the edge of the carpet (we had just redone the carpets) I levered it thought the gap between the boiler and wall (gaining a mild concussion in the process, naturally, damn my long hair) and was able to drag the cases up to where Dad could grab them (thank god for mum having folded them properly like she always does.). Shortly afterwards I recovered an antique sock with the pole end attached in the same method.
Got to go, just remembered I promised to put the vacuum round so mum wouldn't have to with her back, like, before any of this happened.
3 hours of mad invention and head pain, for a teatowel and two frikin' pillow cases...
It all started the day before yesterday when the shower in my parents ensuite bathroom died. No complaints there it had lived for double the highest warranty that could have been bought for it (almost 15 years) without a single murmur of problem. Turns out B&Q was having a sale and so dad comes home with a new shower. Today the instillation happened.
To get at the pipes the airing cupboard (containing the boiler and sharing its back wall with the back wall of the shower) had to be emptied. For those wishing to follow the geometry the stats of the airing cupboard are provided.
52 by 94 cm at the bottom, height irrelevant, slightly narrower than average door set at far left, 103cm tall by 43cm in diameter cylindrical boiler set on the floor and in the far right with about 0.5cm clearance on the front and right hand sides.
There are twofixed shelves and a removable shelf installed by my father (ok so two chunks of wood and a large thin bit of wood, don't knock it). The fixed shelves are slatted, about 2.5cm slats and gaps. After we remove all of the clothes and so on we realised that there was a teatowel and two rather expensive pillow cases that had fallen down the right hand side of the boiler. Like the muggins I am I offered to get them out.
First, out comes the removable shelf. Easy enough. Problem number 1. I can't see the teatowel and pillowcases. Solution? I take the car-key fob torch and tie it to the lead of an old mouse (so I don't loose it if I drop it, why I didn't use string I don't know), stood on a chair for the extra height and looked down. The teatowel is in the far right corner, the pillow cases in the near right. Idea one is to use a walking pole to pin the objects against the wall and drag them up. The pole is JUST long enough, pitty the slatted shelves get in the way.
Idea two is an evolution of idea one and has some success. Dad was using Gaffa tape (or duck tape I think some of you might know it as) in the installation. a loop of that on the end of the pole and, after four failed attempts requiring a new loop of tape I got the teatowel! I even did a little jig it had been that annoying.
But alas idea two failed on the pillow cases. Infact the end came off the pole as it stuch the the case, and parted company with the pole...
Idea three was Dad's. Dad is an engineer and as such came up with a rather more complex solution. He taped a peg to the end of the other pole (they are a pair), tied it open with a silp knot and had me sticking it down there, manouvering it and then tring to have the peg snap over the end. In other circumstances, like if the cases had been vertical rather than their frustraiting horizontal, it would have worked I am sure.
I sat down and thought. Lateral thinking I thought, come at the problem from another angle. And then it hit me. Taking one of those things you put under a door at the edge of the carpet (we had just redone the carpets) I levered it thought the gap between the boiler and wall (gaining a mild concussion in the process, naturally, damn my long hair) and was able to drag the cases up to where Dad could grab them (thank god for mum having folded them properly like she always does.). Shortly afterwards I recovered an antique sock with the pole end attached in the same method.
Got to go, just remembered I promised to put the vacuum round so mum wouldn't have to with her back, like, before any of this happened.
3 hours of mad invention and head pain, for a teatowel and two frikin' pillow cases...