Who's idea was this house refurb malarky ?

I've no intention of ever moving house ever again when and if I get
this one finished I shudder to think of the new bodges I would find
elsewhere.

Trying to sort the bathroom so I can install my sparkly new white
suite instead of the chocolate coloured one that was pretending to be
a bathroom previously.

The list of things I've found is ridiculous for just one room that's
big enough for a bath, sink and toilet.

Artex on ceiling, scraped off by hand, painstaking but I can't be
arsed redoing it with new plasterboard, getting it skimmed as the
walls need doing anyway.

Found old pipes (gas water heater ?) still in the walls.

The nice original tiles on the windowsill which are rather nice in a
rustic way had been butchered and the faces broken off to fit some
crappy brown tiles over them.

The old bath I cut out to leave the taps for now and found the floor
under it rotten. I suspected this from a board that was the same in
the adjoining bedroom but didn't know the exact cause.

The sink I smashed to bits from around the taps in a fit of temper,
only to find a bottle of vodka hidden behind the pedestal !! Empty...

The toilet overflow is some really cheap plastic pipe and runs from
the toilet all the way across to room to the bath outfall. The
overflow in the wall runs uphill through the wall.... then even better
the elbow on the overflow pipe is smaller in diameter than the outfall
pipe so it has been rested on the lip of the outfall pipe.
So when/if the cistern overflows the water runs to the elbow and
fearing the lack of gravity runs out onto the floor.... flipping
outstanding workmanship !

Result, three full floorboards to cut out that had rotted, explains
the sag in the kitchen ceiling. The joists are thankfully ok apart
from some surface damage. The skirting along the same wall had rotted
as well.
Who thinks these things up.

Both the sink and bath wastes run uphill which would explain the stink
from the traps/pipes, both jointed with some massive blobs of mastic
of some sort. The bath one a triumph of bodging, waste trap then a
plastic connector which was fastened to a length of copper pipe which
goes into a plastic pipe then to the outfall.
The holes in the walls they made to fit them badly are huge, the sink
one you could get your head in. :-) They filled them in nicely
though with bits of sandstone from the garden and a cross between
filler and plaster, nice one there Mr Bodger.

The hole for the toilet waste I've not hacked out yet but the loose
stuff from behind it fell out when I took the skirting off so I can
guess it's a larger version of the other two.


I've thankfully Monday and Tuesday off work so hopefully might get the
outfalls replaced and the rest patched up if nothing else.


One note is it ok to cut off the existing copper pipework and replace
it further back with plastic pushfit to the new bathroom suite ?

I've a box full of connectors already (swapped for a pc months ago)
and like the idea of the individual service valves etc.

Sorry for the rant. ;-)

On the plus side inbetween the ceiling work I stopped scraping and
happened to overhear two neighbours outside in ones garden saying my
fence I've finally finished looked good. :-)

Mark S.