Bear with me, I'm trying my hardest with this diy malarky but
sometimes i'm not thinking straight and do stupid stuff and things you
might find simple end up being a nightmare.

Friday afternoon I thought I'd finally get round to getting the old
hot water cylinder removed and make a start on getting the old water
tank out of the loft.

Turned off mains in kitchen with the stiff stop tap (drowned it in
WD40 etc but it's always been stiff so more on that later).

Having removed all but the toilet previously I resorted to draining
the tank from the bath tap into buckets and emptying them down the
toilet as there's no bath outfall at the minute, took ages.
Figured hot tank is full of water, consulted my Collins book which
said to drain it via the drain tap - my arse there's no drain anywhere
on it. Unfastened the feed on the top and sure enough water runs out
the top.
How I should have drained it someone can probably tell me now but at
the time I figured a hole in the tank was best, bugger look at that
water squirting three feet across the room....
To cut that mistake short I sat with two buckets and a plastic tub and
about twenty holes to drain it all out.
Hurrah it's empty, right lets disconnect the feed from the tank in the
loft, ok that was easy at least.
Getting late at this point so I decide to call it a night and finish
up the day after, noticed the downstairs tap dripping slightly but
thought nothing of it.

Got distracted on Saturday meaning I didn't go round to finish off,
went today about lunchtime, hmm where have those puddles of water come
from on the living room floor? Look up, bugger through the
ceiling....
Not too much of a disaster as there's nothing in the house that would
be considered as a fixture yet and it's only a few drips, the ceiling
wanted pulling down anyway.

Lifted a couple of boards upstairs in bedroom to find the ceiling
swimming in water so spend ages with a sponge and bucket mopping up
what I can get to, thank god for the bodgers leaving everything
possible under the floorboards, sawdust, wood, etc. which looked to
have soaked a lot of water up. Leave window open with heater on to
take care of that.

In the loft to find the tank full of water again.... arse. Teach me
to tie up the ballcock/float thingy. Then again the waters off so
hows it filled up.
Back to the dripping tap which would suggest the stop tap doesn't work
as well as I thought so after leaving it had managed to fill the tank
back up then run out the disconnected feed to the hot tank in the
airing cupboard.
Only plus is i broke the wheel off that pipe months ago and was
messing with it Friday with some WD40 and pliers, so must have just
about closed that value by accident otherwise the tank would have been
emptying since Friday straight from the faulty stop tap.....

Tied the ballcock up this time and emptied the tank again, this time
to the bottom, bodged up a length of pipe from the feed pipe, kicked a
hole in the kitchen ceiling and ran it straight down into the kitchen
to my bucket.

Seriously glad I was never tempted to drink the water from the tank
always boiled the water from the kitchen cold tap for coffee and never
used any cold for drinking, the tank inside is absolutely horrid,
makes you wonder what you drink elsewhere without knowing it.

Appologies for the length but if anyone has done worse then let me
know?

Puts the loftboard/jigsaw incident to shame.

Mark S.