… when you read my adventures is that I never ever make any mistakes. What I do is that I learn a lot, and sometimes learning can be expensive. In the olden days in the Wild West (yesterday in South Carolina, Rhys) greenhorns were continually being cheated at cards by people called “Doc”, and whenever anyone ever said anything, the response always was “you have to pay to learn“.

And so it is with house renovations.

And having got the preamble out of the way, let us now discuss the woodstove.

I lined the base with damp sand as required, and assembled a fire inside. “You need a 6x6x6″ fire, and be careful that it does not touch the sides“. How you do this when you have a fire that is 5.5×5.5×5.5” no-one actually said. But anyway I did my best and it toook ages to get going, but I slowly warmed it up. And when I was happy that it was burning I started on the grouting of the bricks I laid the other day (much more useful that laying eggs, I can tell you)

Halfway through the grouting the phone rang, so I opened the door to climb down the ladder to the phone, and “Blimmin’ ‘eck!” You couldn’t see your hand in front of your face with the smoke, and the fumes were overpowering. All through the house, even in my little room, was a pall of black smoke. I was appalled. as was the smoke.

Normally I would expect that the hot air would rise up the stovepipe and carry the soot and ash with it. When they burst out into the chimney the hot air would rise creating a current of air from the chimneys below, which would pull up the soot and ash. But not a bit of it. The soot and ash had descended in the chimney and come out at the bottom. So much for free circulation. And so much for the woodstove too.

I was toying with the idea of lining the chimney and putting the stovepipe all the way up to the outside, and I wish I had done it now. I can’t get the pipe in now that I’ve done the walls and so basically the woodstove will have to be put on hold while I think about this.

It’s not the end of the world though as I have the bottled gas heater, but I was hoping to get away from fossil fuels and go for a more natural source. What is going to be a major problem is that if the soot and ash can get from the attic to the living room it can also do the return journey when I light the fire down here. And that will be “an issue”.

Today’s image is entitled “What I saw when I opened the door”.

On the phone, as it happened, was a member of OUSA’s Executive Committee who wanted a chat. Of course I shan’t name names as talking to me is punishable by a “visit” from Pol Pot’s sibling, a whine from Caligula and her horse, and a thorough dressing-down from Turdi de Hatred (not to mention a thorough dressing up, in fairy boots if I remember correctly, by Lee “I’m a prostitute” Potty-mouth. But I digress – something that you ought to be used to by now)

I’ve now done all the grouting and the filling, and I started poncing (But not in fairy boots) this evening. Tomorrow will be finishing off the poncing, cleaning up the room and making a start on the wallpapering. D-Day is getting closer.

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