Fire and Ice

Friday evening I rushed out the house and drove the three and a half hours (nearer four) to Morzine. The temperature dropped as I got further and further away from Zurich. Morzine was a balmy -10 when I arrived around 9ish. Rob was due to arrive on Saturday and I had arranged to stay in his chalet on Friday night. So the first problem was finding the secret key! Now without telling the world where the secret key is located I will say that There is about a meter of snow and the key was right at the bottom of it all. After warming up and a cup of tea I settled in amd went to bed. Saturday morning and a quick look around the chalet measure a few things make a list, all the usual. Drove into town spoke to the bank about the debit card I had forgotten the PIN for and then drove to Voirons. Horror it was closed! oh well Maco is just down the road - yes but despite there fine selection they dont have what I need. So there is nothing for it but to drive all the way back down the mountain to Thonon and the DIY superstores there.
Bought lots of tubes of different sizes some big and some small.
Drove back and put the big tubes on the stove and poked the end up the chimney. Then with mounting excitement I lit the fire!

After a few nervous minutes thinking the fire was leaking but it wasnt I mooched about staring at my new fireplace. I love the huge big window and it gets hot really quick. Unfortunately it did not really warm up the chalet, but that is a bit on the optimistic side. It was 10 below and there is not insulation on the floors which being concrete, would just soak up the heat.







OK that seemed to be working so I moved onto the plumbing. Disappointingly, with Voirons being closed I was unable to get exactly what I needed but had to suffice with just most of it. My aim was to connect the mains to the house, try out the joints in my plumbing and try and plumb in as much of the toilet as possible. It didint quite work out that way as the big black plastic pipe was completly frozen solid. Moving it slightly produced a scary sound like pieces of gless being crunched together. It was really deep frozen. So testing any joints or even turning the tap was out for the weekend! Any way I connected it up

I have reservations about some of these joints but we shall see. I only hope it will be sooner rather than later that the mains thaws and I can actually see if it all works. I drilled holes in the ceiling/bathroom floor and brought the pipework up into the bathroom T'ing off for other connections, taps and the toilet. My solder joints are pretty good although I sometimes get the pipework too hot and ruin the whole thing. We shall see how good they are when the water turns on!








Sunday rolled on and without being able to finish the plumbing I thought the next important thing to do was finish the hot room walls and door

I studded out the wall plaster boarded and insulated the wall. Installed the door frame and would have glued the frame in but all my glue had frozen and gone strange so that can all be done next time. A light inside finished the job.












Not bad for a day and a half.

Got back to Zurich around 7:00 in the evening and got busy getting quotes for the underfloor heating. Next trip is in February for 4 days should make some more progress then! might even get out before that.