T.V. Aerial Revisited

Having spent a lot of time and money erecting a new telly aerial back in December, I've been rather disappointed by the results. My plan was to be able to receive transmissions from Crystal Palace rather than via the Bishop's Stortford relay. This has worked to some extent, but even with a big masthead amplifier the analogue signal is not really acceptable. I can get some of the digital channels with enough signal quality to watch, but until the switchover in three years I would like a better quality picture. With the scaffolding coming down in a week or so I've had to decide what to do - live with the set-up I've got now, or change it. I decided to keep what I've done so far - and add to it. The other transmitter I can use is Sudbury, so I bought a wideband aerial and pointed it over in that direction. This produces a half decent analogue picture, but due to the lower power on the digital side it doesn't give me enough signal to get a reliable picture on Freeview. I've diplexed the two aerials together so that I get channels 21-37 from Crystal Palace and 39-69 from Sudbury, put them through a variable masthead amplifier turned up full and then through a 4-way distributer to feed the loft, lounge, kitchen and the stereo. This gives the main four channels reasonably well from Sudbury, plus a variable channel 5 from Croydon (just behind Crystal Palace) and some of the digital from Crystal Palace. That should be OK up until the digital switchover - then I'll just have to hope that the increased power digital transissions will give me a useable signal from one side or the other. The fly in the ointment is the diplexer, which is not screened (apparantly no one makes a screened UHF+UHF diplexer). I noticed some interferance on the analogue channels, so I hope that won't lead to fatal crashes on the digital.

Day 16 - Structure Complete

The day started with a hasty meeting about the bathroom.  Having spent most of the night considering our options we delivered our verdict to the plumbers, who straight away got down to moving the pipes they had already laid for the basin and shower.  They were also able to complete the macerator discharge pipe now, which luckily didn't have to change (because they hadn't done that end of it yet).  Then they came inside and connected up all the pipes in the airing cupboard.

Meanwhile, Marcus and Simon carried on with the remainder of the structural work.  They completed the dwarf wall on top of the steel beam which will become the wall of the stairwell.  They removed the purlin from above the stairs, where it will be in the way, and trimmed the joists for the last Velux window.  They also installed a big chunk of timber to support the end of the front ridge beam.

By 15:30 they were taking bags of rubbish to the skip, so we got a quick progress update.  The structure is now all complete, so the building inspector will be coming to inspect it tomorrow.

The next phase is electrical first fix before the chicken-wire goes down with insulation on top.  The evening was spent finalising where the sockets and lights are going to go.

We Have a Problem

Steve the plumber mentioned it first. As he measured up for where the pipes had to go, he said we were a bit tight between the wash basin and the shower. There wouldn't be room to stand in front of the basin, let alone bend over to wash your face.
We checked our plans and realised that we had drawn the wash basin smaller than it really is. So it was our planning error. And something has to be done about it - the bathroom will be unusable if we build it as planned. We have a few options:

• Re-arrange the whole bathroom and put the shower on the opposite wall. This would require a different window (the original has already been ordered).
• Get a smaller shower (we've already bought the big one).
• Get a smaller basin - such as a counter-top one.
• Move the walls to make the bathroom bigger - clearly not a cheap option at this stage.

After a sleepless night and a lot of thinking, we decided to go with a combination of a smaller shower and a minor re-arrangement of the furniture. This will lead to a bit of re-work by the plumbers, and we'll have to sell that big shower enclosure on ebay (what would we do without ebay?) At least now we will have a bathroom that works, even if our shower won't be quite the monster we had been expecting.