Mother in law coming to stay, and the toilet broke today

[Oliver]

OK, here is me having a winge...

My mother in law is arriving later this afternoon (it's 3:00 am for me now), and the only toilet in my house broke today (very broken). My wife is Chinese, and this is my mother in law's first time travelling outside her home province. It's not really the welcoming party I was hoping for.

I tried to install a new toilet this evening. I waited until my house guests finished their evening routine, and warned them that they wouldn't be able to use the toilet in the morning. I was all set to install the new toilet I bought on my way home from work, but I haven't been able to remove the old one. Unfortunately, I will probably have to smash it out of its cement housing, which is a bit roudy at this time of night.

My house guests are a Japanese couple, renting one room, and I'm thinking it's rather poor form to not provide them with the basic facilities.

Once the toilet is in place, it should be left for 24 hours for the new cement bedding to set, which might just be a problem. Anyway, I'll have to take a day off work tomorrow, or today, rather, which means I'll be working on the weekend. Oh well, at least I will have a toilet to use on Sat.

Ahhh, I'm off to get a couple of hours sleep, and then it's sledge hammer time, first thing in the morning.

[Andeda]

These things happens, but lets hope you have a better day tomorrow  :-)

[Speelgoedmannetje]

sh*t happens :lol:
sorry for the lousy humour :oops:

ah well, hope things turn out right for you :-)

[adz]

"Theres nothing wrong with the bidet is there?"

Sorry, couldn't resist :lol:

Best of luck getting your bog up and running :-)

[Oliver]

Cheers guys. I'm just having breakfast now, and then I'm off for the sledge.

[odin]

:lol: Sorry, your story gave my day a grinning start  :-D.

[Oliver]

odin wrote:
:lol: Sorry, your story gave my day a grinning start  :-D.

Oh, no need to apologise; I'm glad it brought a smile to someone.

It turns out that installing a toilet is really not very difficult. Like most things, it's easy when one knows how. The trick is knowing how to remove the old toilet. For this task, brute force is the best approach. I tried finessing the thing out, but it was a club hammer that did the trick for me. By the way, it's very satisfying to smash the hell out of ceramics with a brutal lump of hard steel.

Now, the bedding cement is hardening, and I'll connect the cistern this afternoon.

Hoho, what fun. Oh, and it's my birthday today (I think I'm 32).

Oli

[adz]

Oliver wrote:

Hoho, what fun. Oh, and it's my birthday today (I think I'm 32).

Oli

Well, errr, try and have a Happy Birthday :-) :pint:

[motorollin]

You poor sod - DIY *and* a visit from the mother-in-law on your birthday! For me, the one saving grace of my birthday is that I get to choose *not* to have any visitors or see anyone at all and just sit indoors in peace.

Well, hope you got it all sorted and had an alright birthday.

--
moto

[AMC258]

 :-o !! :-o !! :-o
Cement bedding!!!
I thought I had it bad when I had to replace the OSB subfloor!
Don't they have wax rings down under?  I know the water spins the wrong way and all, but, croiky!!

[Oliver]

adz wrote:
Well, errr, try and have a Happy Birthday

Cheers dude, much appreciated. It wasn't too bad. I slept half the day, which I'm quite happy about. I woke up a few times to recieve phone calls from my brothers. Meanwhile my mother in law wasted no time in tidying up my experimental self managing garden.

moto wrote:
You poor sod - DIY *and* a visit from the mother-in-law on your birthday! For me, the one saving grace of my birthday is that I get to choose *not* to have any visitors or see anyone at all and just sit indoors in peace.

Well, hope you got it all sorted and had an alright birthday.

Thanks again. It's probably something of a blessing that my mother in law and I don't speak the same language. I do actually like her though. She's a good person, and very caring, but like my wife, she can be a very intense person. I tend to be more laid back in my free time.

I actually don't mind DIY jobs at all. I only don't like having the pressure of fixing the only toilet in the house, with guests and renters being put out.

AMC258 wrote:
Cement bedding!!!
I thought I had it bad when I had to replace the OSB subfloor!
Don't they have wax rings down under?

Oh, I think replacing an OSB subfloor is a lot more work than what I did. I've replaced tongue and groove planks before, and that's a hassle. The cement bedding of a toilet, is just a lump of wet cement on the toilet floor, which the bowl (pan) is placed on to. It's not difficult, but it can't be used for 24 hours after placement.

We don't use wax rings any more. We use rubber seals instead. I suspect that wax rings would last longer than the rubber we use, but I guess the rubber is cheaper and easier to work with. Of course, rubber perishes though, and air leaking out from sewer pipes is no fun thing.

Oli

[adz]

Oliver wrote:

Meanwhile my mother in law wasted no time in tidying up my experimental self managing garden.

Care to elaborate a little more on your experiment, I need one of those self managing gardens too :lol:

[Oliver]

adz wrote:
Care to elaborate a little more on your experiment, I need one of those self managing gardens too.

Well, I suppose I've gone for the wild look.

It's a bit like my experimental self managing housework. I consider my study room to be an experiment in chaos and probability: being neat and organised is just one of a plethora of possible states for my set of objects, and I'm just waiting to see how long it will take for my things to accidentally fall into that state. The experiment has been running for quite a while, so I'm expecting some good results very soon now.

Strangely, the experimental results are markedly different for my kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, which miraculously just become neat without me ever having performed any housework. For some reason, my study, the garage, and the shed seem to be under entirely different laws of probability.

I suspect the presence of my wife has some influence on the quantum observation of states. I think that is what they call 'team work', no?

I will, of course, continue my fascinating study.

[adz]

@Oliver

:lol: :lol: :lol:

[Oliver]

adz wrote:
@Oliver

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Ooh, three laughs; I feel all warm and fuzzy now.  :-)