There’s a hole in my bucket …
Two things from me. First, Jen has been readmitted into Gloucester hospital. She was in an awful lot of pain on Wednesday night and, although they’re neither sure nor overly worried, it seems likely she has a mild infection. Her drain has gone from green goo when her pain was at its most acute to, now, more clear fluid, but there’s still a lot of it. She’s on broad spectrum antibiotics and decent pain relief. And they’re keeping her in for now. The good news is that when the drain is ready to come out, which may be some time, they can do it in Gloucester.
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3 am – waiting for a bed in Gloucester hospital. NHS have been brilliant, as always
I relieved James on Wednesday night (so he could go to work the next day – I cancelled mine) and then C and I have been up and down to the hospital until today … James is on duty now. We will go and see her tomorrow. Again, I don’t think anyone is panicking … just being cautious.
So, with two periods of ‘no rain’ I’ve been tackling Doris’s leaking garage doors. And, as I type, I think I have rebuilt the holes (there were three of them) and made her watertight. I’m going to leave everything for now (the inside is still a mess), to check that she is watertight. It is going to rain for the next 6 months, so I should have plenty of opportunity to see if that’s the case. In two weeks, after my mammoth work at the school and before we go to Spain – and assuming there’s not leak – I’m going to finish the inside and cover it with rubber matting – so I can lift and check.
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the worst of the three holes. Hymer clearly didn’t get something right.
What was the problem? Well, having attacked and pulled it apart it it seems it’s been there for a while – ie before we bought her second hand four years ago (she’s ten years old now). Someone has tried to seal the inside of the garage door uprights with rubber sealant before, I found. This may well have stopped an obvious leak into the garage, but it didn’t solve the water ingress, which spread into wood (the only wood in the vehicle) on the bottom of the garage doors and the base of the garage, rotting here and there.
I discovered the issue about 18 months ago and thought that the leak was caused by a design fault between the garage doors and the bottom faring with rain trickling down the outside and attacking from underneath, so I took out the rotten wood from beneath the corners of the garage door, sealed and filled and waxoiled. I did a good job but actually all I did was stop the water from exiting the vehicle in the areas I’d sealed. As a result the water hung about, attacked more wood and eventually pooled in one end of the garage – which I found 10 days ago.
So what? Well I immediately sealed where the garage door frames meets the wall of the van with a bead of sikaflex. Hey presto, what was then a steady trickle of water stopped. Does this mean the seal between the doors and van wall has deteriorated over time? Or, maybe as it was bad on both sides, sealant was never applied? Without taking the doors off we’ll never know. The good news is that 95% of Hymer’s body work is a non-rotting sandwich of aluminium, marine ply and dense foam filler. So it’s just the garage floor that’s an issue.
What have I done? Well, noting that I reckon there’s over £1000’s professional’s worth of work, and when it was done originally it didn’t actually solve the leak, I asked Heath Robinson and he recommended: seal the outside first by removing as much of the rotten wood as you can; this will expose the holes; plate the bottom of the garage with treated ply, and seal with lashings of sikaflex; fill voids with expanding foam (that was fun); reseal everything with sikaflex (which you will get everywhere, including the living room sofa); wait for rain which will come at any moment and check for leaks.
Then … fill and finish the inside and cover with rubber at some time in the future.
Done the first part. Sure it’s not the job of a professional, but I know what I have done, I have complete control and it’s cost me £50 and two day’s labour. Fingers crossed.
Phew. Because of our tos and fros from the hospital (we’re up again tomorrow) Mary cancelled her visit – which is a shame. We will, however, be staying with her the whole week I’m working in Farnham so there will be plenty of time to catch up. I’m working Wednesday and Thursday next week … and I must get up to see Mum. We’ve not seen her since Christmas, although we do talk daily and she sounds fine.
Finally, C’s stomach bug lasted 36 hours and she’s now back on her feet. I’m still running. And we’ve just finished binge-watching Fargo (the series on Netflix … you may have seen the film). Absolutely brilliant providing you don’t mind lots of blood and guts.
That’s all from me …
