Merry Christmas 2021

[sideshow]

.View attachment 60739

now the question has to be asked, which forum members look like those on the bikes

 

[The Sock]

Me, possibly?

 

[Perry]

Can't quite make it out Hamish but is that an old Griffin helmet ? I had one of those, fibreglass when everything was turning polycarbonate.( If I remember right).

 

[The Sock]

Can't quite make it out Hamish but is that an old Griffin helmet ? I had one of those, fibreglass when everything was turning polycarbonate.( If I remember right).

Yes, Perry, it is.
A 'Clubman', with the extra-thick polycarbonate visor, supposedly capable of withstanding a shotgun blast.
So, although it would blow your head, in helmet, off your shoulders, your face, at least, would still be intact.
Mine has an 'identifier' on the back.

 

[chrisk]

With an identifier like that, anyone in the know would know that helmet belongs to a Laverda owner. But with those dates, it also needs some ball bearings scattered around.

 

[Dellortoman]

anyone in the know would know that helmet belongs to a Laverda owner.

Nah. That's not a Laverda conrod. That one is from a plain bearing crank. Laverdas have roller bearings.

 

[The Sock]

It's a trophy: 'The Bent Conrod Award'
(originally, I believe, it came through the side of a Mercedes 350SL donk), given annually by ILOC Member's popular vote, to the Member who has excelled, in the previous year, to not give the Club a good name.

Brushing up against the law, filling up with diesel, getting spectacularly lost while leading a ride-out, riding to an event having failed to connect both petrol pipes after tank removal, falling off chairs, and the like have been exploits rewarded by this 'Badge of Shame'.

Oddly, I couldn't find any photographs of a proud recipient with the Award.

 

[Dellortoman]

Well, I'm having a shitty Christmas - literally.

At 4:30 pm on Xmas Eve, I became aware of a boggy lake of sewage developing on my front lawn. Something was seriously amiss with my sewerage outlet pipe.

Guess how easy it is to find a plumber at 4:30 pm on Xmas Eve. Answer: almost impossible. After a couple of fruitless hours on the phone, I eventually got hold of a bloke who turned up at 6:30pm. He shoved a jet blaster down the pipe, but it wouldn't go through. All the water just gurgled up out of the ground and made the shit lake worse. He then shoved a camera down and declared the pipe to be all busted up by tree roots, and that it was a "dig and repair" job. He identified the problem area to be underneath two (terraced) sandstone retaining walls and concrete path, the most difficult to access section of the entire system. Which is probably why that section is still old concrete or terracotta pipe whereas all the rest has been replaced with PVC.

Guess how easy it is to find someone to dig up and repair a shit pipe at 7pm on Xmas Eve. Answer: impossible. Nobody is available until 4 January. So, it looks like I'll be doing it myself - de-constructing stone retaining walls, sawing through concrete and digging out several cubic metres of front yard between Xmas and New Year, while knee-deep in a lake of shit. Oh, joy!

In the meantime, I can't use any plumbing appliance that drains into the sewer. That includes pretty much everything except a garden hose. No toilet, shower, sink, dishwasher, clothes washer ... So a planned Xmas dinner was cancelled and had elsewhere.

Guess how easy it is to hire a portable toilet and shower on Xmas Day. Answer: I dunno, I didn't even bother trying. I set up a chemical camping toilet in the bathroom, put a plug in the shower outlet so I can collect the water and bail it out into buckets, and got a big plastic tub to do dishes in. I feel like I'm camping in my own house. You don't realise how often during the day that you wash your hands until you can't.

Next job is to tackle the shit pipe excavation. I'm just waiting for the effluent lake to dry up a bit before going there.

Bah humbug!

 

[piranha-bro2]

Holy shaez, Cam! Literally

Impossible also to find a worse time to have this happen. I thought digging up our old sewer pipes upstream of the toilet was bad enough. You've got some serious toil in front of you. Can't you move to a friend's/relly's place until the tradies come back to life in the new year?

 

[motoddrob]

Bugger that Cam, what a nightmare.
You could fill a 20litre bucket with hot water and use a pot to splash water over yourself while standing on your back lawn,
Asian style. Did it for 12 years living in my shed. I actually miss my bucket showers now that I have a real shower. Instead of digging up the old pipe would it be possible to run a pvc from a to b via a different route

 

[helicopterjim]

 

[chrisk]

Cam, if ....... I come to Tassie, I may be able give you a hand ....... what date do you think the digging will be finished?

 

[Dellortoman]

Ha ha. Thanks Chris. I'm overwhelmed by your generosity.

I've had a couple of days to ponder alternatives to the current pipe route and I keep coming back to digging up and replacing the buggered pipe as the simplest option. There's masonry and concrete structures in every other direction too, and the existing route is the shortest run.

After watching the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race on TV (a compulsory boxing day tradition), I went out and cleared away some plants, did some digging to drain Great Poo Lake and hosed away most of its offensive contents. I'll let it dry out some more and begin excavations tomorrow. There's only about 4m of the old concrete pipe between the new PVC pipe coming from the house and the property boundary. Anything beyond the boundary is not my problem.

I've had offers to stay elsewhere until it's fixed, but I'm adapting to life as a camper in my own home and it's convenient to stay here if I'm going to be working on it. It's just me and the cat living here now so there's no inconvenience to anyone else. I don't mind pissing in a bucket and the cat doesn't seem bothered at all. Might be a different story if I had a bunch of family here, or if I'd taught the cat to use the flush toilet.

I doubt that any of this is claimable on my home insurance, but I'll make enquiries when their office opens up again on the 4th.

 

[rowdypat]

Well, I'm having a shitty Christmas - literally.

At 4:30 pm on Xmas Eve, I became aware of a boggy lake of sewage developing on my front lawn. Something was seriously amiss with my sewerage outlet pipe.

Guess how easy it is to find a plumber at 4:30 pm on Xmas Eve. Answer: almost impossible. After a couple of fruitless hours on the phone, I eventually got hold of a bloke who turned up at 6:30pm. He shoved a jet blaster down the pipe, but it wouldn't go through. All the water just gurgled up out of the ground and made the shit lake worse. He then shoved a camera down and declared the pipe to be all busted up by tree roots, and that it was a "dig and repair" job. He identified the problem area to be underneath two (terraced) sandstone retaining walls and concrete path, the most difficult to access section of the entire system. Which is probably why that section is still old concrete or terracotta pipe whereas all the rest has been replaced with PVC.

Guess how easy it is to find someone to dig up and repair a shit pipe at 7pm on Xmas Eve. Answer: impossible. Nobody is available until 4 January. So, it looks like I'll be doing it myself - de-constructing stone retaining walls, sawing through concrete and digging out several cubic metres of front yard between Xmas and New Year, while knee-deep in a lake of shit. Oh, joy!

In the meantime, I can't use any plumbing appliance that drains into the sewer. That includes pretty much everything except a garden hose. No toilet, shower, sink, dishwasher, clothes washer ... So a planned Xmas dinner was cancelled and had elsewhere.

Guess how easy it is to hire a portable toilet and shower on Xmas Day. Answer: I dunno, I didn't even bother trying. I set up a chemical camping toilet in the bathroom, put a plug in the shower outlet so I can collect the water and bail it out into buckets, and got a big plastic tub to do dishes in. I feel like I'm camping in my own house. You don't realise how often during the day that you wash your hands until you can't.

Next job is to tackle the shit pipe excavation. I'm just waiting for the effluent lake to dry up a bit before going there.

Bah humbug!

That’s why plumbers own so many Laverdas Cam

 

[hooksey]

Ha ha. Thanks Chris. I'm overwhelmed by your generosity.

I've had a couple of days to ponder alternatives to the current pipe route and I keep coming back to digging up and replacing the buggered pipe as the simplest option. There's masonry and concrete structures in every other direction too, and the existing route is the shortest run.

After watching the start of the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race on TV (a compulsory boxing day tradition), I went out and cleared away some plants, did some digging to drain Great Poo Lake and hosed away most of its offensive contents. I'll let it dry out some more and begin excavations tomorrow. There's only about 4m of the old concrete pipe between the new PVC pipe coming from the house and the property boundary. Anything beyond the boundary is not my problem.

I've had offers to stay elsewhere until it's fixed, but I'm adapting to life as a camper in my own home and it's convenient to stay here if I'm going to be working on it. It's just me and the cat living here now so there's no inconvenience to anyone else. I don't mind pissing in a bucket and the cat doesn't seem bothered at all. Might be a different story if I had a bunch of family here, or if I'd taught the cat to use the flush toilet.

I doubt that any of this is claimable on my home insurance, but I'll make enquiries when their office opens up again on the 4th.

It’s all come outta your cake hole Cam, get on with it

 

[Thomas aus LAU]

Well, I'm having a shitty Christmas - literally.

Hello Cam,
you may have said "Holy shit" a little too often.

Seriously - I have to solve similar problems again and again for a friend in an old large villa from 1890. There are a lot of old oak trees around the villa.
These problems start with the joints of the old pipes becoming leaky. The roots of the trees are very sensitive, when it comes to detecting water.
As soon as they have identified a "source", the roots grow in this direction and penetrate the leaky opening. As the roots grow, the pipes are then blown up.

There are only two solutions:
1. Replace the line with a new one
2. Make an inlet.
This technique is often used in Europe. First, the roots are milled off with a long rotating flexible steel shaft. Then a soaked fabric hose is blown into the tube, inflated and cured with UV light. If then no more water escapes, the pipe is of no interest to tree roots.
See problem at 1:00 and solution starting at 2:30: repaired tube

I hope you can get the damn problem under control quickly.

Thomas aus LAU

 

[CLEMTOG]

think of yourself as lucky Cam

I moved here in 1982 and the house had no main drainage, it was connected to a cesspit , I had the local council empty it once (3000 gallons) and the cost was horrendous, so bad I have blanked it from memory, as a pipe fitter, I devised a system with a stainless submersible pump which became live at midnight until 5am, this would pump out about a foot or two of mainly water and irrigate the veg patch via a 1" hose which was periodically moved, although illegal his worked well until 1987 when there were widespread storms and gales here in UK, the electricity supply was out for 13 days, I arranged one of my work generators to power the house essentials such as lights, washing machine, freezers and fridge,, but being 3KVA not the tumble drier, toaster or kettle, but totally forgot the cesspit, it had been such a fit and forget forget type system! but after 11 days, I learned the hard way of a serious building defect from when the house was built in 1956 which had never caused a problem but now did, the cesspit man hole cover was lower than the floor drains of the laundry room by about an inch, and yes the pit was full, this caused raw sewage to rise above the floor drain and flood the laundry room floor, spreading through my office and the two downstairs bedrooms but fortunately not getting to the workshop, the whole lower floor of the house is asphalt, (no carpets only bedside rugs) so no lasting damage to the structure was done, but everything that was on the floor was trash, including the bottom inch on beds, table legs etc, the rot happens fast!, all this happened overnight, and a strong smell woke me and my late wife at about 5am, it was not a pleasant experience, much cleaning up was necessary, but this was impossible until the pump had been livened up and the flood level lowered in the pit, we were exhausted by nightfall that day, and the house took a month to get properly right.

When the house was built the council offered to connect to main drainage for £250, this was 1956, and was half the cost of a ready built house with a sitting tenant, (in 1968, i.e. 12 years later, my father bought two houses for £450 each,) so the offer to connect was declined, I made the connection myself in around 2001 (the pump system never gave any problems in the period, but mains gas was being brought in, so two stones etc) this cost me £5000 for all the work on the property, a mate dug the 120 metre trench for free, PVC pipe and manholes all done by me, as were blanking off the old system, the last 2 metres of pipe in the road (not allowed to be done by anyone except the council approved contractors) was £4250, and they fucked it right up until I got in the trench and did that under there "supervision". On work properties I have done the connection "illegally" many times and never got caught out, but on my own property that would leave me very vulnerable, so could not be contemplated.

Sewage on the floor inside the house? I can still smell it and taste it when I think about it.
good luck with the repairs. remember your 1:40, slow bends and manholes if you turn more than 33 degrees, if you use rubber adapter type connectors at all underground, wrap them in Denso.
CLEM

 

[chrisk]

Memory flashback. 1983ish ...... my toddler daughter would sometimes leave her bed at night and drag herself up on our bed and sleep between my wife and I.

One hot summers night I awoke to her climbing over me and snuggled up, nice. In my slumber, it became clear that one of the three of us was farting like a cow, wiping the sweat from my brow, I tried to go back to sleep. Tossing and turning, I had sweat running over my chest, and the farting continued.

I got up for a pee, turned on the bathroom light and fleetingly glanced in the mirror. WTF, I looked like a black man ..... the sweat I’d been wiping was actually a sloppy turd.

Washed my face and chest and went to the bedroom, turned on the light. My pillow has a streak of shit over it, bar where my head had been. The cloth nappy hadn’t held in the sloppy turd in place, as she climbed over my head to get into bed.

It took almost an hour to clean up the mess, change nappies and have showers.

A little shit on your boots is easy to deal with.

 

[hooksey]

think of yourself as lucky Cam

I moved here in 1982 and the house had no main drainage, it was connected to a cesspit , I had the local council empty it once (3000 gallons) and the cost was horrendous, so bad I have blanked it from memory, as a pipe fitter, I devised a system with a stainless submersible pump which became live at midnight until 5am, this would pump out about a foot or two of mainly water and irrigate the veg patch via a 1" hose which was periodically moved, although illegal his worked well until 1987 when there were widespread storms and gales here in UK, the electricity supply was out for 13 days, I arranged one of my work generators to power the house essentials such as lights, washing machine, freezers and fridge,, but being 3KVA not the tumble drier, toaster or kettle, but totally forgot the cesspit, it had been such a fit and forget forget type system! but after 11 days, I learned the hard way of a serious building defect from when the house was built in 1956 which had never caused a problem but now did, the cesspit man hole cover was lower than the floor drains of the laundry room by about an inch, and yes the pit was full, this caused raw sewage to rise above the floor drain and flood the laundry room floor, spreading through my office and the two downstairs bedrooms but fortunately not getting to the workshop, the whole lower floor of the house is asphalt, (no carpets only bedside rugs) so no lasting damage to the structure was done, but everything that was on the floor was trash, including the bottom inch on beds, table legs etc, the rot happens fast!, all this happened overnight, and a strong smell woke me and my late wife at about 5am, it was not a pleasant experience, much cleaning up was necessary, but this was impossible until the pump had been livened up and the flood level lowered in the pit, we were exhausted by nightfall that day, and the house took a month to get properly right.

When the house was built the council offered to connect to main drainage for £250, this was 1956, and was half the cost of a ready built house with a sitting tenant, (in 1968, i.e. 12 years later, my father bought two houses for £450 each,) so the offer to connect was declined, I made the connection myself in around 2001 (the pump system never gave any problems in the period, but mains gas was being brought in, so two stones etc) this cost me £5000 for all the work on the property, a mate dug the 120 metre trench for free, PVC pipe and manholes all done by me, as were blanking off the old system, the last 2 metres of pipe in the road (not allowed to be done by anyone except the council approved contractors) was £4250, and they fucked it right up until I got in the trench and did that under there "supervision". On work properties I have done the connection "illegally" many times and never got caught out, but on my own property that would leave me very vulnerable, so could not be contemplated.

Sewage on the floor inside the house? I can still smell it and taste it when I think about it.
good luck with the repairs. remember your 1:40, slow bends and manholes if you turn more than 33 degrees, if you use rubber adapter type connectors at all underground, wrap them in Denso.
CLEM

Denso wrap...... none of that palava over here Clem 1:60 gradient with 100mm drain will suffice

 

[martymoose]

2 rules of plumbing.
Water runs downhill
Thursday is payday