apartment...

[VJ]

Just when you think it is almost done, and you are preparing for hanging the last frames and cabinet... and getting ready to make photos to put online a forum somewhere...

RADIATOR LEAK!

Luckily we saw it coming, so we did not suffer any water damage. Of course, it had to happen in the living room, where there are 2 radiators. Only replacing one would look just tragic, so we'll replace both. The apartment currently has original cast iron radiators, I kinda liked that look... they will be replaced with new aluminum ones. It does not look too bad, but I'm a bit sad of losing that original look. The choice of radiators is limited, as we need a working pressure of 16 bar (yes, it is not a typo).

It is planned to be done when the heating gets switched off, which can be any moment now (not sure why it is not off yet). Of course, we'll need to protect the floor and move furniture out of the way...

Always something...

[Umfriend]

Oh man, I feel for you. And am still interested in, but not rather hopefull we'll get to, seeing some pics.

Meanwhile, your Rosetta cruncher seems offline?

I do want to see some pics of those iron cast radiators. AFIAK, aluminum is a better conductor so it might not be that bad. On the other hand, you do not have your own central heating boiler, do you? Any idea what the water temp is that is being pumped into the system?

[VJ]

We don't have our own boiler. The building is connected to city heating, so the building also does not have its own boiler but rather a heat exchanger. Interesting concept: we get our heat from heat recovery from the powerplants. (there were amazing scenes when one winter at -25°C a hot-water pipe burst under an intersection: first full dense local fog on the intersection; then ice...

They circulate some special liquid through the radiators (which is why draining it is so expensive - but it gets drained every summer), but I'm not sure of the temperature of the fluid in the system. According to the plumber, the parameters of the system limit the choice of radiators even further, the pressure is already limiting (16 bar is a huge working pressure) and it makes me suspect the temperature might also be higher than standard (but no idea). I like the cast iron radiators, they are said to be more difficult to regulate (as they keep giving off heat much longer), but we have an intelligent thermostat system that compensates for that. Still, the new radiators can be a bit smaller, so it allows for some better organization of the room (I think subwoofer would then fit in a different position).
Now we just have to wait for the central system to be switched off and drained, but at night it cools down still quite a bit, so most likely it won't happen this week. I'm more worried about the removal of the radiators: they are heavy. So I plan to put some (old) 20 mm thick panels on the parquet, to protect it from any impact. And then of course rags and other things to protect against liquids. It is just a bit of a bad timing: I have a trip to Belgium planned in 3 weeks, and a conference in Spain in 5 weeks.

No idea why rosetta cruncher is offline... I'm resetting the virtual machine (I was running some memory intensive simulation, so maybe the VM did not get enough memory).

[VJ]

Radiators finally were replaced. They do not look as bad as I thought they would, so that is positive. The plumber had quite some work: the pipes come in from the side, but were not nicely aligned (on one radiator, the difference was 0.5 cm, on the other 3 cm), which prevented hanging it nicely vertical. To correct for this, he installed the radiator closer to the wall and connected with some elbow pipes. But he did it really nice, and the fact that the radiators are thinner and closer to the wall really makes the room look bigger.

It does mess up our speaker installation: they were hanging on a bar attached to one of the radiators (own construction, which worked very well), but that is now impossible. But that radiator is shorter, so we can get some shelf or something next to it and put the speakers there (or just hang them on the wall).

The room where they were replaced is already cleaned up, but the other room is still quite a mess (everything was stacked/thrown in there, which limited possibilities of making some order there). Currently doing just that... Photos may be very soon.

[UtwigMU]

We've been reading about the apartment for a while now but still no pics.

[Umfriend]

But we'll get them Soon[superscript](TM)[/superscipt]

[VJ]

A bit of a hectic month, but I finally managed to make some order... The shop did not have the wall shelves we wanted, so that will have to wait. But at least we put up one more frame. The last one is still standing.

Almost ready to upload some photos... but my girlfriend has a torn ligament. It is a ligament at the back of the knee/calf, not the ankle ligament as is more common. She's not in a cast, but should not walk on it. So it sort of messes up our holiday plans.

And of course: there is always something in the apartment. The door-phone (not sure about the English name for that) broke down, but the replacement also does not work. The technician came, and discovered there is no signal on the cable in the apartment. Using some device, he managed to pinpoint the problem somewhere in the ceiling above the front door. But the cable that connects to the door phone is not the same type as the one that leaves from the central. Given the previous owner's talent in messing up cabling, the recommendation is to pull a new cable. This of course means cutting in a wall that was just fixed about 4 months ago (after the water damage). We'll probably put the cable on the wall for the time being and let some additional works accumulate: the wall where the radiator was, the door-phone cable, ... With any luck, the outside of the building will be renovated next year, and that may well imply that we need to renovate our balcony (It has some wall paneling and such, I would have replaced it all sooner were it not for the planned prospect of the outside renovation)

Jörg

[Marshmallowman]

intercom = doorphone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercom

[VJ]

Thanks! I did not know it was called intercom...

Yesterday we got a notification from the building administrator: counters for water will be replaced! They should be easily enough accessible, but again always something...

[Umfriend]

Beterschap for your girlfriend, I mean, hope she gets well soon.

[VJ]

Beterschap for your girlfriend, I mean, hope she gets well soon.

Friday we went to another orthopedist, and it turns out the first one made a wrong diagnosis: it was not a torn ligament but a torn muscle. But the new orthopedist also suspected deep-vein thrombosis and sent us directly to the hospital for an urgent ultrasound. And, he was right! So now she needs injections and had to cancel her flight to Belgium.

We later learned that it has become standard practice to prescribe some medication to prevent blood-clots when a person is immobilized. So big error on the side of that first orthopedist.

[VJ]

Well, diagnosis is firmly set: dvt. Doctors seem to agree that it is a really unlucky occurence and they are not sure an earlier start of the injections would have made a difference. The treatment is expected to last 6 months, after the current series of injections (she's halfway), a switch to other medication and then later to another one. In the mean time there will be an additional ultrasound to check on the bloodclot. Of course, no flying in the next couple of months, and after that she may need to take medication before flying.

After it all finishes, we will go to a hematologist. She has non of the visible risk-factors, yet developped a dvt. We want to make sure there is no genetic or other problem to be able to minimize the chance of it happening again.

[Dr Mordrid]

I generated a DVT about 30+ years ago after a friend dropped a defunct washing machine on my calf while we were hauling it up the basement stairs. A friend generated one after sitting on a wood chair wrong for several hours. Others get them after a plane trip. Excrement happens.

[VJ]

Recovery is fine, she can start to train the muscles again. So just when things are going normal... in the apartment... a

PIPE BURSTS

It is a hose inside the water reservoir of the toilet (that connects the water supply to the filling mechanism). Luckily we were home: I'm quite sure the reservoir would overflow as I don't think the toilet can take such a big waterflow. With the layout of the bathroom and the type of pipe (it connects to the bottom of the reservoir), we had to remove the reservoir in order to unscrew it. Of course, it is not a standard pipe, so we now have to get the replacement part via the manufacturer.

For me, it is the first time I heard of that pipe bursting, although my girlfriend's parents say it happens and most likely it was forced in a shape and was under tension. But after only 3 years!? I'm just hoping this was really an accident, and not malice of the ones who installed it (my parents' friend had a situation where the workers lodged a wrench in a pipe, causing a water leak some years later).

[Umfriend]

Crazy thought: What if the appartment is jinxed until you, finally, post some pictures?