A kitchen fit in an old terrace property uncovers problems

A recent straight forward kitchen fit becomes a much bigger project.

Up on removing the old kitchen it was found that the whole room had an issue with damp.

To address the problem and due to time scales Dryzone rods and and plasterboard adhesive was used .

12mm Holes are drilled at 120mm spacing in to the lowest course of mortar, The dry rods are then inserted

A paint on damp proof membrane is then applied from wall to floor

A cream sealant is applied to the wall  prior to the application of plasterboard's using dryzone adhesive 

boarded room ready for a skim coat of plaster

All the damp proofing work and plaster boarding was completed in 2 days with one man. with this done another cause of damp had to be addressed. the roof on the out buildings was causing damp in the end wall.

The removal of a few tile reviled the severity of the problem

where the mortar had cracked from the wall water had rotted the front beam, rafter and lath

water had then ran down the roof and in to the wall causing damp

After inspection of the rest of the roof and discussions with the customer, it was decided to completely replace all the roof timbers.

 The replacement of the roof timbers, re felting, re-tiling and lead flashing of the roof was done in a couple of days. whilst this was being done the kitchen was being plastered by LW Plastering and artex Leicester.

And finally to get on with the original project of fitting a new kitchen.

Worktop running in to the window 

using a compact sink increases usable worktop space.  

wall cabinets used as base cabinets to give more room in this 1.8 meter wide space (6 foot)

finished kitchen just waiting for flooring company

WiFi appliances

Smart Appliances / WiFi enabled kitchen. 

This year looks to see a abundance of WiFi enabled appliances will they make our life easier or is this just a marketing ploy? lets take a look at a few that are on offer.

1. WiFi kettle starting at around £80 you can control it with your smart phone setting it to boil for when you get home from work or when you get up in the morning. This is all well and good but if it is not full of water not a lot of use. so is this a gimmick a boiling water tap though more expensive may be a better option, better still a WiFi boiling tap where you can set what time on what days the temperature you require it to be at.
2. WiFi fridge freezer for example Hoover Wizard HF18XK, does this record what it contains, add what I have used to my shopping list, give me recipe suggestions for its contents. No it enables me to see how much energy it is using and switch it on and off remotely, the only feature I can see that would be of any use is it will send me an alert if the temperature rises so I know i have a power cut or it has gone wrong.   
3. For a just £549 you can have a WiFi cooker hood. With this I can switch it on when not at home it also lets me control how much energy it is using, it will  monitors changes in air quality and measures vapour, grease and temperature via carbon and filter saturation sensors in the unit. The only time I can see this being of any use is when I switch on my WiFi hob that will no doubt say never leave pans unattended.

On top of these we have WiFi washing machines and dishwashers that for some reason I want to switch on when I am not there and that will also tell me how much energy they are using.

Don't get me wrong WiFi has its uses. Being able to set a program to record, switch on lights open my garage door, monitor CCTV and alarms. Basically things that no not need our input in order to be of use