Slabbing/Plastering Bathroom & Removing Hot Water Cylinder

A few days ago the bathroom was slabbed on select walls and on the ceiling. 50mm insulating slab with a wax vapour barrier was used. It was only used on certain walls as some of the walls had a concrete render already applied underneath the existing modern plaster, so there would be no problem with moisture on these walls.

So the slab was only applied to the outside wall, either side of the chimney breast and on the ceiling:

This is the ceiling just after being plastered:

More digging was done in the garden to get the water line into the house. Digging beside the return uncovered the remains of the outhouse, which would explain the position of the old sewer we found in a previous post. Note the brick remains to the bottom left and right of the photo:

The builders also made a channel alongside the return to get water into the house:

Right up to the back of the house:

And into the soon to be kitchen space:

Putting some items of nostalgia from the house to good use:

It was time to remove the hot water cylinder and associated lead piping that fed from the downstairs back-boiler, located in the hot press to the right of the existing bathroom:

First thing to do was to drain the cylinder completely. The lead pipes entering the base of the cylinder lead downstairs into the return, where they pass into the downstairs rear room of the house into the fireplace. It made far more sense to drain the pipes downstairs than to try and squeeze a bucket into the hot press:

Cutting the lead pipes downstairs in the return produced quite the uncontrollable fountain and took about 20 minutes to drain completely:

I'm glad I didn't take a picture of the water that was at the bottom of the cylinder, it was like mud. :/

Back to the hot press, all the shelves were taken out:

Then all the pipes into the cylinder were hacksawed free:

Done and dusted: