The sacrificial anode

28 May – 3 June 2023

Enough bank holidays. I’ve got a house to finish!

We spent much of the bank holiday a week ago, paddling against the tide in the Sound of Jura. Sunday was an easy half day, nosing our way down loch Sween and collecting enough cockles, mussels and winkles to augment supper over a driftwood fire. The wind was still chill and strong enough (F4) to be worth avoiding, so we investigated three beaches and returned to the first to make camp, along with about twenty seals who in the morning were mostly upturned on rocks; banana-shaped, in various stages of consciousness and inundation.

Tash explored up behind the beach, returning with tales of orchids and cotton grass. I went to see them too, hundreds of orchids and the faint but unmistakeable rasp of a corncrake. Although we were on an island it’s so close that it might as well be part of the mainland peninsular it’s appended to. Hearing a corncrake here is noteworthy.

We hadn’t meant to paddle so far the next day, or quite so much against the flow; it was an unexpected work-out, up to Crinan Harbour then back to Carsaig from where it’s only a mile’s walk to fetch the car from Tayvallich on Loch Sween. Along the way we’d harvested a good haul of dulse from the tops of the kelp fronds.

The house: The sills of the escape skylights, one in each of the bedrooms, are too high to meet the building regulations. They should be no more than one point one metre but are one point two five. I’ll have to install a permanent step beneath each and that will require an amendment to the building warrant which in turn will require an application. I confirmed this with the inspector and will explore having Andrew our builder handle the bureaucracy to save me time. There’s the pump shed to add too and I really don’t want to think about it – just another distraction…

Realising on Tuesday that I’d not hassled The Electrician for several days I left him a phone message and sent an email. He replied later that day saying Kenny and Kern would come the next day. In a semi-stunned state I spent the rest of the day making lists of jobs to do and materials needed, making small cosmetic touches to the bathroom paintwork – mostly where surfaces meet – making the remaining backs and shelf for the under basin cupboards and hanging the four pendant lights in the kitchen.

Come nine o’clock the next morning the electric lads hadn’t arrived – they’d missed our turning and and came ten minutes later. Or maybe they’d stopped somewhere for a slap up breakfast. While they got on making their connections I did what I could to help. Tash’s refurbished and tested (thanks David!) ‘sputnik‘ light will hang over the stairs,

…but it’s quite heavy, so I checked my records and measured carefully to make sure the screw eye goes into a rafter and doesn’t just pierce the airtight ceiling board.

I put up the fixing brackets for the five spotlights in the living room and one out on the corner of the porch. That way I know the lights will be where I think they should be. When there was nothing electrically related to do I carried on with my cosmetic finishing. The lads left at four o’clock, reckoning there’s another day and a half’s work altogether. Nearly there. So on that final stint will they move our hob and oven from workshop to house? I need to talk to The Electrician and I need him to talk back. We’d rather move the kitchen before we’re quite ready, rather than put it off and not know when the job might be done.

There’s only room unpainted and with no electricians to spoil my flow I masked the window frames and got painting.

We love this room and it’s tempting to leave it white, but months ago, having decided to paint the walls green, we bought the paint – Bloomsbury Green (by Rose of Jericho) Green it will be! But there was an interlude in my white emulsioning.

We’ve been sleeping in the bell tent and when I came down to the workshop early on Friday morning I was confronted by a pool of water by the washing machine and sink. Mopping, sponging and observation revealed the source to be a dribbly leak from the under-sink water heater. To cut a dull story shorter I’ve ruined the heater by forgetting the instructions in the manual which say I should check the sacrificial anode each year. Hmm, rings a bell. The magnesium of the sacrificial anode corrodes before the steel of the water tank (a more ‘noble’ metal), thus protecting it, but my anode was all but gone and the tank had corroded around the opening through which the heating element goes in. Eventually the corrosion crept beyond the fat rubber seal. I’m living and learning. If only I could live, learn and remember!

At least I now know how to take the heater apart and check the anode. A new heater is on it’s way.

At the last minute Tash has grabbed a week’s break. Based on Barra there are daily trips to remote isles and wild swimming, with or without snorkels and basking sharks.