M
Mike Jackson
Just had to drain the heating system, connect up the new run to the towel drying rads upstairs,move one rad downstairs, correct the bodge to another rad and add one more downstairs. Looking like being done by 3 at the latest.
It all went wrong as I reversed into the driveway. I got in so far and ground to an abrupt halt. Something was very wrong. I tried to move forward and didn't move. Surely I hadn't? I gave it a bit more welly and shot forward. I got out and looked and I was right, the manhole cover had collapsed as I'd driven over it. This wouldn't have been so bad had it not been covered in 6" of shingle. I was standing looking at the 6' deep inspection chamber with a foot of beach and a shattered cover at the bottom of it when the customer returned with her two dogs. She knew something was up as apparently I'd gone white as a sheet.
Closer inspection revealed that when the previous occupants formed the driveway they left the existing pedestrian cover in place and covered it in the shingle. The customer was very relieved that it had collapsed under the land rover rather than her car as the small wheels on her car would have disappeared done the hole rather than straddling it like the land rover wheel.
What a fun time I had down there shovelling pebbles into a bucket and tipping them back onto the drive above my head. To really help matters it was an old chamber with an interceptor which had naturally also filled with pebbles so the wet vac came into action sucking the pebbles etc. out of the interceptor.
It was quite a pleasure to get out of there and set the new 10 ton cover in place on top. It then took me half an hour to clean everything up before I could start on the heating alterations. It seemed like I was down there for an eternity but it only took me 2 1/2 hours to sort it all out from when I first fell down the hole.
It all went wrong as I reversed into the driveway. I got in so far and ground to an abrupt halt. Something was very wrong. I tried to move forward and didn't move. Surely I hadn't? I gave it a bit more welly and shot forward. I got out and looked and I was right, the manhole cover had collapsed as I'd driven over it. This wouldn't have been so bad had it not been covered in 6" of shingle. I was standing looking at the 6' deep inspection chamber with a foot of beach and a shattered cover at the bottom of it when the customer returned with her two dogs. She knew something was up as apparently I'd gone white as a sheet.
Closer inspection revealed that when the previous occupants formed the driveway they left the existing pedestrian cover in place and covered it in the shingle. The customer was very relieved that it had collapsed under the land rover rather than her car as the small wheels on her car would have disappeared done the hole rather than straddling it like the land rover wheel.
What a fun time I had down there shovelling pebbles into a bucket and tipping them back onto the drive above my head. To really help matters it was an old chamber with an interceptor which had naturally also filled with pebbles so the wet vac came into action sucking the pebbles etc. out of the interceptor.
It was quite a pleasure to get out of there and set the new 10 ton cover in place on top. It then took me half an hour to clean everything up before I could start on the heating alterations. It seemed like I was down there for an eternity but it only took me 2 1/2 hours to sort it all out from when I first fell down the hole.
