Below 265 SQ/FT Nobody’s tool storage, maintenance & recreation lair.

[captain14]

Another good project completed. Do you ever get water in the basement from that open stairwell? I see the floor drain at the bottom.

 

[Nobody-named-Olli]

Only when the backflow trap is shut because the mains is trying to push in and at the same time the stack/ gutter pipe to the rain collection tanks spills over because the tanks are full. Then that water, trying to drain through the staircase drain comes up inside.

It has happened but is fairly easily contained. And it needs days of relentless torrential rain for that to happen in first place. If we get one of those devastating “heavy/strong rain” downpours it can also happen, but again - it can be contained. The whole laundry room is basically one big sink (2k epoxy floor and 10 cm/ 4” high on the walls) and the drain there is the deepest point. I just put our pump directly over it, the hose goes into the middle of the garden … No problem.

Picture from 2020 after the laundry room remodel.



And here’s a link to an earlier post with the plan how it all connects: https://www.garagejournal.com/forum...e-recreation-lair.542090/page-6#post-11638407

Kind regards,
Olli

 

[Nobody-named-Olli]

#FirstVictimOfTheHeatWaveOnTheDissectionTable



I left a bit of garden hose out of the Vevor automatic hose reel and just leaned the watering wand to the shed. Apparently it got hit by a lot of sun in a fairly small area. Went to watering the garden yesterday and the hose puffed up like a European Adder/ Common Viper giving its last warning before striking …

Since I wanted to finish, I just cut it off. But for the sake of this post, quickly grabbed two couplings today and put it under pressure. (One coupling is a water-stop coupling.)





Since I feel always playful with stuff like that, I wanted to know if my suspicion of a delaminated hose and water in-between the two layers was correct. It was.



And before blaming Vevor/ the Chinese manufacturer: I’ve had a Gardena hose do the same, multiple times, just through warmth - no direct exposure - and directly behind the coupling, the hose would swell. Happened multiple times, every time I cut it, it happened again. Gardena replaced that hose under warranty. Even found one of the pictures:



If this happens again on this one - just by warmth with no exposure to sun light - I will contact Vevor about it as well.

Kind regards,
Olli

 

[Krfjkm]

Thank you very much @Krfjkm !

Did you also live in Frankfurt/ Germany for some time?

Kind regards,
Olli

No sir- was on an Army base and my parents headed back when I was 6 months old.

 

[zanyad]

And I do think it came in bags like this.
(removed photo)
I did reach out to that company in hopes of learning if it a) was this material and b) what properties it had and so on, but I haven’t heard anything back from them. I guess they don’t have the time to do an archive deep dive - if it even still exists - as they have been sold/bought and are setup differently nowadays.

Is that common in Germany, that a company would have records that far back and be willing to look it up?

 

[Nobody-named-Olli]

Is that common in Germany, that a company would have records that far back and be willing to look it up?

Most companies I have dealt with in that regard are very aware of their history/heritage and do keep records/ have an archive. If they’re willing to dig it out depends entirely on who reads your e-mail/ how their day had been going so far. Some do, others reply “sorry …” and some just ”ghost” you.

But generally, if it’s just basic information about an old/ discontinued product most will send a useful reply.

In this instance, it’s actually a company from Belgium and as I have written, they did change ownership and as far as I can tell do not offer “bagged“ materials anymore - so it was a long shot. And the only contact information I had was for the director of the plant. Who knows, a reply might still come - or not. It’s not that important, would just have been fun …

However, in today’s world, they might even consider it a liability depending on the ingredients of that material and just pretend they have never seen my e-mail.

On the other hand, the manufacturer of a very old, solar powered, twin pole electrical tester send me the manual within hours of my inquiry.

The company that I did work for some time had 3 or 4 basement rooms dedicated to archival purposes, including equipment to view/process outdated data/ pictures and drawings/ microfilm and all that.

And others also go miles & miles to keep records viewable/usable.

But there is no denying that with the people who actually created the ”products” retiring and not enough time to transfer knowledge, these archives slowly become cemeteries because even if information is there, people just don’t know about it/ where to look for it because the project names i.e. mean nothing to them as they have never seen anything of it in real life.

Personally I can nerd/ geek out about stuff like this and that is why I do sometimes inquire with manufacturers. And for the most part it’s about 80 to 85% successful in retrieving information.

In this case, it was funny to find remains of a product produced in & sourced from Belgium so long ago because of my very personal, deeply rooted connection to that wonderful country.

And it would have made another interesting paragraph for this thread.

Kind regards,
Olli