Before Max arrived for the day, Peter and I worked on extending the mains water line that terminates annoyingly in the middle of the workshop area.

During the week I requested Linda to pop in to Reece's in Midland to pick up two 6m lengths of Hepworth piping and the associated joiners.

I assembled this and gingerly turned the mains water pressure back on. (we have had trouble with these bursting apart before - but it was caused on one occasion by attempting to reuse older fittings and on another occasion by the plumber not pushing the pipe all the way in to the fitting). We were then able to roll the pipe all the way out to the end of the garage area and in to the "garden" where a tap will eventually be installed.

Also during the week I had purchased 8m of 15mm white PVC piping to duct away the condensed water output on the airconditioning unit.(at the moment this has been steadily dripping in to the "workshop" area).

We will run this right next to some existing drainage pipe with the same inclination, right in to the drainage sump.

When Max arrived, I had three jobs for him:

1) Install and lay the 15mm pipe

2) Lay the Hepworth pipe

3) Install and lay the overflow storm water piping from the water tank to the sump

The first two jobs went relatively easily but then Max discovered that in order to lay the overflow pipe with the same gradient, alongside an existing ground drainage pipe - he had to chop through a fairly tough clay layer (about 10 cm thick).

Once he had done that he found that the existing drainage pipe was quite badly damaged (now I wonder how that happened ?).

Fortunately, we had plenty of spare drainage pipe and some joiners, so that was all quite do able.

Next week he will need to widen the trench he made, in order to cater for the new storm water pipe.