Warmbrook Waterfall

 Last night, our current guest sent me a video of the local waterwall during heavy rain. I popped over to visit straight away, but by then the heavy rain had ceased and there was no waterfall.

This clip shows how useful photo's and video can be for us to help out our guests when they let us know there's an issue. The cottage is part of a small terrace of three cottages with a shared gutter system. A blockage in one part can effect others. Weather permitting, I'll pop over with the gutter vacuum system today to clean our gutters and the neighbouring ones. We have a 3.6 kW Predator with 32ft (10 metres) of poles to do that job safely with the busy road (B5023) outside of the cottages. Ladders are difficult due to the slope of the road and the danger from traffic. 

We purchased the system to deal with the gutters on our own Georgian house whose gutters regularly fill with autumn leaves and pine needles from nearby trees. We have a busy road outside, with sloping paths at the back of the property, which means ladders are best avoided. Some of the gutters are difficult to reach safely via ladders. We also have a pole camera system to allow us to inspect the gutters, before and after cleaning, from the ground. We found that it can be difficult to quickly obtain the services of a gutter cleaning company at short notice during stormy periods in the Autumn. We've used our system to maintain the gutters on a council owned local community centre situated on the edge of woodland.

Here, the morning following the "Waterfall", I was busy cleaning the gutters for the entire block of three terraced cottages, about 30 metres of gutter. The work took about two hours including setting up, vacuuming and then cleaning up after. Before starting work vacuuming, I took a video of the gutters. It turns out there were no blockages on our section of the gutter, but there were two in the neighbours' gutter system. The blockage was mostly cement debris from the roof tilings,some decaying leaves and a couple of rooted weed patches. Outside on the roadside pavement I'd laid out five traffic cones at the road edge to warn drivers of work in progress. During thirty minutes of working that section, two of the warning cones were knocked over by road traffic, but generally most drivers were considerate. I hate to think of what might have happened if I had been on an unprotected ladder.

Edit 2nd Nov 22

We've had heavy rain again this evening, and there are no reports of "waterfalls".

Dogs on holiday

 One of the advantages of our cottage is that guests can bring their pet with them. It avoids the cost of boarding your dog whilst you are away from home. This greatly reduces the stress on the animal of staying with strangers in a strange place while owners have deserted it. Your dogs are not exposed to disease/injury from other dogs at the kennels/home. 

How's your dog when you are on holiday?

Most pets are well behaved and don't cause any significant problems. We have extra work during turn around cleaning at the end of the rental, but that tends not to be a major issue, so we don't charge extra on the rental fees for an accompanying pet.

There have been problems in the past:

• A dog trader from Ireland rented the cottage and used it as a base to sell dogs to people in the region. We didn't find out immediately, but when we did he was immediately banned from any further rental.
• At one time this dog trader brought a dog cage into the kitchen to stop the dog causing damage when left alone, but rust engrained itself into the kitchen floor tiles. We had to use hyrochloric acid to remove that stain.
• There's been several "accidents" when dogs went to toilet inside the house. In this case, guests always clean up, but sometimes they are not successful and we have to take action to fix the stain  before the next guest arrive. On one notable occasion we had to have carpet professionally cleaned to remove the stain just a few weeks after an earlier cleaning..
• One dog brought a flea infestation to our cottage. The fleas migrated to the carpet and we discovered flea bites on our ankles after cleaning the cottage. Fortunately there hadn't been a follow-on guest that week, so we immediately returned and treated the house with insecticide and UV-C light. Checking a few days later showed no flea further activity, but we recleaned all of the carpets. 
• We were showing a new set of guests around the cottage at the start of the rental and their labrador dog lifted his leg inside the cottage and pee'd on the settee leg in front of me. They'd travelled a long distance to get to the cottage and hadn't taken their dog for a relief walk on arrival. We always have appropriate biocide/deodouriser and cleaning cloths on hand, so I was able to clean up without a fuss.
• One set of guests left a pile of dog poo on the carpet in the bedroom to greet us after their departure.
• Some guests have not bother to clean dog mess from the garden, so that is on our checklist.
• We've had a few guests shower their pets in the bathroom shower cubicle. We can always tell when this has happened as the shower drain gets clogged with a clot of dog hair.
• Some guests have used our expensive fluffy white cotton bath towels to dry off their muddy dogs. We leave dog towels in the pet cupboard in the kitchen for that purpose. In one case they returned the towels folded to the linen cupboard without laundry.
• We've had furniture chewed, door paint scratched by anxious dogs left alone in the house by the guests.

Our latest excitement is a Houdini dog. We have a fence around the garden, but she is really good at escape. As we find the escape routes we take action to close them. Most recently the bitch has found that by climbing a four foot drystone wall, she can wriggle through a bush onto the higher level garden. There's free range chickens that she likes to investigate.  Today I'm awaiting delivery of a roll of 6 foot high wire mesh fencing. We'll not be beaten!

Weeding the back yard

 Our guests expect the back yard of the cottage to be tidy on arrival. The garden and yard soon become covered with stray grass and weeds during the summer period. The brick surface of the yard has small gaps between the bricks. These gaps become filled with soil in which weeds can take root.  Weeding by hand takes a couple of hours, and during changeover between guests we don't have the time to undertake weeding. So I make use of a paraffin fuelled flame gun. This burns off the weeds in approximately 15 minutes for both the garden and the back yard.

It needs careful preparation to ensure that the gun is operating safely and that it does not melt/ignite fencing and garden pots. The visible flame is about 60cm long and is pretty ferocious. In the above picture you can see the grass/weeds growing in the yard of the adjoining cottage. The owner is quite old and lives about 100 miles away so his yard tends to be neglected. I help him by occasionally killing the weeds in his area too. 

This is what the yard looks like after the work is done: 

I'd noticed that the hedge of another adjoining property was overgrown and projecting into our garden, making it difficult to follow the path and steps. A flame gun is no use with the hedge, so I also brought my petrol powered  long reach hedge cutter to the game during this visit.

This shows the path/steps before I tidied:

This is after cutting the hedge:

And, this is after the final hedge tidy and weed burn off:

It was a good job that I'd finished the work promptly because our next set of guests turned up five hours early asking to get access to the cottage. Fortunately, this time, I was able to oblige.

The cost of smokers in the holiday cottage

Our holiday cottage has been closed to guests since March 2020 as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. It's a gap of four months during which there's been no heating running and no other electric machinery or lights. The latest power bill has arrived showing no reduction in cost.

Back at the end of 2019 and through January 2020 we had a pair of guests stay who were heavy smokers who largely ignored the "no smoking" rule inside the cottage. The costs of remediating this are described elsewhere, but during their stay we had three occasions to visit the home during the stay. On each occasion we noticed the heating was on full blast but the windows and the back door was also wide open, even though it was the middle of winter. Their efforts to attempt to hide their smoking inside the cottage have cost us dearly in terms of additional power usage, in effect the equivalent to four month's worth of additional usage. Using the average cost per week of power (£14.77) this amounts to a figure in the region of £250.

Using a UV Lamp for Covid-19 Sterilisation in Self-Catering Holiday Home

We've just placed an order for some Ultraviolet (UV-C) dosimeter labels. It took a lot of research to find the best labels for the job. These labels progressively and consistently change colour according to the amount of Ultraviolet light  (UV-C) exposure. After some dosage calibration using our UV-C meter and lamp we'll be able to easily assess whether the correct dose of ultraviolet light has been given to kill off the Covid-19 virus in the rooms of our holiday cottage.

We'll take a photo of the exposed label after room treatment to record that a suitable dose of UV-C light has been given during the cleaning process. This photo will be incorporated in the formal documentation of the cleaning process. Whilst this label adds slightly to the cost of the process, it will add comfort to guests' concerns about cleaning and will give evidence of good processes in the unlikely event of a dispute.

In our case, testing shows that in terms of effective destruction of virus and bacteria, an exposed light green label (centre of third row in the picture) is a reasonable indicator of 99.99% inactivation/destruction (40 mJ/Sq Cm). Some types of coronavirus take far less exposure to UV-C. Do remember that some computer displays render colours differently. For our purposes we print comparison samples on colour printers using a CMYK colour scheme.

There is also a Health and Safety aspect of limiting the exposure which we discuss here. Using the dosimeter labels can help avoid excessive doses, but good procedures, correct PPE and supporting usage of a UV-C meter is more reliable. Any member of our team not equipped with full PPE will be provided with a UV-C dosimeter badge to wear when the UV-lamp is in operation. In terms of the above labels picture, we regard the second label in the second row as a maximum permitted dose, though in practice we avoid any direct exposure to UV-C.

We can also offer help and advice to other owners of cottages in the locality.

Edit 4th Aug 2020:

Yesterday we found a flyer pushed through the front door of the cottage from a company offering cleaning of premises to give a safe environment. It is the same company who advocate using agricultural biocides for fogging the interior of premises. These chemicals are designated for fumigating barns and cattle sheds.  We don't think we'll be using their services.

Improved cleaning in the holiday cottage

We're planning to reopen the self-catering holiday cottage in September 2020 if the Covid-19 situation permits. We'll need to be able to quickly clean the cottage during turnround between guests. We've already purchased an ultraviolet lamp for general room sterilization, but we also need to have a method to clean surfaces as an integral part of the safety processes.

Those involved in the cleaning work will need to wear protective personal equipment, such as disposable gloves, mask and disposable apron when undertaking the cleaning. So the process we've decided to follow is to first irradiate a room with Ultraviolet-C light for 15 minutes. This will destroy any airborne or surface laying virus particles. We'll then move the UV-C lamp to another room, while  using high pressure superheated steam to clean high touch hard surfaces and soft furnishings in the first room. This sequence will be followed through each room in the cottage.

Dupray Steam cleaner

We'll be using a Dupray steam cleaning kit to undertake the superheated steam cleaning, thus avoiding the use of biocide chemicals for sterilization. Our guests will not have to be exposed to residual chemicals during their stay. It also means that staff engaged in the cleaning process are not exposed to breathing in biocide mists from fogging machines or hand sprays. Whilst the biocides are believed to be harmless at proper dilution, the concentrates are harmful and potentially toxic. The World Health Organisation advises against fogging machines in domestic environments owing to the associated health risks from the chemicals.

The superheated steam cleaning method is also effective at cleaning greasy kitchen areas. The Dupray unit produces "dry" steam at a pressure of 4.5 Bar (65 psi) heated to 160 deg C (320 F).  This is additional expensive equipment for cleaning, there is also an increase in the amount of labour needed to undertake the cleaning work. To recover the capital costs and increased labour, it will necessitate increased rental prices (approximately £60 per guest turnaround to meet Sykes requirements) for our guests, but better to be safe than sorry.

The Dupray unit can be run using soft tap water, but to avoid calcium/magnesium deposits in the unit boiler we'll be using deionised water. There is a company called Spotless Water who've set up "filling stations" across the UK to supply window cleaning companies. Apart from your travel costs their water costs around 5p per litre.

We'll be asking guests to strip bedding at the end of their stay and to seal it in large plastic bin bags as part of the hygiene processes. The duvets (comforters) and pillows will be swapped out on a rotational basis at each turnround, allowing at least a week before reuse. During storage we'll treat the duvets with UV-C light irradiation. Mattresses and seat cushions will be treated with UV-C light or steam as appropriate. This process will have the side benefit of destroying any bed mites.

Paper or cardboard items which may have been handled by guests such as books, kitchen towels, will be disposed of, or swapped out as appropriate. Crockery, glassware and cutlery will be soaked in bleach water and rewashed before return to the newly steam sterilised kitchen cupboards/drawers. Saucepans will be heat sterilized. Bins will be emptied and steam sterilised, with any rubbish awaiting collection sealed in new bin bags.

Waiting to decorate the place

Our holiday cottage is due some renovation to the exterior paint work, and the interior could do with some freshening as well. I'd planned to undertake the work over the winter, but my NHS Lottery ticket came up in the shape of a cataract operation to restore my failing eyesight. The advice was to rest totally for the first month after the operation then nothing too strenuous over the next six months. So I had to put the decorating work on hold over winter. We also need to have a dry spell, not too cold overnight, so that the paint is given time to cure, but not too long, so that the layer of paint chemically bond.
  

I'd set some time aside to do this painting work a few weeks back, but just as I was gathering the equipment I had a text message from some unexpected guests telling me they arrive in 30 minutes. More on this story here. The last few weeks have been too cold for the paint to work properly, but finally we have a warm spell with no rain for a few days. Ironically we have some Easter guests in the cottage, so I don't want to disturb their peace. It is not a task that can be split over separate weeks.

Previously the external paint works had been done by our helpful handyman (not me), but he's not a decorator. The results were good, but the external stuff hasn't lasted well. When he went with my wife to choose the paints they chose external quality acrylic paint for the woodwork. It is easy to apply, but it just doesn't seem to last as well as solvent/oil based paints. I'm a traditionalist, and I've maintained sea water dinghies for a sea scout troop. I've found that marine yacht paint seems to last a lot longer than other paints. It is a bit more difficult to apply and get good results, but it does resist bad weather better without so much cracking and peeling. 

For the woodwork, I've purchased: 

• Teamac Marine Undercoat;
• Teamac Marine Topcoat gloss;
• Teamac Thinner 14

The lower wall on the street side of the building are a different matter. A couple of years ago on the advice of the adjoining building owner I repainted the brickwork with a cheap tile paint from Wilco's. The reasoning was it would match his place and colour scheme in the Conservation area. The paint has not weathered well and is flaking quite badly. It also suffers from roadsplash and salt from the winter road de-icing. The walls are also quite porous and allow the rain/damp through to the detriment of the plaster inside the lounge.  For the outer wall, I decided to invest in some good quality exterior wall renovation paint. I'll use a chemical stripper to clean off the masonry first, then several coats to properly protect the surface.

For the wall, I've purchased:

• Mathys Pegafix - Impregnation Primer;
• Mathys Murfill Renovation Paint

I'm just hoping I've got the colours of the paint right.  It looked good on my PC screen when I ordered the paints late at night, but they do look a bit garish in the can.  I've since purchased a proper paint colour swatch book for the colour schemes used by these paint suppliers. If the local authority moans I can always apply another coat of paint to tone down the colours.