just go and buy one !!
a few years back a mate of mine and his wife were house hunting, they were a newly married couple in their early 20's both with very very good jobs and they had been looking for the perfect place (they were living with his parents so took their time) and one weekend, they believed they had found it.

a couple of nights after they viewed it they came round and i asked how it went they both looked at each other and cracked up "oh dear.. not good then" says i, and my mate replied "no we like it but it needs some work... something maybe you can help me with" i was greatly confused by this but my mate insisted that he tell me no more because if they get the place it would be easier to just look instead of trying to explain it,

anyway a couple of months of the process pass and they get the place and come to move in, being the ever helpful mate i am im there to help with lifting and sorting, and get my first look in the house.. apparently the guy who lived there before fancied himself as a bit of an inventor (wife left him because of it which is why he sold up) there was examples of his (mostly broken) work... like what i can only imagine to be some kind of automatic sink filler, or the modification to allow the carbon monoxide alarm to shut off the gas to the very black looking boiler (that was changed before they moved in)

But by far the best candidate for the story had to be the home built multi room air conditioning, this consisted of 6 inch orange drainage pipe (the same stuff that takes the waste from your toilet) basically run through the walls in a straight line from one end of the house to the other both upstairs and down stairs, where it needed to pass through a wall, he just drilled it, the pipes then had holes drilled in them roughly every half metre then both these bits of pipe were linked with various t pieces and flexable hose to a large wooden box stood next to the airing cupboard (little cupboard with the hot water tank in for you non brits) this box stood about 4 ft high, and was about 2 ft square and screwed shut... we got it open and found the heart of the system, this consisted of 3 car electric fans arranged one under the other at the bottom, these dragged air from holes in the bottom of the wooden box and blew it through 2 car radiators and up into a cowling that covered the whole lot, to which the pipes were connected, the radiators were fed from the hotwater supply (hence the box being next to the tank cupboard) which was in turn electrically heated but also there were valves in the pipework to allow cold water to run through the radiators to provide cooling in the summer

To be fair to the guy from the point of view of someone with computer/electronics and control systems backround he had done a nice job of setting up the electronics, and the wiring was very neat and tidy... all the valve and temp control was automatic, just like normal central heating systems it had a room thermostat in the hall way with fan speed controllers and all

but it was an eyesore, in some places the pipes had been painted in with the room (but not primed so it was flaking off) and in others like the kitchen it was un painted and just... orange

i did my job which was to sort the electrics and plumbing out, then it took us 3 days to rip all the pipework out and fill up all the holes and mess... this was pre digi cam days otherwise there would deffo have been pics of this..

apologies for length and most probably being completely bored
(maxumus HEY!.... diddly dee, de de de de de de, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 16:10, 1 reply)

Shame about the pre digi cam days
Would have loved to see pics of this.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Mon 7 Apr 2008, 19:29, closed)