Mission 'save the duck house' complete

It's safe to say life hasn't been exactly on the level over at Chez Duck.  The construction of a duck house is reasonably simple, it has a cavity which is generally stuffed with floating materials such as polystyrene.  Unfortunately over time this polystyrene begins to degrade and well, the ducks start to feel a bit off kilter.

When I brought the house in at the end of the summer for a paint and general clean I replaced the polystyrene with some I'd got at the back of the shed from a delivery.  This was probably a mistake - it was ill fitting and poor quality and ultimately led to it degrading a lot quicker than I'd expected and the house starting to sink.

With the realisation that 'shit, it's february and the ducks will be needed it to nest!' Kicking in the other night I knew I needed to get it in and fix it whilst the pond was defrosted and the weather not too bad.  I went to B&Q last night and picked up a pack of loft insulation, some heavy duty plastic sacks and a staple gun.  Here's how that went...


Phase one.  There is a false floor there with polystyrene inside.  It's probably knackered by now but getting in there involves dismantling the structure, so for today I'm going to cheat.  It's very dirty under there and I absolutely flicked all that shit all over me.


I've cut the new polystyrene and filled as much of the cavity as possible.  I've got three layers under there and still enough left to do it again.  At £19.99 its a very cheap, simple solution to the problem.


Last part.  Staple on the heavy duty sacks.  This wont stop the polystyrene from getting wet obviously, but it will keep it in place and more importantly stop it leaking out into the pond itself.



With that done, it's back in and floating.  You can see the line where the paint has worn away is now a good few inches higher than before.  Hopefully this should be good now until the end of the summer when it will come in for its annual clean and overhaul.  The ducks are thus far unimpressed with their new level abode, but they do have form for being more than a bit wary when anything changes.  Hopefully they will be starting to build this years nest in there soon!

Comments

  1. Caroline MFebruary 5, 2021 at 3:23 PM

    What a good job you made of that, it was well worth getting covered in poop for. Probably. It's not as if they will be grateful but it's made such a huge difference that you'll feel satisfied whenever you look at it.

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