Just a bit of pointing left to do around the ridge tiles and a bit of tidying up, but the roof is all but complete. And it only took six working days (and one of those was wet!). Pretty good going.
Once the re-built chimneys are pointed, the top half of the scaffolding will start to be dismantled.
Just a bit of tidying up to do in the morning.
All of the timber for the first floor was removed when we gutted the property. The existing timbers were either rotten, had holes cut in them all over, or were just bent. This meant that the existing first floor undulated, particularly in number 8. We took the decision early on to replace all the timber.
The timber for the new first floor arrived today. There are 6 green oak beams that make up the first floor. Two beams in each cottage. These beams are very heavy.
Then there are joists that run from the beams to the walls. The floor deck is tongue and groove chipboard.
Made from green oak. These beams are seriously heavy!
The chimney breast in number 10 was artexed. I didn’t know why until I removed the artex – there was big crack running through the stone mantel from front to back.
The only real option was to replace it. Luckily the builders managed to locate a similar stone mantel. Holes were knocked into the chimney stack above the stone. The chimney stack was then propped up while the stone was removed and replaced with the salvaged one. It was quite quick and a good job to do while the weather was poor.
Once the sand and cement was set, the props were removed and the holes in the chimney stack were bricked up.
The fireplace mantel in number 10 was cracked and had to be replaced. There is a prop placed remporarily underneath the fireplace to ensure that it doesn’t go anywhere.
The stone mantel came from the Sycamore pub when it was refurbished.
There are three fireplaces in the existing cottages. Two of the fireplaces use the same chimney stack, so there are only two re-built chimney stacks for three fireplaces.
The chimneys were swept first and a significant amount of soot was removed (even though all of the existing fireplaces were gas when we moved in). Next the chimney pot goes on the flagstone that was installed on the top of the chimney – 8 inch holes were cut in the flagstones to accept the flue. Once the sand and cement had set, the flue was pushed down the chimney. There is a metal cowl on the top. This stops water and birds getting into the top of the chimney. They don’t look particularly attractive (they are made of shiny metal), but they were lightly sprayed with black paint.
We could have used a “T” shaped clay pot, but opted for a straight pot with a cowl.
We have opted for straight clay pots rather than the “T” shaped pots
We have installed three 7 inch stainless steel flue in each of the existing fireplaces
We have had an excavator on site for the past couple of days and it seemed like a great opportunity to remove a tree stump in the top field. It has been a nuisance when mowing the top field, particularly when the grass is long (and I mean long – sort of knee-length!) as you can’t see the damn thing. Hitting it with the mower, or the tractor, isn’t fun.
A 2.5 tonne excavator won’t pull the stump out of the ground in one go, but what it will allow you to do is to dig around it. You can then dig out the roots as you go and eventually the stump will give up. It can be a bit unnerving as the roots do wrestle a bit with the excavator. Eventually though, the excavator wins.
The trick is to dig around the stump and eventually it will come free
This stump has been a real pain when mowing the top field
It isn’t pretty, but the tree stump has now been removed
Close of play on Friday and the rear of the roof is complete. It will take another couple of days to complete the front, put the ridge tiles back on and complete the lead work around the chimney.
We have also put flagstones on the top of each of the new chimneys. They have 8 inch holes cut in them for the new flue liners and chimney pots. These are being installed on Saturday morning.
The rear of the roof is now complete.
I spent most of today using an excavator to clear the bottom corner of the orchard. This had been behind one of the large timber sheds and there had been a build-up of debris over the year. This combined with the old tree stumps and associated roots made it too hard to clear by hand. I have touched any of the wall or the shrubs that adjoin the road, but I have cleared the land.
Unfortunately, one of the hydraulic pipes on the excavator burst and had to be repaired and this meant that I lost 3 hours out of the day. Still, I think half a day was enough to have cleared this part of the orchard. I have never driven an excavator before so this was a real voyage of discovery. Many thanks to Richard Battye at HD9 Construction who showed me how to use it!
The next step is to sift through all of the debris that is now piled up. The soil will be spread onto the various “dips” around the property. The stones will be used to rebuild the walls and the stumps will be put on the bonfire.
This is what the corner of the orchard looked like before it met with the machine!
There was only just enough room to swing the bucket here, but this machine made quick work of removing the old tree stumps.
The main objective here was to remove the old roots and tree stumps from this corner of the orchard.
It looks a bit of a mess, but all of the roots and stumps have gone. The soil has been loosened up and it is a case of sorting out what is left.
We are making good progress this week with both the roof and rebuilding the extension.
While the weather has been good, attention has been turned to rebuilding the extension. We can’t progress with the pointing until we have had the go ahead from the architect on the choice of materials. We have completed a test panel for approval using Nosterfield River sand and hydraulic lime, but this needs a little bit of time to dry out so we can see the true colour.
It could a couple of days to completely felt and lathe the roof. However, today work started on relaying the slates. Five courses are on at the rear of the house. Slightly less at the front, due to the rooflights having to be fitted as well. We have had to buy some additional slates to make up for the ones that were damaged or too aged to be reused.
Concrete blockwork on the inside then 100mm insulation and finally the original gritstone on the outside. Once it is finihsed, we will get it sandblasted to match the main property.
This is the view of the front of the roof with the two rooflights. We are waiting for some lead before the slates can be fitted underneath each of the rooflights.
We had to change the size of the rooflights so that they would sit between the purlins underneath. These are conservation windows from a company called Fakro (did you guess?). They are pine on the inside, but will be painted to match the ceiling colour.
Five courses of slates on the back of the roof and the two re-built chimneys. This is day 3 for putting the roof back on.
With the roofers putting the roof back together, this has given the builders the opportunity to start rebuilding the extension. This had to be re-built as it was a single skin building with a flagstone floor that had been laid directly onto the soil below. There is little that could be done with this part of the building other than to rebuild it as it should have been built in the first place.
We have put in a new concrete floor (and damp proof membrane) and new foundations. From the outside, the extension will look the same as it did before, but with a cavity wall (and insulation). We are even going to put the old coal hole back.
Once the extension has been rebuilt, we will need to get the sandblaster back to lighten up the exterior stone otherwise the extension will not fit the rest of the building.
The first few courses and the keystones going in on the re-built extension.
We have decided to install hardwood timber windows, although they are more expensive than uPVC (and they don’t last as long) they are in keeping for this type of property. The wood is going to be painted and we were quite keen to avoid white and use one of the heritage colours. Originally, we though about a cream colour, but then saw a number of properties with a sort of grey/green colour.
We found a tester pot for Crown paints for a colour called Box Tree. However, it is only available in a gloss finish and we want a satin finish to the paint.
The folks at Crown suggested their Sandolin Superdec range and via the folks making the windows, acquired a colour chart. There was an obvious match and one of the things we thought we should do was to paint one of the old windows in the new colour. Now the property had been sandblasted, we could double-check the colour. The hardwood windows are being supplied ready painted so we need to get this right.
I went to the local Crown paint centre in Huddersfield to get a tin of the chosen colour. However, when I got there and looked at some samples, the colour chart seemed to bear very little resemblance to the actual paint colour. A quick re-think and I walked out with two tins of paint that more closely matched the colour. Having now painted a couple of the old windows in the new colours, it would appear that our chosen paint is “Jungle Green”. I have checked it against our original paint card (using the Box Tree tester) and it is a good match.
Just goes to show that you shouldn’t rely on the colours on a colour chart!
Two colour swatches on a piece of sandblasted oak beam.
The chosen colour is the window on the right.
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