Category: demolition (Page 2 of 3)

Outbuilding gone…….

June 5, 2013 / stephen

…..and the footings dug. We need the building inspector to give it the OK tomorrow and then the footings will be laid on Friday. Work will then start early next week rebuilding it, but this time with a proper cavity wall and a concrete slab floor (rather than flagstones laid directly onto the earth below). It will be great to start building things rather than just knocking them down! I can’t wait.

Walls removed and the footings dug ready for the concrete on Friday.

The walls now have been completely removed and the footings dug. Once the wall has been built up to ground level, the soil and debris from the centre will be used to backfill the rest of the trench.

Oops! We need to get this replaced, but we will reattach the plate to the wall once re-built as a temporary measure. It used to be against the wall along the road. When the wall was removed, so was this.

The stone from the outbuilding

Outbuilding almost gone

June 4, 2013 / stephen

Well, the weather has been fantastic and the builders have really made some progress taking the outbuilding down at the end of the building. With any luck the new footings and floor will be exacavated tomorrow. Within a few days, the rebuilding of this outbuilding will start. This will be a real turning point as we start to put the building back together.

It has only taken the builders two days to get this far in demolishing the outbuilding at the end of the property.

Outbuilding being demolished..

June 4, 2013 / stephen

…to then be rebuilt.

Unfortunately, this is a single skin building with flagstones that are laid directly onto the soil. As such, it is susceptible to damp and the only real solution is to take it down and rebuild it with a proper concrete floor and a cavity wall. From the outside, it will look very similar to the building as it currently is, but it will be of a solid modern construction. It will have been completely removed in the next two days.

At the end of day one, the roof has gone and the main roof timbers are exposed. Work has already started on removing the stone work. This is put onto pallets so they can be easily moved around the site.

This seems like a lot of trouble to go to for a quirky room on the end of the building, however, the 1788 map shows that this room was here back then. So we would like to keep it in place. Longer term, it is going to be my office space.

The roof has been removed and the stones blocks are being removed one at a time.

Clearing out the cottages

May 22, 2013 / stephen

HD9 Construction, the Phase 1 builders, have started to arrive. Some materials and a cement mixer are now stacked in the rear field.

The final bit of fencing has been removed from the rear garden. There was some old corrugated steel sheets leaning up against the fence, but that went to the scrapyard yesterday.

The gas log fire was removed yesterday as well. Although it uses a stainless steel flue, it would appear that the chimney was not swept before the gas fire was fitted. As a result, I got covered in soot when I removed the fire. I had a bit of a “sense of humour failure”. We will put the fire on Ebay in due course. It is better than putting it in the skip.

Later in the day, I went to see our neighbour to let her know that the building work is going to start next week. Top tip – look in the mirror after you have been removing a gas fire – it was covered in soot and I only realised when I got home at the end of the day. Goodness what our neighbour thought!

Dovre 500 gas log fire. It needs a bit of a clean before it goes on Ebay, but it has to be better than putting it in the skip.

The porch

May 19, 2013 / stephen

Ever since we have owned the property, we have wanted to get rid of the porch. It is a later (much later) addition and has never really fitted in with the rest of the property – white uPVC windows and Welsh slate on the roof doesn’t really help. We have resisted demolishing it until now as it will make the site look like a building site, but with the builders due to start next week, it is time for it to go!

The first job is to remove the gutters and the rainwater pipes to allow access to the roof. Then it is time for the plaster board inside the porch to be removed together with the polystyrene slabs of insulation inside the roof space.

The most difficult job is to remove the slates off the roof. The slates are pretty green and slippery, so climbing on the roof isn’t a great idea. So we removed the slates from the edge of the roof while standing on a set of ladders, then it was a case of climbing on the roof and working from right to left removing the slates as we go while standing on the battens. The slates were pretty damaged and with a small roof like this, there is little point in trying to save them – you might end up with a dozen or so good slates.

With the slates removed, the battens and the felt come off next. Then the underlying timbers are removed.

The double glazed units were a little more of a challenge since they were screwed together before the glass was put in. This means to take it apart requires removing the glass units first. Alternatively, you can prize the units apart and use an angle grinder to cut through the retaining screws.

Here’s the porch before being removed. The dates that we found on the double glazed units when demolitioning it stated that they were manufactured in 1999. I suspect that these were a later addition so this porch has been here for a while. I don’t really understand the two bricks at the base of the retaining wall (next to the steps).

The inside of the porch with the plasterboard ceiling removed. Various bits of polystrene had been put into the roof space to insulate it (in a bit of a half hearted sort of way).

Apparently, it isn’t fair to let an 80 year old climb on the roof. Oh well, I guess, I’ll have to do it. Jo’s dad looks on.

The slates, felt and timber removed. The lead flashing is still attached to the main wall. This will be removed to go to the scrapyard next week.

Slates, felt and timbers have now been removed from the roof of the porch leaving just the double glazed units.

Just the small retaining wall left with the rendering on the inside of the porch. This will get removed before the property is sand blasted.

Demolishing the lean-to: Day 4

May 12, 2013 / stephen

Almost there. The timber from the roof was cut up using a chainsaw and went on the bonfire (together with odd ends of timber left in the store room).

The brick partitions were demolished using a sledgehammer – we will use the bricks in the foundations of the dry stone wall in the orchard. We moved them using the pickup.

The brick partitions between the old toilet stalls still to be removed.

Just an odd few bricks left!

Demolishing the lean-to: Day 3

May 12, 2013 / stephen

Made some good progress today, despite the rain. It always helps with two of us working together.

All of the facing stones have been “robbed out”, cleaned of any mortar and neatly stacked for later use (whatever that might be!).

Easily removed using a tow rope tied to the pickup truck. We will use the chainsaw on this tomorrow.

Latterly these stalls had been used for storing coal, but original these were the outside toilets for the three cottages. There was a trap door at the back of the building and I can only imagine that this was used to “scoop” out the contents. Yuck!

These are all of the facing stones from the lean-to. The bricks we will use in the foundation of the dry stone wall in the orchard.

Demolishing the lean-to: Day 2

May 10, 2013 / stephen

The weather forecast today wasn’t brilliant. Unfortunately, it was accurate. It rained most of the morning, although that didn’t stop me from working outside until about lunchtime. However, by 2pm the rain had eased and the demolition work re-commenced- brick by brick, the lean-to was taken apart.

At the start of day 2

Almost removed all of the sandstone blocks. I have removed all of the mortar as I took the walls down. The stone has been stacked in the field for use elsewhere.

Demolishing the lean-to

May 9, 2013 / stephen

At the one end of the property is a lean-to. It houses an old store-room and three outside toilets – one for each of the cottages. Since numbers 9 and 10 were knocked together in the mid 1970’s, I can only assume that these toilets went out of use around then. Both of the remaining properties had inside bathrooms from this point.

We removed the stone slates from the roof when we re-roofed the outbuildings back in March (was it really that long ago?).

It is a single skin building constructed using sandstone blocks. These are now very weathered as is the mortar that holds them together. It is a fairly easy (if not time-consuming) job to take it apart – block by block – cleaning off the old mortar as I go. The stones are then put onto the pickup and stacked at the edge of the top field. I am not sure what we are going to do with this stone, but there is a small wall to be built as part of the garden. The stone is very soft and I suspect that it is only really usable in a garden wall.

The rain arrives about 2pm. I work on for a couple of hours and yesterday’s sunhat keeps off the rain today. There is probably a couple of more days here to completely demolish the lean-to and move all of the debris.

Still, not bad for day 1.

By standing on the back of the pickup it is possible to reach the top of the wall. The mortar is very weathered and it only takes a gentle tap to loosen each of the stones.

The lean-to is taken down stone-by-stone. Each of the stone is cleaned and then stacked in the back of the pickup.

The room with the blue barrel looks like it was used as a store room. There are three old toilet cubicles on the right. I suspect that these haven’t been used since the 1970’s. Most recently, it looks as if they have been used to store coal.

Rain stopped play about 4pm, but the lean-to is half demolished.

More stripping out

February 27, 2013 / stephen

After all the progress made previously, yesterday was a frustratingly slow day. It was really a day full of “tidying up loose ends”.

With no power to the gas boiler, it was time to drain the heating so that we can remove the radiators and associated pipework. There is a gas fake log fire in the kitchen and this still works so at least there is some heat. It does take long to drain the heating and, not surprisingly, the fluid is amazingly black.

Now the job is to remove the pipework from upstairs. The floor here is proper floorboards rather than chipboard like next door. It takes a bit longer to take the boards up and cut out the pipework. Some of this will be easier to remove when we take the ceiling down in underneath.

As we have removed all of the partitions upstairs, there is a lot timber that needs to got rid of. We tend to burn the wood frequently, otherwise the bonfire is just too big. While the fire is burning, I do some odd jobs around the place: removing one of the satellite dishes, taking down some of the old plastic waste pipes and removing disused wiring from the front of the building. All jobs that need to be done, but nothing that you can really look at at the end of the day and think “Wow, that is a job well done”. Ho hum. Maybe tomorrow will be different.