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Pointing

July 18, 2013 / stephen

After pointing the chimneys last week, we haven’t been able to do any more pointing. We have been hampered by the fine weather – if the weather is too hot, the pointing dries out too quickly, cracks and falls off. Not exactly what you want!

The front of the building is in the shade much of the day, so today we have made a start here. The rear of the building which is South facing is in direct sunlight for most of the day. We had been waiting for the current hot spell to come to an end but I suspect that we are going to have to put up some tarpaulins on the scaffold to get some shade.

After doing a couple of test panels we have decided to repoint the property using a traditional lime mortar rather than a cement based mortar.

Re-poininting the stone work makes a huge difference to the external appearance.

We are using a lime mortar to repoint the property. The front of the house can be repointed in this fine weather as it is in the shade for most of the day.

Upstairs floor installed

July 17, 2013 / stephen

Although there are no stairs, the upstairs floor has been installed and it is possible to have a wander around this space. It is amazing how different the building now feels with the floor put back in. The upstairs for some reason feels a whole lot bigger. It is certainly starting to look more like a house you could live in.

Who needs stairs when you have two ladders! This is Jo’s office looking down the hall way to the other bedrooms and the family bathroom.

This is the upstairs in number 8 and will be a bedroom and a family bathroom.

The floors have been put in upstairs. Still no stairs, but there is always a ladder!

Repairing the dry stone wall along Hagg Wood

July 16, 2013 / stephen

The dry stone wall in the orchard is all but finished and with the fine weather I have been looking out for a spot to work in out of the sun. The dry stone that runs along the edge of Hagg Wood is a perfect spot. It is also the other end of the property from where the builders are working. So it is pretty quiet and dust free.

I had forgotten how much quicker it is to repair rather than rebuild a dry stone wall. It only took me a couple of hours to get this 7m section of wall back into decent shape. The trick here is not to let the wall deteriorate to a point where it has to be rebuilt.

Most of the stone had simply fallen off the wall, so it was just lurking in the long grass and nettles. I did have to use a little bit of extra stone, but stone is not something that we are short of at the moment! You can see it in the photos as the slightly lighter colour due to the amount of dust clinging to the stone. It will soon blend in.

Before the repair

And after the repair….

Not exactly perfect, but better than it was. After all, dry stone walling is an abudance of imperfections.

Home automation: Requirements

July 16, 2013 / stephen

One of the things that we haven’t thought very much about yet is home autmation. Ironic really given my work background.

As always the starting point with this sort of project is a set of requirements. Let’s see if this list makes sense……

Lighting

Control of indoor and outdoor lighting including dimming
Timed e.g. outside lights might come on at dusk for 4 hours and then turn off
Preset “scenes” that might control multiple lights e.g. “Welcome” turns on the outside lights at the front, the porch lights and the hall lights, “Good night” that turns off all the internal lights
An “away” mode that simulates normal patterns of usage while on holidays or working away

Remote control

Ideally via a browser that would allow remote access
Web pages that could be integrated into other sites

Door bell

Programmable intercom that connects to mobile phone when in “away” mode

Gate control

Programmable intercom that connects to mobile phone when in “away” mode
Remote opening and closing of the gate via SMS

Remote viewing

Web access to remote camera

Heating/Hot water

Programming via browser
Zoned (temperature control and timed)
Remote control

Music

Zoned music
Moisture proof speakers in bathrooms

User programmable

Relatively easy to program
Does not require supplier to program the system

Networked

Cat 6 to be used throughout the build
No real requirement for a media server, although “connected devices” will be used
Private and guest wifi

More progress on the extension

July 15, 2013 / stephen

This is turning out to be a lot slower than anyone thought. This is largely due to every stone having to be cut to make sure that the depth of the stone allows for a cavity in the wall. There is blockwork on the inside, 100mm of insulation, an air cavity and then stonework on the outside. Each of the stones that makes up the external face of the extension has been cut using a Stihl saw – noisy and dusty work.

Today, the stone ashlar surround was installed. There are only a few courses left on two sides then the walls are completed. The rafters are installed. There is a large green oak beam to be installed (roughly where a thin batten has been fixed) and the holes need to be cut for the two rooflights. Then we are ready for the roofers to return.

Another view showing the new window and the newly installed roof timbers

We have used ashlar that we have salvaged from elsewhere on site to create the new door surround for the re-built extension.

The ashlar for this window was salvaged from the front of the property

Roof truss

July 15, 2013 / stephen

Although the floorboards are still to be laid upstairs, it is possible to get around on planks (as long as you are very careful).

From upstairs, it is much easier to see the roof detail in the king post trusses. The oak is pretty much as we found it. It has been lightly sandblasted to clean it up and a number of the purlins and one of the tie beams had to be replaced. But other than that (!), it is in good shape.

Once the insulation is installed between the rafters, then these will disappear from sight. However, you will still be able to see the truss and the purlins.

This is a drawing here showing the makeup of a king post truss as well as an interactive 3D image (courtesy of Microsoft Photosynth) here.

Inside number 9. You can see the King post truss and the tenon joints (with pegs) that join the purlins to the principal rafters.

Another view of the roof truss in number 9.

Photosynth of the upstairs of number 8

July 14, 2013 / stephen

Well, the floorboards haven’t gone in yet, but that hasn’t stopped me walking across some planks to get a view upstairs.

I have used Microsoft Photosynth to produce an interactive 3D panorama. Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t allow embedding of iFrames.

So here is the link

Kitchen and lounge floor plan

July 14, 2013 / stephen

With Phase 2 of the construction fast approaching, it is time to start sorting out the details of how the roof trusses and internal windows are going to work. Phase 2 is the building of an extension onto the existing property and will house the kitchen, lounge, master bedroom, two en suite bathrooms, a boot room and a utility room.

The roof line will be level, but because the ground rises up the inside ceiling height will decrease as you move through the extension. The kitchen is double height, the lounge one and a half height and the bedroom normal height. The roof trusses will be exposed as in the existing part of the property and there will be extensive use of roof lights.

The proposal is that the roof trusses will be made of oak and made in the same traditional way (tenon joints with oak pegs) rather than using any metal plates or straps. There has been some debate about the exact placement of the beams and how “open” the space should be between the kitchen and the lounge. We have opted for a semi-open approach with a large slot for a door way and another large opening behind the seating area. The very last 3D drawing in this blog attempts to illustrate this.

The existing cottages are on the left and the new extension with lounge and master bedroom are directly in front of us.

The kitchen and lounge (but not the hall) are all in the new extension that is being built as part of the Phase 2 construction.

Looking from the lounge into the kitchen. The feature wall in the far wall in the kitchen will be built using stone that we have salvaged from demolition work elsewhere on site.

Traditional king post roof truss

July 13, 2013 / stephen

The existing cottages have three original king post roof trusses that date back to the 1700’s. We have replaced the tie beam on the middle cottage and then replaced 6 purlins through the 3 cottages (2 were later replacements and 4 were cracked). We have used reclaimed oak with all the replacements to ensure that it matches the existing timbers.

In addition, we replaced around 50m of wall plate (this is timber that runs along the top of the wall and carries the ends of the rafters).

Other than that the existing oaks timbers were simply sandblasted to clean off the years of muck. They will be treated with a wood preserver later.

A traditional King Post roof truss. This is the configuration that we have in our property. There are three in the existing properties.

More progress on rebuilding the extension

July 13, 2013 / stephen

Despite the really hot weather over the last few days, the rebuilding of the extension is going well.

The back of every stone has been cut (using a Stihl saw) to ensure that there is a cavity between the outside wall and the internal insulation. This is a labourious and dusty job.

The rafters have now been installed. A large oak beam arrives next week which will support the rafters across the mid-section. This was originally going to be a steel beam that was going to be boxed in and plastered, but given that we haven’t done this anyway else on the property, we have changed this to an oak beam so that it fits in with everything else.

We have also decided to increase the size and number of rooflights in the extension. We have already double the size of the window that looks out onto the bottom field. Originally, this was a coal hole and simply putting back the same size windows would not have supplied enough light – particularly, when you consider how light the rest of the property is.

The roadside wall is now up to the right height.

The roadside wall is now full height and the rafters have been installed.

Hagg Leys Farm