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.
Work started this morning on putting the roof back on the existing building. By the end of the day all of the roofing felt and lathes will be on the building. This is a milestone since from this point onwards the building is no longer completely open to the elements.
It will take 7-10 days to get the roof completely finished, assuming there aren’t any problems.
You can also see the two rebuilt chimneys that now match – before the chimney on the left was smaller, rendered and had no string course. The chimneys, as the rest of the external masonry, has been sandblasted over the last weekend.
The two chimneys have been rebuilt and sandblasted. So too has the rear of the property. The felt and lathes are going on first to be followed by the stone slates.
End of day 1 on the roof and the felt and lathes have been installed. This means that the worst of the weather will be kept out. There is still a chance that rain may come through some of the window openings, but fingers crossed the weather shouldn’t be too bad for the next couple of weeks.
The “felt” is actually a green coloured plastic. It feels a little bit like a tent wit only the felt and lathes on the roof. With the green felt on the roof, there is a green tinge to the light everywhere.
Well, 7:30pm on Sunday evening and it is all done. Front, back, chimneys, timbers, and 3 fireplaces. It took around 45 bags of sand (each 25kgs) to complete the work. That’s a lot of sand, but I will leave you to do the maths!
It now looks superb, but it isn’t something that I would want to do every weekend!
All the window reveals were cleaned of as much mastic as possible and then cleaned so that the windows can be installed. The old windows were not set equally – some were further out than others – we will fix this issue when fitting the new ones. This is why all the window reveals needed to be cleaned.
The newly rebuilt chimneys were also sandblasted. Dragging all the tubes around isn’t easy work, but it only took 30-40 minutes to sandblast the chimneys. They do look superb.
I will post pictures of sandblasted timber and fireplaces later.
Working left to right, the front of the property is sandblasted.
The stone surround on the doorway to number 8 was painted. This doesn’t last long when sandblasted.
Sandblasting the second chimney was a little easier as the scaffolding was still in place around it.
Two sides of the new chimney have been sandblasted. The stone was salvaged from the old porch.
It is going to take a couple of days to sandblast the outside of the property, the fireplaces (x3) and the oak trusses and purlins in the roof. This work is being done at the weekend, so that it doesn’t interrupt any of the building work – no one can really work on site while the sandblasting is going on due to the noise and dust.
Proceedings didn’t start until just after lunch, but by 4:30pm the rear and one side of the property had been cleaned including one of the fireplaces. The idea is to gently lighten the stone and remove some of the black grime and soot that has built up over the last couple of hundred years. This dark outer layer keeps moisture out, so once the stone has been cleaned, it will need to be treated with a sealant.
The stonework to the right has been lightly sandblasted to take some of the black soot and grime off the old stonework. Ironically, it is the grime that makes the stone waterproof, so once it has been sandblasted the stone will be treated with a sealant.
This is not a job for the faint hearted
Yup, he is still there under that plume of sand. It took about 30 – 40 minutes to sandblast the rear of the property once all of the kit was set up.
The rear of the property has been completely sandblasted. Tomorrow, it will be the chimneys, the front, the fireplaces and the oak roof trusses.
Unfortunately, the roof lights specified in the drawings are not going to fit – they are just too big for the opening. We have managed to located an alternative supplier who can provide slightly smaller roof lights. These are a standard size, so fingers crossed there should be no problems with availability.
There was a slight issue with roof lights as the size specify by the architect was too big to fit. Slight recalculation and a slightly smaller size has been identified. The rafters have now been cut to fit the new size roof lights. These will be the roof lights into Jo’s office.
Using the stone from the old porch, the first of the chimneys has been rebuilt. It has a string course made from an old flagstone. The intention is that the string course will throw water clear from the base of the chimney. Work is now commencing on rebuilding the second chimney. This will match the first one.
Using the stone from the porch, the chimney between number 10 and number 9 has been rebuilt. An old flagstone was cut to make up the string course.
The first chimney is rebuilt and work is starting on the second one. Andy is putting one of the purlins back in.
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