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Great Grandma’s cherry tree

April 22, 2013 / stephen

While we were working down the farm today, a young girl and her boyfriend turned up. They were probably in the late teens. Apparently, her grandmother used to live here (in number 10) and her great grandmother lived in number 8.

She said she was passing and wanted to stop-by as her great grandmother’s ashes (and her great grandfather’s) are buried underneath a cherry tree in the orchard.

Yikes!

That’ll be the cherry tree that got damaged when a skip was delivered a few months ago and we had to cut it down (to be fair it wasn’t big). It also explains the “cement dust” that seemed to be around the base. Oh no!

She didn’t seem to be particularly phased by the situation and was pleased to have had the opportunity to stop by.

When we get time, we will plant a new cherry tree in the orchard.

Preparing the ground for the polytunnel

April 22, 2013 / stephen

We are going to install a polytunnel just behind the outbuilding – where the old chicken shed used to be. It was Jo’s Christmas present last year, but we haven’t had the time to put it up. With the outbuilding now re-roofed, and most of the stripping out complete in the cottages, it is time to put the poly tunnel up. I have never done this before, but how difficult can it be!

The polytunnel is 8ft x 20ft – it is exactly the same size as the chicken shed that it is replacing. From what I can understand, the polytunnel should not be placed in direct sunlight (they simply get too hot) and have some protection from the elements (so having some protection from the wind). In which case, the site of the old chicken shed makes a lot of sense. It is also close to the house, but out of the way of any building work. I also purchased a polytunnel that could be moved – rather than the sides of the polytunnel being buried in a trench (to keep the sides down), this version has wooden boards attached to the bottom of the side sheeting. So if it is in the wrong place, it can all be moved. Let’s hope it isn’t!

The polytunnel was purchased from First Tunnels (www.firsttunnels.co.uk). The site contains full sets of instructions and videos on how to construct and site your polytunnel and this looks like the right place to start.

Just in case you don’t know what a polytunnel looks like!

The first job is to dig over the ground underneath the old chicken shed. It is fairly compact and has a fair amount of debris covering it. I did consider hiring a rotivator, but thought the ground might be just too compacted.

It took all day on Sunday to turnover the ground. It was hard work. I haven’t attempted to level the ground yet, just turned the soil over.

This is the site of the old chicken shed, just behind the re-roofed outbuilding. The large slab in the front of the camera is the step into the chicken shed. We will reuse this with the polytunnel.

Digging over this patch of land is hard work – by hand!

The ground is now dug over (removing any large stones and debris), but it needs to be levelled next.

Another view of the ground all turned over and ready to be levelled. The back wall on the outbuilding is now starting to dry out since the gutter and the rainwater pipe have been installed.

Patio 2 – Removed

April 20, 2013 / stephen

It is a sunny Saturday morning and what better to do than remove a patio. We are due in Halifax this afternoon to look at log burning stoves, so we only had a few hours.

This patio is slightly smaller than the other patio, but came up just as easily. We stacked the slabs in the back field using the pickup to move them from one location to around. There is probably a couple of tons of stone here between the two patios that must have covered at least 20 sq m.

To get the truck into this end of the back garden we needed to remove the wooden fence. Jo has been dying to remove this fence for some time, so it was a good excuse. By now we are pretty well-practiced at removing the fence posts using a tow rope and the pickup truck. There is a small amount of fence to be removed, but this needs to wait until we clear the corrugated steel sheets that are leaning against it.

The second patio has now been removed together with the fence at this end of the rear garden. You will also notice that the soil and rainwater pipes have also been removed.

The slabs from both of the patios are now neatly stacked in the back field out of the way.

Phase 1 – now out to tender

April 19, 2013 / stephen

A copy of the tender documents for Phase 1 (the re-roofing and refurbishment of the existing cottages) had arrived at home when I returned from London today. This means that the companies tendering will also have received the documentation.

There is a lot of material here – all the work that needs to be completed has been itemised and there are a full set of building reg drawings. I am glad that we are going out in 2 phases otherwise this pack of material would be enormous.

The deadline for responses is 7th May and we have suggested that if they want to a site visit that this should be organised via me for the week commencing 29th April (my first week off having finished work for a year!).

It feels like progress.

Problems with images in WordPress

April 16, 2013 / stephen

I seem to be encountering some problems with images in WordPress. They either don’t display or they display erratically in the posts.

I seem to be able to fix the problem by reducing the resolution of the images. Everything seems to work OK as long as I keep the images around 2000 x 1500 pixels. The issue doesn’t relate to file size as the images are well underneath the file size image.

It is a bit frustrating as it means that I either need to change the resolution on each of the cameras that I am using (not ideal as I like to capture the images in as high a resolution as possible) or I have to resize each image before it is uploaded. Either way it is a pain!

Current state of the existing cottages

April 16, 2013 / stephen

Well, we are pretty much done in terms of the stripping out of the existing properties. Both number 8 and 10 are now pretty bare. There aare a couple of things left to do here and there, but the bulk of the stripping out work is done. The images below show the current state of both of the interiors of the properties.

I took these photographs as proof that building work has commenced. Once work starts, it is possible to get an exception from paying council tax. Class A exemption (which applies to most major building work) can last for up to a year. Since there are two lots of council tax to be paid, this is a significant sum of money.

The letter that I received a few weeks ago from the council asked for evidence that the building work had commenced, so that they can grant us Class A exemption. I am not sure what constitues “evidence” and, since they don’t seem to answer the phone in the council tax department, I have assumed that some photographs will do. I emailed them to the council today, so only time will tell (assuming that they respond better to emails than a ringing telephone!).

As you can see we have pretty much reach rock bottom as far as stripping the building back. We will go a little further once the major contractor is appointed and the roof is removed. It will just leave us with the four exterior walls. From that point onwards, we are just putting everything back!

You can still see the serving hatch, although the kitchen has long gone. There were two bedrooms upstairs and a bathroom.

Downstairs in number 8. You can just see the end of the soil pipe sticking through the wall upstairs where the bathroom used to be. And yes, that is a hole in the wall to next door (number 10) where the beam used to stick through into next door. The two ends of the beams had been bolted together.

Downstairs in the lounge of number 10. The fireplace has been taken out. The floor beams that supported the floor upstairs have been removed. You can see the ends of the beams (oak) to either side of the fireplace.

Downstairs in the kitchen (or what used to be the kitchen) of number 10. The upstairs floor beams have been left in (for now) as they seemed to be in much better condition than the others in either of the properties. However, they may not be in good enough condition for the building inspector!

Patio 1 removed

April 14, 2013 / stephen

There were two patio areas in the rear garden. One about 4m x 4m and a smaller one 2m x 2m. We have removed the fence and the fence posts, so now it is time to remove the patio itself. To be honest, most of the slabs came up very cleanly and whatever sand and cement was left on them came off with a gentle tap with a hammer and chisel.

The patio is made up of Indian sandstone. It does seem strange that this has been shipped all the way to Yorkshire when we are surrounded by the stuff. Still, I guess that is economics for you!

Both patios are made from the same stone, so it looks like we are going to end up with around 20sq m of reasonable patio slabs. I have no idea what we are going to do with them, but it would be a shame to throw them in the skip. Ebay or Freecycle is usually a good way to get ride of this stuff, but we need to decide what we want to do with them first.

The smaller patio will have to wait until another day.

We have stripped all of the slabs that made up the patio as well as the stones that made up the steps (looks like these were originally part of a window sill).

The patio slabs (Indian sandstone, apparently) sorted and stacked. These come in more or less standard sizes to aid laying them out in a consistent manner.

Dry stone walling – Day 21

April 14, 2013 / stephen

Another Saturday dry stone walling, but this time it was in the sun! It was a beautiful day here in West Yorkshire, although the wind and the rain did set in later in the afternoon (but we were ready to pack up by then!).

We disassemble the next 3M section of wall and dug the foundations. The photo below show how far we got during the day – probably about 5 courses up. This means that one side of the wall is just above ground level (this side of the camera) while the other is showing a number of courses (the other side of the wall).

Another 3m section dug out and foundation stones laid. I am not too keen on this part of the building process as it always looks a mess at this stage. It does improve as the wall appears from the ground.

Wooden gutters

April 7, 2013 / stephen

I know that this is going to sound strange, but one of the first things that struck me about older properties in Yorkshire was the wooden gutters, particularly on out buildings. I hadn’t seen these before and had assumed that the guttering was made up using standard pieces of timber – it all looked very hand-made.

Now we have our own outbuildings, we have our own wooden guttering too! I don’t know why, but it never occurred to me to look at it more closely until now. This is mainly because I am not that convinced by the plastic guttering that we have put on the re-roofed outbuilding. Maybe, it will be more temporary than I expected! Still, it will keep the rain away from the base of the wall, but it doesn’t add much to the look of the property.

The existing wooden guttering is made from a single piece of timber that has had the water channel machined out. A hole is then cut into the base of the gutter for the down pipe, this is achieved using a lead “top hat” – think of a top hat upside down where the water flows out of the top (or rather bottom) of the hat. This “top hat” is inserted through a hole in the gutter and into the top of a drain pipe (made of a material of your choice).

Bizarrely, I saw the lead top hats in the builders merchants last week and thought “oh, they look like the inserts for the wooden gutter, I wonder what they are really used for!” It would appear that they really are for wooden gutters after all. A quick investigation online would appear to show that there are a number of local suppliers of both wooden gutters and lead top hats. More investigation needed.

Both the “top hat” and the end plate are made from lead. I have no idea how long these have been up, but I would guess at 50 plus years. Apparently, the wood lasts longer if you do not paint it – this lets the wood breathe and does not trap the moisture inside the wood.

The end plate is cut out of lead and nailed on. The “top hat” is also made of lead and drops into a hole that has been cut in the bottom of the gutter. The bottom of the top hat is then dropped into a downpipe.

A view along the top of the gutter. The water channel has been machined into a solid piece of timber. The end plate is made of lead and nailed on.

Dry stone walling – Day 20

April 7, 2013 / stephen

We managed to finish off the section of wall that we have been working on in the orchard – all, but the coping stones anyway. The coping stones are the stones that are placed vertically on top of the wall. Main problem is that we seem to be short of coping stones. As soon as we find some (there are plenty around on site, but there are just not where you would expect to find them), it is a 20 min job to finish this section of wall.

Jo helped out on and off over the weekend and it is quicker with two – even if it is for someone else to fill buckets and fill in the centre of the wall with smaller stones (called “hearting”). Even so, this section – which is 16.5m – has taken us 15 working days to complete. There is a lot of work once the wall is stripped down, the foundations dug and then the wall rebuilt. There is still a lot of wall to rebuild.

Still, now that we have an increasing length of wall completed, you get a real feel for what it is going to look like when finished.

Wall just waiting for the coping stones – the last course is on and level. Zep loves to lie in his bed and watch others working!

Ready for the coping stones.

The last row is put on absolutely level just before the coping stones go on. It is absolutely critical that this course is level.

Hagg Leys Farm