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Temporary sockets in the cottages

February 26, 2013 / stephen

With work now starting on the larger of the two cottages, we simply can’t turn the electricity off as we did in the other cottage. Otherwise, we would have now electricity on site at all. The solution is to fix a single temporary socket in each of the cottages. The socket is right next to the meter so that there is no danger that you can accidentally cut through the cable as it is only 20cms long. This will provide us with the opportunity to power lights, kettles, or the occasional cement mixer.

This is definitely a job for a qualified electrician and we were lucky enough to find someone locally that was available same day! It only took an hour or so! Thank you Dave!

Stripping out – starting on the larger cottage

February 25, 2013 / stephen

With the smaller cottage all but bare, it is time to start turning our attention to the larger of the two cottages. As we are still using the kitchen for making cups of tea, we will leave this til last. First things to go are to remove all of the doors. These are solid pine and our initial thoughts were to put them on eBay, but frankly they are all odd sizes and unlikely to fit anyone else’s house. I removed all the brass fittings (for scrap) but unfortunately, the doors are destined for the bonfire.

Next came the carpets up the staircase and on the landing. Then the bathroom. Shower cubicle was quickly removed and then onto the other fixings. The water is turned off here, but the electric is still on. To be able to proceed with the stripping out much further will require the electric to be turned off, but then this will mean no electric on site. Therefore the next job is to get a temporary spur set up off the meter, so that we have one live socket in each house, but the rest of the electric is turned off. This is a job for a proper electrician!

With the carpet and the underlay removed, you can see the original stone staircase. The edges have been painted (many times) as there would have be a narrow “stair carpet” that would have run up the middle.

The only thing left of the shower cubicle is the shower tray. The wall behind the sink is a partition wall, however the electrics need to be sorted out (i.e. turned off) before we do too much stripping out here.

Dry stone walling – day 18

February 25, 2013 / stephen

Well, the weather has improved enough for us to be outdoors. It was hovering just above freezing, but it didn’t notice too much as long as you kept moving!

We are still working on the wall in the orchard and are now using some of the stone that has been removed during the renovation. Since the one side of the wall is higher than the other, the first five courses on the orchard side are actually underground. This means that there is an opportunity to use any old stone in these courses as they won’t be seen. This provides the opportunity to get rid of some of the stone that has been removed while renovating the smaller cottage. This consists of concrete blocks, old bricks and the occasional patio slab. This is quicker to lay as the material is more uniform and has flatter edges. This feels like a bit of a “cheat”, but since the material can’t been seen and it saves the stone for the rest of the wall, I can’t see why not.

We did remove some stone that made up the rather awful 1970’s fireplace in the smaller cottage. This roughly matches some of the stone in the wall, so we have decide to use this. It will be seen, but as long as none of the machined edges face out on the wall, I think they will blend in OK, particularly once they have weathered a bit.

Now we have removed the shed in the corner and some of the undergrowth, people who drive by can see us working on the wall. This has led to numerous cryptic comments in the local pub.

Still working in the orchard. You can just some a couple of pale grey bricks hidden at the bottom of the right hand side of the wall. The first 5 courses on this side are hidden underground since this provides an opportunity to get rid of some of the material that we have removed.

Clearing out the orchard – Day 5

February 24, 2013 / stephen

With the last of the sheds gone from the orchard, we can now start to clear out the last patch of the orchard. This is the triangular piece of land furthest away from the house. It had become overgrown with holly as was as a very old (and largely rotten) alder tree. The chainsaw and a set of croppers soon had this area cleared out. The brambles that had grown throughout the dry stone wall were particularly time-consuming to remove.

The larger pieces of timber were cut into logs, the rest was put onto a bonfire on the site of the old shed.

It took most of the day to clear out this area, but now we can start to see the state of the dry stone. Despite it’s condition, you can see that the it was never really straight! We will rectify this as it gets rebuilt. With all of the undergrowth gone, it will be much easier to mark out the position of the new wall.

With all the undergrowth gone, you can see the true state of the dry stone wall,

With the shed now gone, it is time to finally clear out the last part of the orchard

Scrap metal

February 24, 2013 / stephen

With all the work on the smaller cottage, we removed quite a bit of old wire and copper pipe. All in all, there were 3 rubble bags of copper and 2 bags of wire. I took these to the scrap merchant today, along with a kitchen sink and a mixer tap. Total value £117. Much more than I thought. Looking at the receipt, it looks like I got around £30 for each of the rubble sacks of copper and £10 for each sack of electrical wire (with the plastic casing still left on, but any plugs or junction boxes removed).

New chain for the chainsaw

February 22, 2013 / stephen

I have gotten into the habit of sharpening the chain on the chainsaw every time I fill it up with petrol. However, on the last couple of occasions, the chain hasn’t stayed sharp for very long. You can tell from the sawdust that it produces – it more resembles dust rather than the long wood chips that are normally produced with a sharp chainsaw. On the basis that it wasn’t holding it’s sharpness, I have bought a new chain. I can fit it myself and a new one only cost £10 on eBay.

The last chain was installed back in November, so has lasted just over three months. But it has had a lot of use (and not all on trees!).

Wow, just used it for the first time with the new chain. What a difference! I guess the chain dulls over time and you don’t notice how much worse the cutting power is as it happens slowly over a period of time. I shouldn’t have persevered so long before changing it – much quicker and much safer to use.

4th shed removed

February 16, 2013 / stephen

The last of the 4 sheds was demolished today. All of them were of a similar design and having taken 4 of them apart, we are getting quite well-practiced at taking them apart. Take all the glass and metal out of the shed. Take the ridge off the roof. Take the roof off. Then the sides of the shed dismantle. Use a chainsaw to cut some of the panels in half, if they are too heavy. Put all the wood on the bonfire, everything else goes in the skip. Today, it took just three hours to take this one down.

Once the shed was gone, we could get to the triangular piece of ground behind the shed – lots of old chicken wire and an old steel bath were waiting to greet us! This little piece of land was dominated by holly and an old rotten alder tree. We spent a good couple of hours clearing this area out, but by the end of the day, there was still more to do – probably another 2-3 hours work here to clear out the rest of the undergrowth and reveal what is left of the dry stone wall. This part of the wall should (I say “should”) line up with the other part of the wall that I have been building in the orchard. However, much of this wall was covered with brambles and undergrowth, so when I set up the original line of the wall, there was a little bit of guess-work going on. Once all this undergrowth is cleared away we will be able to see the entire length of the wall and will be able to tell exactly how accurately lined up the new wall is!

The 4th and final shed bites the dust.

With shed #4 dismantled, we can start on clearing out the rubbish from behind the shed.

We found various things behind the sheed including this old steel bath

We found various things behind the shed including this old steel bath

This little triangular patch of land is dominated by holly and an old rotten alder tree

Now largely cleared out, but still some way to go. I had to sharpen the chainsaw twice during the day!

Stripping out – the upstairs in the smaller cottage

February 11, 2013 / stephen

There was a stud partition on the end wall containing rockwool. Since this end of the building faces onto the prevailing wind, I assume that there had had problems with either cold or damp (or both) penetrating this wall. As soon as we stripped off the plasterboard, you could tell that it was damp. Although the rockwool and the outer plasterboard were fine, the stone wall was damp to the touch. Many years ago, it seems to have had a coat of black bitumen paint which had then been wall-papered over (many times). There was even a football poster still pasted to the wall – Denis Law and Gordon Banks – looks like it is from the 1970’s. It was damp, but still in one piece.

We took the last remnants of plasterboard over the main beams up stairs, we took the remaining ceilings down downstairs and then finally took up the chipboard floor upstairs. It had been very poorly laid in the first place, but a plumber had then cut the boards to install central heating. It was a complete mess. It took longer than we thought to take it up, but less time that we thought to burn it on the bonfire!

Last job of the day was to remove as much of the pipework and wires for scrap and have a generally tidy up.

The stud work and the rockwool removed to reveail a rather damp end wall that had be painted (long ago) with black bitumen paint.

The stud work and the rockwool removed to reveal a rather damp end wall that had be painted (long ago) with black bitumen paint.

Football stars from the 1970s pasted to the wall behind the partition.

The floor has now be removed. Horrible tongue and groove chipboard that had been very badly treated by whoever put in the central heating.

The wooden from the floor and the ceilings ends up on a bonfire at the end of the day.

Shed #3 bites the dust

February 9, 2013 / stephen

The weather today was ok. No rain, no snow and just about 3 degrees Centigrade. So it was time to start looking at removing the two sheds in the orchard. The large shed behind the outbuildings needs to go as this is where the polytunnel is going to go. This shed is twice the size as those that we removed previously, so we knew that it was going to be a bigger job than before.

This is the third one that we have taken down, so we have worked out the best approach. Firstly, you need to remove all of the metal and glass before attempting to dismantle. Next the ridge needs to be removed from the roof. Often this is key to holding the two sides of the roof together. Next each side of the roof is slid off and the asphalt is stripped off. With the roof gone, it is straightforward to use a chainsaw to cut up the panels. Originally, we had tried to un-bolt the panels, but this proved difficult as many of the bolts were very rusty. The final stage is to tip up the base and cut it into pieces.

Metal, glass and asphalt goes in the skip. The wood goes on the bonfire.

Shed #3: Just behind the outbuildings and the largest (20ft x 8ft) of all the sheds on the property

Steel toe caps. Well it is Valentine’s day next week!

With the roof removed, it is fairly easy to dismantle with the aid of a chainsaw. You need to be carefully not to hit any nails or other metal, but otherwise it is a simple job. Removing the asphalt from the roof is a little more time consuming.

Once the roof is removed the rest of the shed comes down fairly easily. The real problem is the size of the panels that makes them too heavy to carry and these need to but cut up into smaller pieces. Again, a chainsaw comes in handy!

It is starting to get dark, so it must be time to go to the pub. Once all the remnants of the shed have been removed, the base will need to be put on it’s side and cut into pieces before it goes on the bonfire.

Stripping out – downstairs in the smaller cottage

February 4, 2013 / stephen

Having started on the downstairs by removing the kitchen, the next job was to remove the fire place in the lounge. The existing fireplace surround was built of stone and probably dates to the 1970’s. This was quickly removed as was the gas fire itself. The stone from the fireplace surround will be used in the dry stone wall in the orchard – as long as we don’t use the flat edges in the front face of the wall, we should get away using this stone. It would be a shame to throw it in the skip.

Once the gas fire was removed, it revealed an old cast iron back boiler that seems to have been used for heating the cottage and the hot water. There was a circulation pump hidden to the side of the fire. I think this was disused once the central heating was installed. All of this was fairly easily removed. The rest of the fireplace seemed to be packed with a mixture of engineering bricks and rubble. This was all mixed up with a fair amount of soot! However, once it was all removed the fireplace is very clean and you can see right up to the sky through the chimney pot.

The fireplace surround is made up of solid stone – two large pillars with a large stone beam across the top.

The original 1970’s gas fireplace

Gas fire now gone to reveal the old cast iron back boiler

Fireplace cleaned out. There are a couple of spots of water in the hearth where the rain has come in via the chimney pot

Hagg Leys Farm