Tag: stripping out (Page 1 of 3)

Demolishing the lean-to: Day 5

May 14, 2013 / stephen

All done. But it was a real slog. Don’t know why, maybe it was the showery weather. Zep and I had to retreat to the pickup a couple of times when the weather took a turn for the worse. Zep had more sense and stayed in his bed in the cab, even when the rain stopped.

Most of the bricks from the outbuilding are now down in the orchard ready to go into the base of the dry stone wall. However, I cleaned up a few more and have stacked these on the base of the lean-to. I am not sure what these are going to be used for, but there are enough already in the orchard.

The old store-room appears to have flagstones on the floor. A number of them appear to be broken – some no doubt happened when we took down the brick walls, but many of them look like they have been broken for some time. I have removed one of them and they appear to have been laid directly onto an ash floor (which was the standard approach at the time). I will take up a couple of the broken ones this week and have a go with the metal detector. Anything that is under the floor has probably been there for a couple of hundred years.

The bases of the three toilets are now exposed. They appear to have been built with a smooth cement concave floor. There were hinged wooden doors at the back of each of the toilets. I can only imagine that the doors were used to scoop out the contents. Yuck!

Just the base of the store-room and the toilet block left. There is one large upright stone left that is too big for me to move on my own.

One of the flagstones was broken – it probably got damaged when we took down the brick wall – so I have removed it. As expected, it is laid directly onto an ash base – the standard approach in the old days.

No idea how these are meant to work, but with a wooden hinged door at the back, I can only guess that this was used to scoop out the contents.

No idea how these toilets were meant to work, but with a wooden hinged door at the back, I can only guess that this was used to scoop out the contents. Yuck!

These large weight was on the roof. 56lb is a standard weight for potato bags (in the old days anyway!).

This large Avery weight was on the roof. 56lb is a standard weight for potato bags (in the old days anyway!). It is heavy!

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.

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.

Removing the base of the conservatory

March 30, 2013 / stephen

This took a bit more effort than we expected. The wall base was very well constructed – cinder blocks and bricks on the inside and stone on the outside. Rockwool had been inserted into the cavity for insulation. We reversed the pickup onto the rear garden and used it to remove all of the rubble.

The stone used on the outside of the conservatory wall has been kept. We have taken off the sand and cement on the blocks and stacked them in the field. The cinder blocks and bricks used on the inside have been put in the skip.

We reversed the pickup onto the back garden and used it to remove the rubble from the base of the conservatory. We stacked the old stone (shown in the back of the truck), but the material from the inside wall went into the skip. We simply reversed the truck up to the skip and threw it in. Simples.

Even in the snow it is easy to drive this around. In fact, there is slightly more traction with the weight over the rear wheels.

Removing fence posts – the Top Gear approach

March 27, 2013 / stephen

Well, if you have some fence posts in the garden to remove, how do you remove them?

Easy, you put a chain around the base and attach the end to a 4×4. Engage 4 wheel drive and give it some “welly”. Paddy and Jonny have been working on the house for the last couple of days. They both have 4x4s. We have our new (old) 4×4 pickup. So it quickly resorted to a competition!

First attach the chain to the bottom of the post

Then attach the other end to a 4×4

Then give it some “welly”!

It’s not just the post, but the concrete base that is the challenge

My go!

Jonny at the wheel!

The fence pulling team!

Conservatory removed

March 26, 2013 / stephen

We were quoted £1500 to remove and dispose of the conservatory. We advertised it on Freecycle (www.freecycle.org) and got a lot of interest. We probably got in excess of 12-15 people who wanted to take it. Today the new owners of the conservatory turned up, dismantled it and took it away.

We still have the brick built base to demolish, but effectively the conservatory has been removed at next to zero cost courtesy of Freecycle.

Just the brick base of the conservatory remains. The outside wall had not been plastered, but plasterboard had been attached. This is a result as it is easily removed and should leave little trace.

Just the brick base left.

It is surprising how much more light comes into the lounge now that the conservatory has been removed. Only the brick built base remains. And the lino!