Taking stock

A lot has happened since the last post. Time to catch up.

Our planning application is back in again. http://planning.northwilts.gov.uk/DCOnline/AcolNetCGI.exe?ACTION=UNWRAP&RIPNAME=Root.PgeResultDetail&TheSystemkey=73032 This time the conservation officer wants details about not just the openings, but also the structure of the property. No, it isn't a listed building, although you would think it was.

I will pick up from the last post and break the update over a number of posts.

Last time, I had lifted the floor in the back room. It was limecrete and quite easy to lift up. There was no damp proofing and it was laid on soil, so no wonder it was all a bit damp.

Once the floor was up, I dug out the soil, down to a consistent gravel layer. This took about 1 ft of soil away. I left a lip around the room to support the walls. I will go closer to the walls once I know when the new floor is going down.

I then started on the main family room. Here, the floor was concrete and much, much thicker. Luckily, my mate Jerry came through and he leant me one of his serious tools...

All very good, but weighs a ton and kills the arms, ears and respiratory tract. Better than breaking by hand though. The jack hammer made light work of the concrete, which varied in thickness from 2 to 6 inches.. There was a polythene sheet under the concrete and just earth under that.

The floor to the old hall goes first - this is quite thin and easy to lift. Next was the floor on the main room...

You can see the thickness of the floor here. The railwaymans spike came in handy again.

Slowly but surely (and painfully) the floor comes up. The spoil gets carried outside and makes quite an impressive pile - 3 trips to the recycling centre, quite laden trips granted, but 3 nontheless.

This picture was taken from my keeper stone store, which is here:

And the floor is gone!!

While I am at it, I decide that the lime plaster room has to come down - it is sagging in a number of places. My plan is to re-lime the roof rather than use board, but I may end up with board for speed.

Next is the wall between the two rooms. I start by taking down the bit of wall under the stairs...

Poor images as the flash didn't work. Then the larger section of wall. It is not supporting and the laths continue above the wall - so the wall went up after the roof was plastered.

The wall came down really easily - the bricks below the wood insert in the next picture were shot with damp and water. The concrete floor was laid up to the brick but the wall was laid on soil, no foundation at all.

I left the concrete render to the side of the door up, othherwise it would have been open and insecure. This is easy to take down once I board up the front door.

And the wall is gone.

Another step closer. The next update will follow in a day or two - I just need to upload the photos.

The taking of the floor

Turns out it is a lime floor in the back with no dpc. The floor is about 1 inch thick on a bed of aggregate.

I had the benefit of a railwayman's spike - a large metal pole with a pointed end. Formally of the GWR but loaned to me by a work colleague (Thanks Mark).

By the by, heavy rain today. You can see the line of the field outside, which is much higher than the floor inside. Needs sorting.

More of the floor up. Ignore the dust.

And finally, all done.

The nest task was to have a look at the fireplace. Seemed to have been replaced more recently (in the last 100 yrs) as th base was brick. Nothing much interesting here except a few bits of earthenware pot and some bones.

The aggregate that the floor sat on may be useful. I decided to bag it up and keep hold of it - saves buying some in the future. It is about £40 a tonne.

Here is the fireplace

And the resulting bagging of aggregate. About 25 bags of 40 - 50kg each. More shifting

And here is the floor, ready to go out. More shifting.

That's a kitchen cabinet to the left.

The oven as it looks now - much tidier.

Finally, why do I react so badly to insect bites? Now, where is the calamine?

More work upstairs

With the chimney supported, the wall can go to make way for the upstairs door. This will connect the two properties. The start of the process.

Looking behind the wall, I found that the house was originally rendered. The render must have been removed when the extension was built.

Funny that the conservation officer said that we could not render the extension as it was not in keeping with the conservation area. Everything is transient.

Here are some of the stones coming out with the render still attached.

I have realised that I don't have any pictures yet of the wall down. I will take some.

My next picture is taking out the foundations for the fireplace. The stone low down were blackened, but it is not clear whether this was from burning or an effect of the minerals under the floor. There were gaps between the stones under the floor, about 2ft down. Either animals (I have found tunnels through the walls and under floors) or water flowing.

Ignoring the dust, you can see the black stones coming out.

Next post is the floor in the back room...

More work on the chimney, then on to the floors

And the end of the last post I was about to take out the large concrete lintel. I was worried about this as it was very big and incredibly heavy - I couldn't budge it. Best plan was to attack it with a sledge hammer. This was very effective - the iron reinforcement had rusted and the concrete was quite brittle. It didn't take long before the whole thing was broken up. I was left it a heavy, rusty iron bar (top left).

This is our family room to-be. Most of the rubble is stone from the chimney. Some very large and heady lumps. The whole lot needs clearing out.

The chimney with the lintel removed...

You can really see the original profile of the chimney. It is a pity it had all collapsed. There was really no way of rebuilding it back to the original format. There was not enough of the original left to fully understand how it looked.

Whilst clearing stone I found this hole at head-height in the back wall of the chimney. It went back the full width of the wall and would have been concealed by the front wall of the flue.

It was the depth of my crow-bar.

I don't know what it was for - I wonder if it was for hiding valuables? Nothing in it unfortunately.

Taking down the wall revealed the extent of the wooden beams. I don't think these were originally here, but were reused.  There was also a good view into how the walls were constructed - faced either side and in-filled with gravel and smaller stones.

In the next picture, you can see that the original fireplace was wider than the one I was taking out. In the picture you can see the vertical line where the new stonework was built. The lined fireplace was bigger then this, but seems to have curved to a smaller opening at the front.

with the beams removed, the fireplace is almost down.

The beams were old and nicely finished. Clearly this one fitted into something else.

The problem was, more heavy stuff to shift...

Daunting

Another post for upstairs I think.

Chimney work

This was the chimney before work began. The brickwork was shot and the flue below had collapsed.

The chimney was taken down and supprted on lintels. Here is the outside with the chimney down - the blockwork below has been reinstated.

The lintels that support the new chimney...

The lintels sit on pads which in turn sit on the original house wall. This wall is actually very solid.

And then, the chimney was rebuild using original bricks that were recovered from an internal part of the flue. These are original Victorian hand-made bricks.

A tidy job.

With the chimney supported, work could begin on removing the collapsed flue.

The stone and bricks were removed from the upstairs first and then the back wall was dropped a bit to reveal the stud wall of the bit we are living in - this is the wall on the stairs in the new section.

Removal of the fireplace downstairs could then begin. Starting at the left (with the help of John) and the right - my side.

You can see the line of the original chimney - the newer construction can straight out - you can see the outline in the roof in the above pic. The original came out in a curve. The original horse-hair plaster is the pale patch in the upper third of the pic.

The next picture is looking down from the room above.

Bricks and stone were removed from above the large concrete lintel. Again, you can see the curve of the original fireplace.

And here

The bread oven is still intact

and we are keeping the brick flue above.

The next task is to remove the large concrete lintel and take out the remaining stonework and bricks.