See Amid the Christmas Dust

The electricians have not been seen for twelve days (see "Kurt the Destroyer"), so it was almost a surprise when they appeared on Wednesday this week, and worked Thursday as well.  Mind you, it was not a pleasant surprise really, as I am now well aware that young Kurt is not the best person to have working on a period house. 

Firstly, it did not take them long to make the entire house a complete tip (again); when I arrived at 9.30 on Wednesday, it was hard to believe that they had been there for less than 90 minutes.  Most floorboards, which I had re-fitted but not fastened, had now been lifted again, plus an annoying few more had been lifted even though I thought that job had been finished.  Then, with no floor board beneath, they used their wretched Kanga to chase cable runs, leaving yet more dust everywhere.  In the course of those two days they also broke a hinge on a bedroom door, trod on the thermometer (carefully hidden in a corner), put a foot through the lath in the ceiling above the landing and repeatedly used my tools without asking!  (NB I am aircraft-trained, where it is a cardinal sin to lose track of one's tools, so you do NOT borrow tools.)

I will admit that one issue was not Kurt's fault.  When he removed a length of skirting board in a bedroom, it came away from the wall with a 30" x 4" x 4" bit of oak attached to it (leaving a large hole in the inner wall face)!  (See photo right.)  The rest of the skirting board is attached with nails driven into wooden plugs in the wall, as one would expect.

I have grave reservations about the use of wood in walls in this house, and would love an explanation for what this was meant to achieve.  There have been other examples which seem totally pointless, as mentioned earlier (see "Is it really only three weeks?" in November).


Progress Update

Anyway, the good news is that the roof is effectively finished, as see by these three photos.

My (very expensive) 5 inch cast iron guttering has been installed (see right), and I think it looks lovely. Chris the roofer said that it went together very well indeed, and I had ordered exactly the right items, apart from one extra length of guttering. Ah well, better safe than sorry - I'll use it on the extension. After the imminent removal of the scaffolding the downpipes will be fitted next week.

I took delivery this week of 25 rolls of insulation for the loft; this is 60% sheep's wool and 40% recycled polyester (to give it body), and cost as much as the guttering.  At least I can look a conservation officer in the eye with a clear conscience!

I am now tackling the laths in the back bedrooms.  Both these ceilings had been damaged by dampness from water ingress, and so it was no surprise to find that many laths were rotten.  I had bought new hand-riven oak ones but of course they were a different size to the ones fitted.  In fact, in retrospect, the current ones may not actually be hand-riven as they are mostly far more regular in all dimensions than the ones I have bought. This makes replacing individual laths quite difficult and I found it easier to remove some extra ones so that a larger area was replaced.  Worryingly, the extra ones I removed were also found to be rotten, so I ended up replacing probably 40% or so.  By the way, this really is a rotten job, as every time you nail, dust falls on you, despite having brushed the joists and laths above twice.  Top tip - do NOT drive the nails completely in until you are sure that you are happy with the spacing, which includes checking from further away, off the ladder.

Intriguingly, I found myself humming "Hey Big Spender" whilst doing this job.  When I realized this, it then took me some time to find the subconscious link (answer next week).