I forgot to mention an oddity that we found while doing the excavations. The extension had its own rising main, fed from the same main in the street as our "proper" rising main in the kitchen, but what we found was that the cast iron pipe carried on under the garden wall and supplied next-door's external tap! This might seem insignificant, but while the community centre was being built at the back, this was the tap which supplied their water. Fortunately, I only had a water meter fitted in June this year, which was after the construction had been completed...
Since the foundations for the extension have been done I have been busy reclaiming bricks to re-use for the external wall; we now have 1800 in three piles in the garden (right), which should be about enough; the remaining ones are difficult as they are in cemented blocks of three or four; on these you can spend ten minutes with bolster and mallet, and still only end up with one or two good ones.
The materials for the brick/block work was all ordered and delivered last week. It was unloaded from the road and dumped in my front garden using one of those lorry-cranes with a good reach. Then I had the task of moving it all round the back so as not to attract the attention of people who like to appropriate things. There were lintels, wall plates, blocks, insulation batts and lots more.
I had been quite surprised that we require 450 blocks as well as the reclaimed bricks. I was even more surprised to find that "lightweight" blocks weigh over 7kg each, so yes, muggins here had to hand every single one (that's over 3 tonnes) into the wheelbarrow, trundle it round the back 50 times (!) and then stack them all again on pallets so they don't get muddy; this all took four hours... (photo above left). I could only take 9 blocks each journey as I thought the tenth might be the straw that broke the wheelbarrow for good - it really is on its last legs after being abused by too many overloads. The really annoying thing was that it was only as the last pallet was being unloaded that I remembered a good idea I had had a long time ago - if I asked nicely, perhaps the lorry could go round the back to the community centre car park and unload over the wall? D'oh!One task that has been keeping me busy is the refurbishment of a pair of casement windows from the original extension (photo right). I wanted to re-use these as they both have mostly antique glass, as well as being very nice old bits of joinery. The right hand window has never been hinged but was simply nailed in place, with a rebated edge for the other window
to close on as there is no central pillar (mullion?). The window frame was past retention, being totally rotted by the long-term ingress of water in the old roof, probably from the leaking chimney flashing. (NB I was unaware that the same water ingress had also rotted the purlin which I thought was the only good bit of wood in the entire roof structure! Isn't ignorance bliss?) The right hand window needed a new bottom piece of frame, and then I found that both the vertical bottom ends were also rotten, so there was more work than I expected. The old glass was carefully removed (mostly successfully) and all the replacement wood was found from an old sash which had been taken out of the front window in June. Now it just needs priming and re-glazing, and the new frame is being made by a local joiner.Now, as I said, tomorrow it all starts again!
No comments:
Post a Comment