Snow, snow, snow

I wrote last week's entry on Friday night; had I waited until Saturday, it would have read slightly differently.  Whilst doing yet more laths on Saturday (to be ready for the plasterer on Tuesday), it was steadily snowing outside.  By lunchtime it was about four inches, and by the time my arms were dropping off (if you've ever done laths you must know what I mean!) it was nearer eight inches (see photo right).  I had serious doubts about being able to drive even just the one mile back home.  I accomplished that safely, but found that on a new-ish housing estate (where we are currently renting), the local council does NOTHING about snow/ice gritting etc on roads, far less pavements.  As I drove into the estate, the roads became steadily worse until I gratefully reached the 20cm virgin snow in our cul-de-sac.

Of course, this had obvious implications for my project management plans for the week: basically, nothing has happened.  The carefully laid plans for the collection of our rooflight, the fitment of the rooflight and the finishing of the roof around it, the finishing of replacing laths on two bedroom ceilings, plastering of those two ceilings, and the removal of the scaffolding - NOTHING.  Apart from the snow, it really has been very cold, with minus 11 deg C one morning this week, when the hot water system in our 10-year old rented house froze!

The good news was that our first grandchild was safely born (early) on Sunday evening, and the snow did not prevent us from driving to visit on both Monday and Tuesday.  So, work is suspended whilst we attend to more important issues in life, like supporting our son and daughter-in-law with their new responsibilities, and celebrating Christmas with our daughter plus partner, who arrived here today.

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).

Getting to know the neighbours

After just six weeks ownership, it was fair to say that the house was starting to look like a work in progress, rather than just being damp, cold and unloved.  There had been much interest shown by everyone who passed by, and the house clearly had an air of mystery in the locality; consequently, Jane had a wonderful idea that we should invite the people we knew, and the whole of the street (of who I had met several whilst working on the front wall), into the house so that they could see for themselves what it was like.  I suppose at the back of our minds was the hope that eventually we would have a house of which we would be proud, and would feel even prouder of it if people had seen for themselves just how bad it was when we started!  Thus it was that we had about forty invitations printed and distributed, offering mulled wine and discerning conversation about old houses over a period of three hours last Sunday morning.

We had over thirty visitors altogether - we both lost count as there was always someone to talk to; at least people now know why we have not moved in.  I have to admit that it was very cold indoors; due to the scaffolding we had to use the front door but it has a rotten frame (to be done in January) and sticks on the floor, so it had to be left ajar all the time.  Fires were lit in both the groundfloor rooms - I had cut a lot of the rotten wood into decent blocks and it was all consumed.

I suspect that once I was a bit sharp on someone from up the road when we were talking about the dampness issues; he asked if we were going to fit a chemical DPC (!) and I said "absolutely not!" which came out just a bit strongly.  Mind you, he does live in a house which is older than ours so I wonder if that is what he's done?

Overall, we were confirmed in our view that people here are very friendly and we think that we are going to enjoy living in such a community.

Progress Update

We have been held up by the weather recently, as one might have expected; I think the roofers have lost seven days in the last two weeks.  This has been especially frustrating as we were so close to completing the roof.  However, it warmed up sufficiently by Thursday to enable the last coat of the chimney rendering to be done and the box gutter has slates and ridge tiles (see photo right); now all that is left to do are just a few slates, some "muck work" for the back ridge and hip tiles and then the installation of the guttering.  Then we can have the scaffolding down!

Today (Saturday) was an unusual day as there was no-one at the house but us.

Together we removed all the plaster from the two back bedroom ceilings as there were many holes due to the leaks (see photo left).  I have to repair the laths this week so Phil can do the plastering in a week's time.  Lath is quite expensive (~£20/sq metre) so I saw no reason to pull it all down and then pay to replace it.  We tried removal from beneath, trying to keep it tidy, but then I decided that it was better to go up above the ceiling and to scrape the plaster off the top of the laths and push through to fell the plaster below.  This is very messy, but also very satisfying when you push and a whole square foot falls down below. 

The end result is in the photo on the right.  No plaster, lots of laths and lots of holes!  On Monday my first job will be to tidy up the mess...

One benefit from this approach was that it is more obvious when you find a rotten lath - we have a good number that appear to be fine but are rotten inside and have no strength at all (not forgetting the many which suffer from wet rot).  We were very glad that we did not see anyone we knew, as we walked back up the road to our car doing our impressions of the dinner party in "Carry On Up The Khyber" (but with rather scruffier clothes under the dust).  Perhaps we should have waited until it was dark!

Kurt the Destroyer

We've owned the house for six weeks now, and I'm still amazed at the speed of things.  The roof is almost done, but we lost the whole week except Monday to the weather - annoying when it would only take three days perhaps to finish.  The electricians started last Friday, and the ground floor installation is almost done.  Neil the contractor employs a younger chap called Kurt; he is really very good and likeable, but this week I have discovered that he is really "Kurt the Destroyer".  Chasing the runs for the cables into lime plaster walls produces prodigious quantities of dust and debris, which covers everything including the kettle, cups, tea bags, first aid kit, my glasses etc.  He just doesn't notice or care, it seems (what is his own house like?).  Feeding cables down the walls from the joists above means that he has to lift the upstairs floorboards and so makes a mess works both upstairs and downstairs at the same time.  He also broke a window in the French door (which is going to go eventually, but not yet) by trying to get a massive tool store in through it, which was NEVER going to fit.  So, the entire place is a real mess, and we have invited the neighbourhood round on Sunday for mulled wine and to have a gander at our work.  (The real reason is so that when we finish they will appreciate what we have done all the more!)

I had some success this week; the front room floor joists are virtually finished, and I have ordered some reclaimed floorboards which are to be planed to size. In the meantime, in preparation for Sunday's visitors I have re-laid the old floor boards (without fastenings), and the whole room feels better.

I have also constructed a loft access hatch.  This might sound simple, but when you have suspect and not necessarily parallel joists of various sizes, with a rotted sill plate (due to the roof leaks) which I had not noticed before, it becomes decidedly complicated.  I had to design and construct a new pair of joists to support the sides of my hatch as I did not trust the existing joists to bear the additional weight.  This is a view from the hatch along the new joists:

This is the new bit of sill plate (the bit of wood on which joists rest), made from the bit of joist which I had just cut out for the hatch space.  There is a real joy in immediately finding a use for a nice bit of oak which you have just made redundant!  I was quite surprised to be able to lift the new joist (on the left) with my shoulder whilst slipping the new sill plate underneath.



In case you like roof timbers, here are a couple of views of the A-frames inside the roof:

So, before the roofers cover the membrane and it is lost to natural light for 40 years, I have been able to make the loft hatch.  At least there was a benefit of the bad weather!