Serious Damp Issues

I've just returned from a short holiday in Venice - we had never been there before and it seemed like a good place to tick off our list of "must-do somewhen".  The whole place is 

fascinating, and it really takes a visit to understand how this small island (or rather a set of smaller islands) is set in a large lagoon with other inhabited islands around.  Much of the lagoon is very shallow and so is un-navigable by everything except the smallest boats, and it is not clear to the eye whether the sea is taking back the land, or the land is being reclaimed from the sea! Probably a bit of both, I fancy.

The Venetians have not helped their predicament by allowing very large ships to dock on the north side of the main island, i.e. the side furthest from the Adriatic Sea.  To accomodate these 100,000 tonne monsters (each with over 5,000 passengers!) they require to keep the waterway past St Mark's Square dredged to about 50 feet, which surely cannot help but encourage the town itself to settle gently?  We were told that most houses are so damp that the ground floor is not used, and there is often as little as a foot difference between the water and ground that we walked on!

Being seriously interested in old buildings and issues such as dampness, I took a lot of

photos which illustrate the problems they have.  I don't think these are attributable to rising damp (if it really exists!), but more largely due to the continually damp and corrosive atmosphere.  Anything close to the water will be washed frequently by natural or man made waves as well as the damp breeze, and so erosion is hardly surprising and is visible everywhere (photo left).

What matters, sadly, is that there has been much use of CEMENT (aaaargh!) and the effects of this are all too readily visible, especially where repointing has been done.

The next two photos on the right show all too clearly what happens when a lime wall is re-pointed with cement.  It might look fine to start with, but ultimately the brick (or stone) starts to spall (i.e. lose its surface) because of the continual presence of the water in the brick which should escape

via the pointing but cannot.  The upper photo is a classic showing how the brick recedes into the wall.

Cement is also used for rendering, with the result that it comes off in sheets.  The photos left and below show cement render just falling off a brick wall.

Another technical issue if the frequent use of stone in an unnatural bed, i.e. laid with the natural grain (due to being sedimentary) at right angles to the ground.  This encourages vertical splits and just looks wrong anyway, as shown left in a wall where there is also spalling brickwork due to cement pointing.

This sort of thing is evident everywhere, and I fear for the future of the buildings for this reason alone, never mind the rising sea levels.  Unfortunately they seem to have made their natural problems worse by their own poor maintenance practices.  However, on the plus side, they do have lots of lovely old buildings (right), even though most of them look in need of a bit of TLC!

Wind and Rain - Wet or Dry?

I wrote recently about how this house is now warm and dry (see this post), and the recent weather has reinforced that view.  The wind and rain have been causing issues both to the Grade I listed church opposite, and to the 12 year old house of a friend who had water ingress affecting her electrics and security alarm. In both cases I went to investigate and the cause was the same - the driving wind from the south-west forcing water into cracks in the wall and gaps along flashing.

On the church there were small leaks at various places along the south arches where the nave meets the south aisle. As a result I had to go on the south aisle roof (on Christmas Eve!) to investigate and found that the flashing was pointed with cement which had come away from the limestone above, leaving a 2-3mm gap.  Since it was cement already I overcame my inbuilt resistance and used some fairly wet cement mortar to fill in this gap; however, it is a good illustration of why you shouldn't use cement on a limestone building - the cement is rigid and so will crack when the lead expands in the heat, whereas lime mortar is much more tolerant. At some time we will get all this cement out and have the job done properly with lime, but of course I couldn't do such a repair in this cold and wet weather.

The friend's house was perhaps more surprising: the water ingress was where the low front porch joined the front wall of the 2-storey house and at a quick glance from the ground it all looked OK. However, closer investigation using a ladder revealed cracks in the pointing of the front wall of the house, and some very poor pointing using mastic on the lead flashing at the join. In fact, there was what looked like the proper exterior mastic but also some clear mastic which really looked like internal stuff which someone had applied when a similar event had occurred before our friend bought it; of course, the newer stuff was no longer stuck to the older stuff so my recommendation was to get someone to sort the mastic properly and, perhaps, fill the pointing cracks at the same time. Of course, I am still officially convalescing so I didn't want to volunteer myself, even though I do have the necessary tools.

On the plus side, our own house has stoutly resisted the weather and has only ever had water ingress at one point - a southerly wind can force rain onto and under the front door despite a decent weatherboard and some cunning work by me on the doorstep. We use a bit of newspaper to mop it up and otherwise ignore it! As I look out now on New Year's Eve and see the rain still falling, at least I can feel content with this house being warm and dry - now I must go and check the church...

Warm and Dry, or Damp and Cold?

I'm still officially convalescing but I feel a bit of a fraud, as I am actually healing very well and I feel very well. I'm very limited in what I am allowed to do around the house: I'm not allowed to lift things, or go up ladders, or do anything that really classes as "work".  However, I am being obedient and not risking anything, probably until Christmas. The only thing that I don't like to do too much is bending down, as that puts pressure on the wound across my abdomen; this doesn't hurt at all but it just feels like a bad idea!

I went outside the back of the house today for the first time in ages, where it really is cold and damp. I was surprised to see that my new grey limestone slabs all have a green tinge. I presume that this discoloration will last until next Spring, when I would hope that the slabs will dry out as the temperature rises and, like the walls of the house, the green will just disappear.  There is no way that I want to take a pressure hose to these slabs every year!

The conditions outside were a forceful reminder about the way to treat an old building; we are dry and quite warm inside, and this was achieved by using no cement, no damp proof course and no modern plaster in the restoration of the house (although of course the extension was built entirely in the modern way). I've only lit the front room fire once, and the woodburner not at all, as I am still waiting for it to turn cold! After all, I don't want to waste firewood. The secondary glazing helps enormously, and keeping draughts down by closing internal doors helps as well although of course the paradox is that good ventilation is essential. The first rule is that if you are not wearing a jumper then you can't complain about the cold inside the house, and the second rule is that if you turn the thermostat up then you can't complain about the size of the gas bill!

Paving and Setts - Part 1

It's been a long time since my last post.  At last the weather has improved, and I've been outside preparing to lay paving. The photo right shows what it used to be like soon after we bought it, and the photo below left shows the view from the other end when the extension was being rebuilt after removal of tons of earth (note higher garden on right).

This excavation gave a recessed pathway along beside the house, and I decided ages ago to put in a retaining wall about six feet from the house (photo below right, taken in opposite direction). 

This retaining wall is essential to prevent the higher ground of the "garden" (I like to call it that - it will be true one day!) moving gently back towards the house; this would again cause dampness and, having spent time and money in sorting this issue, I have no intention of ever letting it return.  However, as you can see, the wall is still not finished!

One of the issues in clearing up the exterior has been the question of what to lay?  For the same dampness reason I have not felt inclined to lay much concrete, or do anything which feels too permanent.  I will admit that I have laid concrete in the front, and just inside the back gates, but I felt this was a neccessary evil.  In the front it is three inches lower than it used to be and there's a recess beside the lounge wall, so I am not repeating the "let's concrete right up to the wall at interior floor height" error which caused floorboards and joists to rot.  Last year, for the back, I purchased some cast gratings which are really heavy duty items (in fact well over the top!); I intend to fit these between the house wall and whatever I do with the paving. 

It seems almost all paving is really quite expensive, but I have made it sound cheaper by comparing it to the cost of carpet.  You certainly get what you pay for; if it's cheap then it looks cheap and you'll regret it.  I did a fair search - cast cement, brick, reconstituted stone, real stone, etc, in a variety of colours and various finishes (but who wants polished stone outside?).  Eventually I found I could get imported tumbled limestone, 30mm thick in regular sizes, for £32 per square metre.  We chose the pale grey (with a faint hint of purple?) which hopefully will set off the greying yellow of the Cotswold limestone.

It seems the modern way is to lay a huge bed of cement, lay the paving of your choice and then add a dry mix for the grouting.  Something in me still rebels at the thought of laying paving on cement - it seems so permanent.  After all, in 2011 we got rid of nine 18-ton lorry loads of hardcore, soil and stuff from this house (and there were yards of concrete path and slabs all at the wrong height) so why should I want to lay more new cement?  So, after a lot of deliberation, I have gone for a dry bed of sand on MoT Type 1 hardcore (which was already laid in 2011). This has the benefit of being easily reversible (a key principle for old buildings) but requires to be held in place with solid edging.  [Top Tip - work out the entire cost before you decide anything - edging can add a lot to your costs, especially for some of those reconstituted stones.]  I decided to use granite setts which I could buy for about £2 each (and they are almost 25cm long); I am also saving a bit of cash and work by laying the sand up to the wall of the new extension (the level being two bricks below the DPC).  Since the extension was laid out with the use of a laser, this also gives me a good level to work from.

So, in the last three weeks I have laid the last little bit of concrete (near the drains) and a lot of setts in a slightly complicated pattern. This is because I didn't
want a straight pathway and, in any case, I have to avoid various obstacles such as the gas meter box and a few drains.  Clearly, you have to get the setts right: the right plan measurements to avoid cutting the slabs, and the right height as well.  The first thing I had to do, therefore, was to cut granite setts.  This is achieved by use of a bolster and a decent mallet; a few good blows with the bolster carefully held yield a pleasing result.  However, it is made more difficult if your setts are not smooth and then the bolster is not making good contact along its length.  Result - it splits in not quite the right direction!

The current situation is that I have finished the preparation along the side of the house.

The setts on the right will separate the paving from a strip of earth so that I can plant a few things to make the wall look pretty.  On the left, iron grating will fill the gap and allow the house wall to breathe.  Notice that the gas meter box is a bit high; this is a good indication of how much lower the ground level is now - when it was fitted it seemed ever so far down!  All I need to do is to work out how much Type 1 and sharp sand I need to order, then I can start laying.  Then I have to do the rear of the house and extension...

A Step up in the Garden

Just for a change from walls, I have recently (almost) made a set of steps in the garden.  The need for these steps came from the desire to ensure that the house was never troubled again by the dampness caused by rising ground.  The photo (left) shows the garden as it was, with high ground and the old extension; the new steps are where the scruffy elder was growing, and go down about a foot below the old ground level. We took away the raised earth from beside the house last September (see this entry), and made a sort of lane beside the house with a two to three foot high earth bank.  A retaining wall is being built to keep the earth bank away from the house, and so the steps are needed to reach the higher plateau of what will be a lawn (in due course...).

These steps (right) have been made to last, using Thermalite blocks on a concrete foundation, and concrete slabs as the steps and risers.  The annoying thing here was that I tried to make 6.5 inch steps and the first one came out at 7.5 inches; I tried to correct this on the upper two steps and they still came out at 7.5 inches! Hence the top step, when done, might either have a smaller riser, or else I will be moving soil around to get a decent level at the top.  The blocks are easily cut using a sacrificial saw - I used one left by my builder last October.  However, I had another issue with cutting the concrete paving slabs.  They are REALLY tough, and I now reckon my design is over-engineered as I have taken the trouble to make sure that the slabs are properly supported, but now I don't think that I needed to bother as they are so strong. I've only tried a few cuts and found that my new grinding disc is already completely knackered.  So now my technique is to simply score them with the grinder on both sides, and then split them using a lump hammer and my 3 inch bolster - result!

The sides of the steps (and the rest of the retaining wall) will be faced with small bits of limestone to mimic a dry stone wall, except that the back of the stones will actually be set in mortar - probably NHL3.5.  I then hope to grow plants to trail down the wall from the top, some campion at the bottom and, perhaps, something actually growing in the wall itself to give that effect of a lovely Devon lane.  It's just a personal memory of childhood holidays there...

Warm, Snug and Cosy

It's been quite a mild winter here so far, with only one really bitter spell, but this last week we have had some persistent 70mph winds - but it's good to be able to say that this house is warm, snug and cosy. The theory of how to eliminate dampness has been amply demonstrated already in our first winter in the house, and we are experiencing the results.

The logic is quite simple really: ingress of water equals dampness, and dampness equals chilly and clammy cold which freezes your fingertips, shivers your spine and generally makes you tired and miserable. By tackling every cause of dampness, from the chimneys on top of the roof down to the ground outside which was higher than the floor levels, we have eliminated the cause of this misery. Now, the expensively heated air in the house isn't being consumed by the latent heat of vaporization (*** see below) of the water in the floors and walls but instead it hangs about and warms us. The radiators are on at a pretty constant setting of about 19 deg C, and if it's a bit chilly indoors we either light a fire or put a jumper on (or both!).

To be honest this drying out has happened sooner than I expected. I knew that I had to sort all the causes of water ingress in whatever form, but I anticipated that the house structure with damp 18 inch thick walls would have taken more than one summer to dry properly. However, they say that 2011 was one of the warmest on record because we had a warm spring and and a warm autumn - the summer wasn't bad but there was no risk of sunstroke here. The result was that the outside air temperature was pretty good for a very long period - just what is required to dry something thoroughly.

Before Christmas I put in some effort to sort out wood to burn, from the copious supply of old rafters, battens and floorboards etc. This effort was largely wasted as we only lit fires on about three days over Christmas! Talking of Christmas, I have mentioned already my two really useful presents: a log splitter and a moisture content meter. The former is still awaiting its first use, as anything I split now can't be used until next winter at the earliest, but the latter has already shown that some bits of wood I thought were dry enough were in fact far too damp - burning damp wood gives poor fires and can damage the stove and the flue. By the same token, the various chemicals used in modern paint and wood preservatives can also damage your fire and, more importantly, yourself. All the wood I mention above is really old and was never treated with anything!

Back to heating and dampness, we made a major step forward with the extension this week: apart from starting the decoration, we have had the first fix plumbing done. Since the house boiler is already working, and the system included supply pipes for the extension, the new radiators have been installed and commissioned. So the extension has heat (what a difference!!) and the remnants of damp plastering are now drying as well (then I can finish the decoration). The floor is next...


*** Water doesn't just turn into water vapour as it warms up (one calorie being the amount of heat required to warm one cc of water by one degree Celsius) - it needs significant extra heat to cause it to become a gas. This is called the latent heat of vaporization. Put it another way, if you warm up water, some of the calories will be used to vaporize it and so will not increase the temperature of anything! So a wet wall requires a lot of heat to dry it, but once dry it will warm up with less heat.

Laying a Limecrete Floor Part 2

This week has seen the completion of a major item on the critical path for us to move in: the slab for the limecrete floor has started to go off very quickly - as I was told that NHL5 would - so we have laid the screed.  Again I had Chris and Shane to help - Chris had done a few floors before (but not in lime), and Shane was expert at mixing (but not lime), so they relied on me for the technical input.  I relied on Mike Wye and the internet!

The screed uses NHL5 and sharp sand, in a 1:2 mix by volume, 75mm thick (as advised by Mike Wye). Be advised that a LOT of sand is needed!  For some reason I have had trouble in calculating the required amounts of sand and NHL5, and we ran out of both during the first day, so stopped with two-thirds completed (see join across the floor in the photo on the right).  I bought some more of everything and we finished the job two days later.  It was much easier to do than the slab, as we had a decent solid base to work on, and Chris now loves to work with lime.

Chris is a bit of a perfectionist and was slightly upset with the need for a join; he was then even more upset to discover that the last half tonne of sand was from a different supplier and so was a darker colour (although you can't see it in the photo).

This is me not Chris as I deleted the photo of him by accident

He was not comforted by my reminder that we are laying flagstones on top and so neither the colour change or the join will be seen.


The sand situation was not helped by my general lack of understanding about volumes and weights of sand.  I suppose I should not have been surprised as, after all, I knew how much stuff had come out of the ground in the kitchen.  We ended up using just over three tonnes for a 21 sq metre floor.  As I expected to use less than two tonnes, I had a one tonne bulk bag of sand delivered, and supplemented this with repeated visits to a local DIY store to buy their loss-leading bagged sand at £1.07 for a 25kg bag (in a quantity of ten or more).  The result of using more than three tonnes was that I made a lot of unexpected visits, and they ran out!

So far as I can tell, our floor must be thicker than designed - perhaps the slab sank a bit on the loose lay LECA?  We laid the screed up to a fixed level (as opposed to laying a specific depth), so it might have been deeper in places without us noticing.  Otherwise I do not see where all the mix went went.  The floor area is 21 sq metres and I was told I would need 21 bags of NHL5 (i.e. one per sq metre); we had four bags left from the slab (why?) so that made 25 to start with, and yet we ended up needing 30 altogether - so each mix only did 0.7 sq metre.

For the technically minded, we used a large diesel drum mixer on hire as we realized that my own mixer was too small - we would have been doing twice as many mixes!  In truth, the hired mixer was also too small, as it took 30 mixes to do the screed; if you overload it then it won't mix properly.  Each mix comprised one 25 kg bag of NHL5 (30-35 litres) and four and a half 25 kg bags of sharp sand (about 70 litres), and used about 15 litres of water.  Other people recommend a pan mixer for better mixing - we did not experience much balling, having followed the mixing method recommended by the manufacturers (although there was more balling with the LECA - see Part 1 - and we did have to stop it and scrape the mixture off the interior, which was tedious).    One unexpected issue was that my wheelbarrow is now on its last legs - two welds have broken and the sides have bowed out.

Then it was the weekend so I went to see my grandson:

Proud Grandad with sleeping grandson

This blog entry was late in being uploaded for various reasons such as tiredness.

Laying a Limecrete Floor Part 1

This might be a bit detailed for some of you, but I have been researching the use of limecrete as a breathable kitchen floor for some time and have found very little good advice on t'internet; hence I thought that some detail in the public domain might be found useful.  I shall publish another entry soon detailing some other events of the week.

This week, at last, I bit the bullet and engaged Chris and Shane to dig out the existing floor and help me lay the limecrete slab.  The general deal was that they would do the physical bit and I would provide the technical know-how (aided by desperate telephone calls to Mike Wye).  Of course life is not like that and so I am now absolutely shattered (as indeed they are, and they are half my age!).

When we first saw the kitchen I immediately knew that we would have to sort the floor (photo right).  The red and black 6" quarry tiles, in a pleasing diagonal pattern, were damp and sadly neglected.  They were suffering from a variety of additional coverings (like rotted lino and bitumen), and many (mostly red ones) had lost their flat surface entirely, revealing a pitted face with a white bloom.  I tried various techniques of cleaning but nothing persuaded me (far less Jane!) that we would be able to live with the end result for the duration of our intended retirement.  Delaying this was not an option as there would be no real way of doing it once we had fitted the new kitchen and were living in the house.  Another issue was the strip of bare concrete (foreground on photo) which ran across the room where there used to be a wall; this pre-dated the tiles, as the diagonal lines on either side did not match! 

I made an early decision that what I wanted to do was to lay a breathable limecrete floor, and researched this on the internet.  It can be difficult to get Building Control approval for this material, but there is an exemption for listed buildings on account of the foundations usually being shallower than the required depth to meet Part L (Conservation of Fuel and Power).  I knew that the foundations were about 8 or 9 inches below the floor level, and the essential detail here is to dig down at 45 degrees from the walls at a point a small way above the bottom of the foundations so that the integrity of the walls  is not affected.  If you are cautious like me then that small way is about 6 inches.

I got the team at Mike Wye to do the materials quotation which also gave me the essential design of the floor.  It seemed to me that the quantities required were enormous (4 tons in photo left) so I asked them to do it again; the result was the same so I just had to trust their figures.  Of course, they were very accurate - see later. Their design uses LECA (lightweight expanded clay aggregate) which comes in various sizes but essentially looks like an unappetizing version of Maltesers without any chocolate.  A coated version of LECA is used as a loose lay foundation; this allows the floor to breathe but does not allow any water to rise by capilliary action.  On top of this the main slab is made of a slightly smaller LECA, uncoated (presumably to allow better binding), mixed with NHL5 (Natural Hydraulic Lime).  A breathable membrane is used both below and above the loose lay LECA to prevent migration between the layers.  On top of the slab a screed of NHL5 and sharp sand is laid, on which the chosen floor surface is laid.  Most of the insulation is from the loose lay so I chose to use 200mm of this, with a 100mm slab on top.  This was the task for the week, as we will let it go off before laying the screed and flagstones.

The first task was to remove all the tiles - only about 900 of them - and then Chris and Shane removed (in about three minutes) the old (1950s) fireplace - see result in photo left.  What I had not really bargained on was how much spoil there would be (photo right), and the sheer physical effort in getting it out of the house. Everything had to be lifted up a couple of feet  - well, we were digging down - and extracted through the fairly narrow single French door.

I estimate that they removed something like 10 tons of lime mortar and soil in three days, all by hand through that single doorway.  The end result was basically an empty swimming pool where there will soon be a kitchen.  I also removed about half a ton of rubble which filled the old fireplace - compare the photo left (after excavation, with membrane laid) with the one above.  I was expecting to build a rectangular alcove for the new woodburning stove, and it was there all the time! 

So we worked along from the far end, laying the loose lay LECA with the membrane over it up to a bit of temporary shuttering, then the slab mixture on top up to a couple of feet back.  Then we added LECA in front of the shuttering, removed the shuttering, unrolled the membrane and added more slab mixture, and so moved on.  The addition of the LECA in front of the shuttering is key as otherwise the edge would move significantly when the shuttering is removed and this might allow the slab mixture to drop down a bit.  Here's Chris (right) doing a bit of levelling with some marker stakes for the next bit of shuttering.

 
Finally, we had a floor slab.  I know it doesn't look much for the result of so much work, but I'm convinced that it's a good way of controlling dampness in such an old building.

We actually received 84 bags of the loose lay LECA, and 42 of the stuff to mix with the mortar; we used 81 and 38 respectively - a surplus is far preferable to running out.  The LECA totalled about three tons, and we also used almost exactly half a ton of NHL5.  All that remained was to clear up, including removing the remaining mortar (for the screed next week) from the lawn to the house.  I have to confess that I was surprised to see the entire lawn cleared in just seven hours, and I bet the neighbours were as well, considering that half of the lawn is theirs!

Ivy is The Enemy (and Fun with Joists)

Apologies to anyone called Ivy - I assure you that this is nothing personal.

When we bought our house, there was a very large growth of ivy up the front corner and over a good part of the roof (photo left).  This growth, reckoned to be over thirty years old, had damaged the gutters and filled them with compost so that no rainwater flowed at all in almost half of the roof's guttering.  The ivy was so thick that it had actually protected the stone wall which was in great condition, but at the edges of the ivy the wall was green and damp (well, that rainwater had to go somewhere!).  This ivy has been removed (photo right), leaving only a large stump of multiple stems about a foot high beside the corner.

This week, inside that corner of the wall, I have recommenced work on the floor joists.  I already knew that the joist beside the wall was rotten due to damp as a result of the concrete path being too high.  However, I was surprised to find something which, at first glance, appeared to be a 1.5" iron pipe, right in the corner.  Closer inspection showed that it was, in fact, a root of ivy!  Somehow this has penetrated the 18" thick wall, and then it dives down underneath the end supporting wall for the joists (see photo, right).  Happily, the root was easier to cut than the trunk of the ivy which I have been trying to remove for ages.

You might think that ivy looks pretty on the side of your house but, believe me, you need to treat it as the Number One Enemy - get rid of it.  Given half a chance, it will do all sorts of damage, by growing into (and through!) walls, under lead flashing, between junctions in gutters, under slates/tiles, and so on, causing damage which will probably be seen first as dampness.  By then it is TOO LATE and you are already into expensive repairs! 

More Fun with Joists

Continuing the joist work, I then removed the floorboards in the rectangular bay window; this was a known problem area which I had been avoiding for some time.  I fully expected to have to replace most of the six joists, as I had previously found all the skirting board very rotten.  Of course, I should have known better: whilst removing the boards it was clear that there were bigger issues, as some of the joists were not attached to anything except the boards!  The joist at one end of the window (lying on its side on the right of the photo) was the worst, as the wall plate on which it was meant to be resting had also rotted into oblivion at that end.  The photo (right) shows (top left) the remaining piece of the wall plate and a surviving joist (centre).  In fact, the whole wall plate was rotten and pretty useless so I lifted that out, together with four of the joists.  I then could see that the two brick-high supporting wall was actually pretty bad as well; the bricks were all loose and, in its 1.75m length, there was a gap of about 50cm.  It also suffered from being built too close to the outside wall; the gap was about 5cm at most.  Consequently all the stuff which falls down the end of the floorboards (like plaster and rotting skirting boards) had been trapped between the two walls, even covering the wall plate.  As the outside wall was damp (high ground and the rainwater falling from the broken gutter), the dampness had been allowed to invade the inside and this is why the wood had rotted.

Thus it was today that that I found myself mixing a load of hydraulic lime mortar in my own mixer (for the first time), rebuilding the supporting wall and fixing a new wall plate, instead of just using the same bit of 4x2 to replace some joists.

I decided to improve the design by building the new wall three inches further in, thus allowing space for any future debris.  As with joinery, I find this sort of thing quite satisfying, even though it wasn't the task I intended to do.

As part of this job I realised that I had not seen evidence of the air-brick; a long time ago I had ensured this was clear outside to encourage ventilation.  Closer investigation revealed that there was a large clump of cement covering it, which I then removed with a couple of taps with a club hammer.  Presumably it had been blocked because it was causing a draught, but whoever did it seemed to be entirely unaware that its function is exactly that!

Soil Pipes and Useless Joists

Our house has a very small bathroom: 2.1 x 1.5 metres (although it is 3 metres high!).  We usually use a shower not a bath, but feel that a house does need a bath, so we were looking at options of using part of a bedroom for a bath when inspiration struck.  Various suppliers do shower baths which are "P" shaped, so you shower standing in a decent area which is also flat; the inspiration was to discover that they also do these - wait for it - exactly 1.5 metre long.  This then fixes the design of the bathroom as there is only one way that can fit everything in.

Part of this design is that the toilet has to be moved, and this necessitates changing the branch in the soil pipe from left hand (135 degrees) to right hand (112.5 degrees), and moving the branch up a small way.  See existing arrangement, right.  So, this week, I have started by lifting the bathroom floor and removing three feet of the internal soil pipe which is four inch diameter lead pipe.  Being a foul pipe this could have been an awful job but, since the toilet has not been used for ages, it was all dry and so not too bad at all.  The wall of the bathroom was one of the really damp places in the house due to the state of the roof, and so (with the roof fixed) I was very surprised to find dampness still present in the floor.  This was doubtless related to the discovery of a 6mm hole in the side of the lead pipe!  I also found that the toilet had been moved once before as the pipe once went through a large cut-out in the second joist from the wall.  The joist is 7" x 1.75" and the cut-out is almost 6" deep (see gap in front of the pipe in photo left).  This hole had been ignored subsequently when they fitted the floorboards, which had spanned the gap and rested on the rotten end joist... 

Unfortunately, as so often happens, another job appeared whilst doing this one.  The plaster of the hall ceiling under the bathroom floor is not just lath but was actually rotten lath held up by plasterboard.  This combination was in a very bad state (due to the hole in the soil pipe) and, in the corner under the lead pipe (above) the board was not attached to the rotten joist at all!  In no time it was all down in a heap on the floor.  Standing on the few remaining bits of floorboard on joists with just space below is surprisingly disconcerting.

Back to the joists: I quite enjoy this sort of joinery.  Fortunately both joists have good wood at the ends so I have fitted a 6" doubler to each joist, attached to the originals with a copious number of 70mm screws.  In doing this I found that the second joist had predictably split in the middle where the six inch gap started, so I added a couple of screws upwards to re-attach that as well.  In the photo from underneath (see left, before I did the first joist), there is a line of light visible between my doubler and the original second joist - this is where the cut-out was.


The other job was to start removal of the old external soil/vent pipe.  This is an unexpected expense as, to install the new branch, the pipe has to be rebuilt from the ground right up to the (new) flashing in the (new) roof.  I have started by grinding off the old external toilet outlet (right) to remove the pipe in the wall, so that I can progress inside.  We will need to dismantle the old stack, order the required new bits (if we can save any?) and then re-build it all when the new outlet has been fitted.  All that is a joy for a later week! Happy days.

Is it really only three weeks?

We seem to have done so much in only three weeks; the roof is progressing slowly, thanks to the usual autumnal weather, but at least we have seen the first slates go back on.  Encouragingly, we don't seem to have lost as many slates as first thought, so just a few reclaimed ones will be needed to complete the job.  Also, the scaffolding has been extended (see the platform above the gutter level) to permit work on both central chimney stacks, which should start next week.

This week's drama was inside.  I decided to take up a few floorboards in the lounge (the rest of the downstairs is solid floor); we knew that there was some issue with the joists where they meet the wall which has the solid hall floor and stairs on the other side.  In fact, the twelve joists are in better condition than I had expected, thanks to a good-sized air space underneath, apart from three places where no air could circulate due to builders' rubbish.  The end of the joists do not rest on the solid foundation as I had expected; rather, there are four small brick walls which support the joists, each with a bit of four by two acting as the sill plate on top of which the joists rest.  After I had taken up the two floorboards closest to the solid wall, I could see that there was indeed some rot/woodworm etc in some of the joist ends and in a few floorboards. Also, the sill plate was rotten in a few places.  Well, that's still fixable. 

I think that the ends of the joists should not actually contact the solid wall but they do - someone had thought it a good idea to fill the gap with mortar, which then enabled the joist ends to become damp and hence rot.  Also, the plaster was too low behind the skirting boards and actually touched the floorboards, again helping dampness to spread and causing rot.  I could add some photos of really bad bits of rot but I'm sure you know what it's like - it looks OK but crumbles in your hand...

I was still thinking that I could fix this all myself when I cleared away some plaster and caused some mortar to fall off which revealed WOOD at the base of a brick wall.  It was with a sinking heart that I removed the plaster at the foot of the entire twelve foot wall to reveal that it was built of brick with a wooden foundation layer at floor level.  I went home both depressed and puzzled! 

The next day, further investigation revealed that this wood may be actually in quite good condition so I shall consider treating it and leaving well alone.  I then resolved to take some more floorboards off to discover the extent of the woodworm and rot on the joists, especially the joist beside the damp external wall (where someone has installed a raised concrete path outside).  Take my advice - be prepared if you do this, and know when to stop.  The first thing was that I found more wood in the external wall - this was a smaller piece which of course had rotted thanks to the damp external wall.  I think it was to help secure the skirting board, but it had long since ceased to serve any purpose except to act as a sponge.

Three hours later I had removed about half of the flooring in the lounge and, hopefully, I have found the end of the woodworm and rot.  I also had the joy of removing a twelve foot piece of skirting board complete without damage, only to see it split under its own weight as I picked it up - woodworm again!  More firewood.

So this time I went home via a well-known supplier of building materials to buy a load of new timbers with which I shall discover if I can fit a level floor, once I can find about twenty five feet of reclaimed 7"x1" pine floorboards which do NOT have woodworm and rotten bits!

The Original State of Our House

Having owned this house for all of one day, I have taken lots of photos to record for posterity the original state of the inside of the house, as I have done some work outside and posted a number of photos already.  Here are a few of my efforts today of the general condition, mostly showing signs of lots of damp:

Kitchen fireplace

Kitchen floor

Main Bedroom

3rd Bedroom (one of four holes in ceilings)

Hall Arch from stairs

Lounge

Paper holding plaster to wall!

Small Bathroom

Stairs with 2nd bedroom on left

Interesting wooden corner feature in plaster

Looking after old buildings with love

Still waiting to exchange contracts, so here's a bit about my knowledge and experience of old buildings:

I once went on a one day course with the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) called "Faith in Maintenance".  This excellent course was aimed at people who were elected as churchwardens and suddenly found themselves responsible for possibly a massive 800-year old Grade I listed church, without an idea of how to look after it. 

The major lesson from the course was "control the water" which goes on/in/down roof, gutters, downpipes, drains etc.  If you do this successfully, we were told, you will do four-fifths of the job.  Essentially, prolonged exposure to water means serious damage to an old building, and a high repair cost.  The old proverb about a "stitch in time saves nine" is very relevant but understates the saving as spending £500 on roof maintenance every year may well save a capital expenditure of a thousand times that in a few years time.

The second lesson was to never use inappropriate materials; I shall probably go on about this at length in this blog, but principally do not mix modern materials (cement/gypsum plaster) with old materials (lime mortar/plaster/render) because it doesn't work!  You have to understand how the building was intended to work with dampness and go with it, not fight against it.  A modern house sits on a waterproof membrane and works on keeping all moisture out by using impermeable materials, whereas a building made with lime mortar/plaster does not expect to be bone dry all the time (but see lesson one above!).  Instead, it expects there to be draughts, and manages moisture by allowing it to evaporate through the mortar in the walls.  Replacing the lime mortar with cement means that the moisture goes though the stone or brick instead, causing damage such as delamination of the face of the stone or brick.  Covering a wall with (impervious) gypsum plaster instead of lime plaster means that moisture will be retained inside the house; it has to go somewhere so it will form on the inside of the wall or run down windows excessively, etc.

So don't mix vinyl paint, ribbon pointing or injected chemical damp-proof courses with lime walls.  Basically, if you want a modern house then buy one, don't try to convert an old one.

My experience with a 320 year old church

In a sense I was lucky as the Grade II* listed church I looked after for five years only dated from c.1685, apart from the late mediaeval tower base.  In the church I found many examples of poor repairs and maintenance:

• cast iron downpipes replaced with black plastic
• earth/leaves/twigs allowed to pile up outside a wall, causing dampness and cold inside (see right)
• gypsum plaster repairs on lime plaster walls (it really does fall off)
• modern vinyl paints used on walls and stonework
• lime plaster falling off because of prolonged flow of rainwater due to a blocked gulley on the roof
• extensive use of a cement skim (about one-eighth of an inch) over walls, window cills and stonework, presumably done in some cases to tidy up the appearance of these items
• water pouring down inside the walls of the tower due to the internal roof not draining. This was caused by excessive pigeon guano (see right, lower), which itself was there partly because a previous rector had placed nesting boxes up there!
• damaged window panes not replaced - when these were done, I discovered that one pane, which had a sheet of clear plastic over the hole, had been missing for over 20 years; the annual maintenance had been to replace the sellotape holding the plastic!
• poor workmanship by roofing contractors, who had fitted new slates and copper valleys, but had bodged the woodwork around the clerestory windows (using untreated one-inch plywood in one place)
• the many church doors had been repainted without permission or skill - the old royal blue was now covered by grey paint which looked like the stuff used to paint battleships, and it was peeling as they had not even sanded down the blue to provide a key

The same roof window, before and after. 

 The same roof dormer door, before and after.

Most of these matters were rectified in my time, together with many more, but we were very busy and some remain...  You could sum it up by saying that the church building was not loved, and old buildings need to be loved if they are to survive.