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.

My first meeting with a Building Control Officer

The "highlight" of the week, apart from completing the limecrete slab (see previous entry below), was the first visit of a real Building Control Officer (BCO).  I have been trying to develop some sort of communication with BC since early December, and have been in receipt of either poor advice which is contradicted by the next person you speak to, or else they simply fail to respond to telephone calls and even a letter.  So I just shoved in my application, got on with the work (i.e. digging out the hole for the limecrete floor) and called BC when I needed them to do a stage inspection when we were about to lay the limecrete slab this week.

I was actually quite apprehensive about this, but the chap who came was very nice and easy to talk to.  He was also quite frank about the state of the Council's BC team (who have suffered vicious job cuts in recent months), and also about the internal politics which I had viewed from afar.  Basically, Planning, Conservation and BC all have a view of life and the rules for each mean that they are often in conflict!  He believes that BC's hand will be reinforced in the next few years as modern rules on energy conservation are applied more to old buildings, so that Conservation will have less of a say in what is allowed.  Since I had Conservation forbid double glazing in a brand new sash window which is being made for us (replacing a metal framed sixties design), I think that can't come soon enough.  However, I'm sure that there will be a downside somewhere...

I wonder if the BCO was impressed by the amount of spoil outside in the garden?

As I said, the point of the visit was for him to see the construction of the limecrete floor slab whilst it was in progress.  He was interested in the details as he had never seen one before, and so I explained with my customary enthusiasm and he seemed quite happy.  He was well aware that in a listed building he has very little power at the moment and so k-values etc were quite irrelevant.  Logically that's fine (in my view) as what is being fitted well be far better in that regard than what was there, and the point is that if you dig down too far to install a breathable floor then your old building might well collapse.  Presumably someone will sort out this sort of issue before BC do get given wider reaching powers; the idea of a three foot deep hole in such a building does not bear thinking about!

Also this week the plastering was completed for now, and there remains only the kitchen, and a chimney breast in the lounge to be done later.  We have the finished smooth coat on three bedrooms, the bathroom, landing, hall, stairs and lounge.  It has been a lot longer in coming than I anticipated, and my budget was well and truly blown by the extra time and the vast amount of materials required.  The only other thing done this week was finishing the floorboard repairs in the main bedroom.  I replaced two sections of board (which had to be ripped to the right width) and repaired another couple of floorboards which were glued, clamped and screwed successfully so I think I'm fairly happy with my skills on that.  This was all required after the ravages of floorboards being lifted without the necessary love and care (don't get me started!) by certain tradesmen. 

Now, it's Easter and I rested on Good Friday, and even took part in some spiritual events at the church opposite the house.  Today (Saturday) we went for a long walk in the wonderful country around here to make the most of the great weather, and on Easter Sunday we shall be at the sunrise service at the church (you work out the time!).  Then on Monday I shall be back at work on the house - no rest for the wicked!

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!

Conservation Officers and Planning Permission

I am SO dischuffed.  Our planning application for an extension at the back of the property has been rejected on the recommendation of the Conservation Officer who considered that an extension would "significantly damage the symmetry of the pair of [semi-detached] houses".  As far as I am aware, this is the same CO who, on the phone last August , recognised the house from my description and told me that my plans sounded "wonderful".  The refusal was terse in the extreme so I don't even know whether there is any future in an appeal or in submitting a revised plan to include something more obviously new (as opposed to matching the original building) such as possibly a conservatory.  The only consolation is that as we changed our plans last autumn, we can still move in; the original idea was to have the new kitchen in the extension, and so a refusal would have had a severe impact on our occupation date.

In any case, we do have to rebuild the existing extension; the end wall, which supports the purlin for the sloping roof, has a large bow with some loose bricks and I think it would be in danger of falling down if we wait too long.  So, back to the drawing board and consider all the options...  Perhaps the new solution will prove to be cheaper than our rejected plan - at least THAT would cheer me up!

We have done some painting at the front (photo right) on the cement rendering (it's not stucco!).  Our bay window on the left is now surrounded by fresh paint, which matches the other half next door.  Also, it makes a statement to the numerous passers-by that the house is NOT being demolished, as believed locally. We'll do the upstairs bit soon, and then do the bit beside the front door (hidden to the left). 

Talking of the front door, we have now got a superb renovated door (photo left) in a new frame which is all very secure (at last).  We just need the electricity company to come and finish their job of fitting new supply cable (we've only been waiting since the first week of January!).

Landscaping, crows and "Vision Technicians"

Following on from the recent granting of Planning Permission and Listed Building Consent for our proposed driveway (through the foliage on the left of the photo), there are conditions: one is that we have to get a landscaping plan approved before we can start work on it, and another is that we have to provide two off-road parking spaces and a turning space BEFORE we can occupy the house.  I was surprised by this second one as the absence of the driveway does not prevent us from occupying the house now, and so personally I'm not sure it is legal.  However, as things stand, we need to get on with getting the plan produced and approved.  Hence, this week, I have contacted a landscaper who sent a designer along on Thursday; she will send a plan very soon and hopefully we can avoid any hassle with the Council by just doing what they want.  In any case, I know I need some advice on what to plant and where, as the garden is very prominent and I don't want the passers-by to be upset when we cut down the huge cypress, the ash and the laurel.  The council Tree Officer thought that none of the trees had any particular "amenity value", either singly or as a group (which I was very pleased with!).

This week I have fought a battle against some crows, who were intent on building a nest in one of my chimneys, as evidenced by the twigs that kept falling into the lounge fireplace.  Despite the lovely weather this week I have lit a roaring fire on three days, sometimes with freshly cut yew producing some lovely smoke.  However, I have to report that I think I have lost as, today, there were no twigs in the fireplace but the birds can still be seen putting them in the top!  Now I shall have to wait until the little blighters have produced their family before I can clear the nest and put something over the chimney pot to KEEP THEM OUT!

There seemed to be some possible progress in The Mystery of the Free Step Ladder (see entry in March).  In church on Wednesday one of the churchwardens asked for my help in a task but said that the church stepladder (aluminium, very light) had gone missing recently.  I said that I had a couple of stepladders in my house and could fetch one in a couple of minutes, so I brought the "new" one (aluminium, very light) across for her.  We were now pretty convinced that it was indeed the missing one, but then someone found the Church's ladder in the church hall, so we still have no idea as to where the mystery ladder came from. 

Other highlights this week included successfully doing a trial fit of a bath measuring 150 cm long in a space 148 cm long (right - note recesses in the plaster on the walls); I have put two coats of satin black on the new front door but am still unhappy with the finish; and I have bought from Adam the joiner 20 metres of specially moulded skirting board which is now being installed in the lounge (left).  One other task was to repair some of the many damaged floorboards; I asked a local pine shop if they could produce two specially sized small boards of less than half a square metre, and thought that a trained man with the right machines would do it in less than 15 minutes.  However, I was astounded by the price - £60! - so I turned them down and, with some small difficulty, did them myself (lower right; ignore the gap to the lower board which is yet to be replaced).

Finally, we often have visits by interested parties, or friends of one of the contractors, or even their wives and children just passing!  On Friday it was a friend of Phil's who was wearing a useful looking leather belt/holster, so I asked him what his trade was.  "Vision Technician" he replied, without hesitation.  Seeing my slightly bemused look, Phil clarified things for me: "He's a window cleaner!"

A week without plastering

This has been quite a varied week.  Firstly, I spent a long time getting rid of over 200 ten litre plastic tubs, which were the containers for the lime mortar and plaster.  These have gone back to Mike Wye in Devon together with six pallets and about 130 lids (see photo left).  It's good that these items will get re-used, but getting them sufficiently clean was really quite tedious.  I even got a small refund and a thank-you for doing such a good job on the tubs, but I'm not looking forward to doing the rest in a few weeks time.

I forgot to mention the experience of the postman recently.  Whilst Adam the joiner was fitting the new front door, which was catching on the floor; the only way that he could open the door when he was inside was to lift gently on the letter hole and pull.  On one occasion, by coincidence, when the postman was actually about two milliseconds from putting a letter through the hole, a hand appeared on cue as if to take the letter...!  Shades of the Addams Family?

A really "fun" job today was re-instating the soil pipe to match the new position of the toilet in the bathroom.  I had previously removed the old pipe through the wall, although this necessitated wrecking the existing branch piece (see photo right) in order to get the wall pipe out.  Chris and Shane had then removed the old branch, plus the entire upper section of the soil pipe (complete, in one piece!).  Since the 100-year old joints in the cast iron pipes were done with caulking and lead, this was not an easy job, but they achieved it and saved me having to buy four sections of new pipe at over £77 each.  Then, this week I went in person to collect the new branch and right angle bend (cast iron, of course); this both saved a rather high delivery charge and enabled me to return some surplus bits (from the roof gutters) for credit.  Whilst I was doing this, the plumber's mate was drilling a new 110mm hole through the Cotswold stone wall; to my surprise, this was successful - he must have a really good drill bit.  Finally on Saturday, Chris and Shane fitted all the new pieces and re-fitted the old upper section which I had re-painted on Thursday.  I just need to fill the hole in the wall, and paint the untouched lower portion to match.  Most satisfying to see a job almost finished, although I must confess that the photo (left) shows a slight kink that I didn't notice before!  Can you spot the old hole in the wall?

Otherwise, this week has seen me doing an array of minor jobs such as fixing the tiles at the door from the hall to the lounge, fitting the boards for the bathroom floor (photo right; I said it was a small bathroom), re-fitting and repairing various floorboards after the electrician's tender ministrations (see "Kurt the Destroyer" last December), removing more loose and damp plaster (the last?) and putting two coats of undercoat on the new front door (photo, left).  The new front door and frame look great, which is more than can be said for the surrounding render and the loose electric cable.

Progress on plastering has been zero as both were off sick all week...  I actually felt quite lonely as it was the first week that I have had in the house without contractors being present for at least four days of the week.

Finally, the week ended on a good note as I found, on the council website, that we have been granted planing permission and Listed Building consent for our proposed driveway, subject to the usual plethora of conditions.

It'll be great when it's finished

Our house continues to attract considerable attention from passers-by, who often stand at the gate and will ask me questions if I am seen.  I have lost count of the number of people who have looked at our house and said "it'll be great when it's finished".  The latest was the blonde lorry driver who delivered the possibly last full load of lime mortar and plaster on Tuesday.  The thing is that I think it's wonderful already!  I'm starting to really think it won't be long now before we can move in, and the kitchen installation is planned for June 13th, so I have a fixed deadline.

This week has seen the completion of the smooth plaster skim of all the walls and ceilings in the whole upstairs, and also down the stairway to the hall.  Hopefully, next week will see the completion of the plaster in the lounge and most of the hall and kitchen.  We have also replaced the old front door and frame with identical new ones (left), specially made at great expense; this was a necessary extravagance, as the old items (right) were really rotten at the base, and well past repair.  The door should get painted this week, and then we can fit the door furniture; one task at home this week was to partially clean the genuine antique doctor's door knocker with vinegar. 

We had a small crisis this week when the only tap in the house refused to turn off, and so I rang Steve the plumber.  He suggested that I tried the rising main which I dreaded as I knew it was very stiff.  Of course, when I tried to close that, it started dripping as well!  Eventually, after an awful lot of water had gone down the drain, Steve came and we now have a new rising main (right, if you don't know what one looks like!) and a new tap (which will be re-used as the outdoor tap later).  Steve will be back next week as the bathroom stuff has arrived and fitting will start.

On the subject of water, I have asked for a water meter (I'm glad it wasn't done before, considering the leak we had).  On Thursday this week a man came to do a survey, and he expressed some surprise at being told to come here because he reckoned that no-one lived here (which is technically true at the moment) and that the house was derelict!

Last Saturday also saw a major step forward as I lit a huge bonfire.  In four hours I burned all the ivy from the front of the house which was cut down last November, the branches from the pear tree which grew three inches from the house, and the buddleia, plus a good number of bits of rotten wood mostly from the joists.  This was a really huge fire (viz the pile in the photo left) and the ashes were still warm on Tuesday afternoon.  The result was that for the first time the whole garden was visible and accessible.  The sense of space and light are a massive improvement over the damp enchanted forest which we encountered on our first visit last August.

A floor to dance on, and A Mystery

This week's success was finding and installing some reclaimed flooring in the lounge.  I started the lounge floor job last November, and did repairs to the joist ends in one half of the room; basically the joists were rotten wherever they were close to a wall!  This let me keep the other half as a datum as I had no intention of doing a complete new floor from scratch.  However, when refitting the usable boards to the first half, I found that the boards were all different widths, which made the job immensely more difficult as I couldn't just use any board in any position, but had to find serviceable matching pairs to cross the room.  My next problem was that I went to the wrong reclamation company who didn't deliver the 24mm thick floorboards which they promised.  I then found that I was driven by the various contractors who needed me to do preparation of some sort to keep everything going (OK, I could have paid for someone else to take off the old plaster...) and the floor took a back seat for a long while.  Two weeks ago I found a gap in my own schedule and did enough of the floor to let me start on the other half of the room - hence the joist story earlier this month when I removed the remaining floorboards.

On Wednesday this week I re-visited another reclamation yard which had no floorboards when I had visited before.  This time I was lucky as they had a huge pile of reclaimed pile, 20mm thick and 200mm wide.  I reasoned that I could plane down the edge of the last 24mm board and so this thickness would be OK.  Then I persuaded the lad to go through the pile with me so that I could choose over 100 feet of matching boards of suitable lengths, and they even delivered for free that same afternoon! 

So, Thursday's task was to finish off the joists in the front half of the room where it had all been so damp.  I got quite bored cutting nine notches in lengths of new 4x2 to retain the same level when replacing the slightly different sized older joists.  This worked surprisingly well - I won't bore you with my calculation and cut marking technique but it worked!  The photo (right) shows the joists in the bay window; note that I have not changed the position of the joists at all - the ends you can see are original, apart from the two where I have added an end-piece after sawing off the very end in order to retain as much as possible of the original wood.

Then I started to fit the new (reclaimed) boards and the floor was virtually finished by Friday; it would have been completely finished but I ran out of screws.  I also had a single uncorrectable mistake, when my very last saw cut was 10cm short...  Fortunately Jane was going past the reclamation yard later, so she picked up another 2 metre length for me.  The photo (left) shows the almost finished floor in the same bay window - it's almost fit to dance on (if I could).

Other Progress

Plastering has continued; progress is slower than I had anticipated.  Doing the two skims over three major items takes two days, so in four days this week, Phil did three ceilings and three walls (plus a few other odd bits).  We hope to have finished the upstairs completely by the end of next week, and another week should see downstairs done apart from the walls with the two chimneys and the kitchen window wall.  We are progressing and the end is in sight, but it has been a long haul.

We have also just received Listed Building Consent for the various items already mentioned such as the new fires, the kitchen floor etc.  Hooray! First major hurdle over.

A Mystery

Finally, an unsolved mystery: I have gained a step ladder.  I don't have a photo of it but I'm sure you can use your imagination.  On Wednesday I thought I heard a sound at the back door, but when I checked there was no-one there.  An hour later, going outside, I noticed that there was an aluminium step ladder propped on the wall a few yards past the door.  Phil and Jaye agreed definitely that it was not there earlier, so where it came from is a mystery.  If it was one of my other contractors I cannot understand why they would leave it here now as they are not expected back for weeks.  In any case, anyone who knows me wouldn't just leave it without a word, they'd pop in for a chat, wouldn't they?

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!

Plaster Progress, and Felling a Tree using Lime Mortar

Good progress on plaster has been made this week.  The first of the skim has been applied and the results are fantastic - Jane has "never seen such smooth plaster" (although I had never really noticed her caressing plaster before!).  I've been asked to always include photos, but seriously, it is very difficult to take interesting or even comprehensible photos of grey plaster.  Trust me - it is smooooth.

For the record, we have been putting on a haired scratch coat of 3:1 (aggregate:lime) mortar, followed by a float coat of the same without hair, then a skim of lime plaster (3:2) which is sponged, followed by a thinner skim of Regency plaster (really fine stuff) which is trowelled smooth.  Pre-mixed products take one variable out of the equation, and are available from Mike Wye (www.mikewye.co.uk) who have been very helpful with advice; I thoroughly recommend them.

It was the eighth delivery of a 900kg pallet of lime mortar and plaster which caused me to tackle a job this week which I had been deferring.  There's a holly tree near our front gate which is smothered in ivy; it's a trunk about ten feet high, very top heavy and leaning towards the pavement, about 25 degrees from vertical.  The rope in the picture right shows the true vertical.  I know how to cut a tree down, but this one needed special attention because of the safety aspects of the leaning - I did NOT want it to fall the wrong way!  I have a new 10 mm nylon rope and just needed something to attach it to in the middle of the lawn.  Thinking about this in the night recently (sad, isn't it?) I realised that the answer was a one tonne pallet of lime mortar!

So, when a delivery came at 10am one day this week, it gave time in the day to tackle this vexing question.  A pair of pallets was piled in the middle of the lawn, with my rope securely attached to the centre (so that the wood could not break and let the rope pull free).  The other end of the rope was tied around the top of the tree.  Then the mortar (in 45 ten litre tubs) was unloaded from the roadside by hand as normal and loaded onto the pallets and the tension in the rope was increased by propping another pallet underneath (see photo left).  Then taking a deep breath, it was time to start sawing a slice out of the tree on the lawn side.  I chose to start about a metre up, as that seemed about right (using my Chartered Engineer's judgement), and I was quite surprised how easy it was to cut the ivy/holly.  The "melon slice" was removed, but I thought that I had only cut about a quarter of the holly.  Nevertheless, we thought we'd try to just pull on the rope before I bothered to cut the opposite side of the tree a bit higher up.  Perhaps Jaye (the spread's labourer) is stronger than he looks, because with three rhythmic pulls, there was sudden movement and the whole top came towards us and fell at our feet (photo right).

The photo of the cross-section (left) shows that, in fact, I had cut about half of the holly tree as well as the complete ivy (which was actually a greater cross-sectional area).

The additional good news is that the view of the house from the road is much improved (right), even though neither Jane nor the neighbour noticed when they walked through the gateway!