Paving Part 3

The paving has been continued around the back of the house, and I have taken delivery of the remaining slabs.  This afternoon I have had to stop laying them as there is the last obstacle to overcome - the back door step.  For this I have a 90cm x 60cm slab (and it's 40mm thick!) which I intend to lay on a bed of old engineering bricks.  At least, I think that's what they are.  They are larger than Imperial bricks in all dimensions, and have the texture of engineering bricks, so I reckon they must be an early version; I found them when digging the foundations for the extension. So, this afternoon, I have made some shuttering - almost of the right size.  This is actually surprisingly difficult, so when your groundworker makes it look easy when doing the oversite for your extension, it is because he is skilled!

Having made the shuttering, I mixed and laid some concrete for the foundation.  [Top Tip - always make sure you have enough cement and ballast for this before you start!  I found that I was about a trowel-full short, which was close enough but too close for comfort.]  Then, looking at the finished article, I realised that I had measured wrongly and had allowed for a slab width for the step of 70cm not 60cm. So I have shaved some off the concrete which is setting perhaps too rapidly in this heat; excuse me while I go and cover it up to protect from the sun... [2 minutes] ...  I've now done that but if 'Er Indoors goes outdoors she might get a shock as I've used an old one tonne ballast bag to cover it.

Tomorrow, the step itself, and then I can finish the paving, although I'll need to hire the 9" grinder again - noisy and dusty!

Paving and Setts - Part 2

At last! My paving stone has arrived, after getting stuck in a container at a dock somewhere in India I think it was.  I've taken delivery of the first 17 sq m, and have been having fun laying them down between the setts which were set in cement weeks ago. Happily,

all my careful measuring has paid off and they all seem to be looking good, with no large gaps anywhere. Here's the first lot (right) of 19 slabs, laid in about two and a half hours.  I'm glad that I chose to bed them on sand; having helped lay the 18 sq m of pretty similar stone in the kitchen in 2011, and then done another 12 sq m in the rebuilt extension all by myself, I knew that getting the level was surprisingly difficult, and so I wanted to retain the option of lifting and re-laying a slab later on.  There are a couple of those set in mortar that I would love to be able to do again!  In fact, when laying large slabs (60cm square, or larger) on mortar, due to the suction it is quite difficult to lift the slab even when you have only just laid it, never mind when it's all set.

The annoying thing about the delay was that I didn't trust my ability to measure accurately enough.  Hence I wanted to get the first half or so of the paving laid beside the house before I turned the corner (literally) to do the back.  Now that the first lot is done almost to the back, I will be able to prove the positioning of the end of the setts; then I can work from that edge and lay the remaining setts accurately beside the half-finished wall. 

That will then allow me to work across the back of the house on what will be our patio; in fact that part is almost a sunken garden due to the high walls, but it still catches the summer sun almost all day even though it's on the north side of the house.  Here's another view (left) from the other direction; the "patio" is at the end and then on the right out of sight behind the brick extension.


I'd just done those first pavers and was thinking of a cup of tea when a light shower started which decided the issue! So I took these pictures and decided to update the blog instead.

Doing Things Again

There are lots of things on this house that I did myself, and I had to learn a lot on the job.  Now, two years since we moved in, I have found that in some cases there were clearly things that I did not appreciate or understand at the time, and so some things are having to be re-done.

The first of these is my back gate; it is actually an old ledged and braced back door.  This was made redundant when we re-built the extension as there was no point in having two back doors.  I had a vision of re-using it as half of my back gates, and was delighted to acquire a partner as a swap for some old glass.  Both were the same hand, so all I had to do was to change the braces on my old one and sort out the surface finish.  They came up a treat with some gloss black which matches the front door, and now provide some security by solidly blocking the way to any passing ne'er-do-well (see photos here).

However, late last year I saw that some of the paint was flaking off my old door, on what used to be the inside. Now, it is looking very sad indeed, and clearly needs attention.  Noticeably, the paint is not flaking where I replaced the braces (the slanting bits) - they were old bits of bare floor board and are still looking good with their coats of primer, undercoat and topcoat.  The problem is with the old ledges (the horizontal bits).  I suspect that, despite my best intentions, the door was not fully dried out when I re-painted it, so at some stage soon I shall have to strip that side and start again.  I really didn't want to have to do things like this again.

Another similar example was sort of my fault where I was misled by the term "transit primer" which was the only finish available on the new bits of soil pipe which I bought (see here).  I happily applied black Hammerite on the top before we installed them, and 18 months later I saw it was all flaking.  So this time, up a ladder, I have removed all the old paint and this grotty primer using a wire brush and Stanley knife; then I coated them with red oxide before adding more black Hammerite.  Hopefully this lot will last longer!

Then there's my kitchen worktop. We bought a new kitchen from W----s, and chose an interesting bamboo worktop (see photos at this entry) which requires occasional recoating.  There's nothing in the literature to warn about any possible problems but 'Er Indoors has recently demonstrated the corrosive properties of caustic soda.  She did not realize that some had been splashed onto the worktop near the sink; we only noticed these spots when wiping the worktop and seeing spots appear before our eyes, as the water from the cloth sank into the wood and darkened it!  I have tried sanding and re-applying the coating but the problem is still there.  Now all I can do is to find a way of neutralizing the alkali (with some acid, I guess) and then re-apply the coating after sanding the whole lot.  Another waste of time.

Now there are some more doors: the specially-made (i.e. expensive) 2 inch thick pine front door replaced an older, rotting one, also in pine.  I paid extra for kiln-dried wood but even so it has warped and at some times of the year becomes difficult to open; I have not been able to use the mortise lock since March.  In the same way, the cheaper internal door to the loo in the rebuilt extension has warped - at least that only cost £50; bl---dy W----s!  Finally, the external door in the rebuilt extension is rejecting its paint and starting to look mottles and streaky.  I can only presume that the undercoat did not like the stuff that T----- P's supplier had covered it with, but what do I use now to fix it?

On their own, none of these are going to cause me huge grief, but taken together, when I still have plenty of work to do, I really could do without this additional workload.  What really gets me is that one of my deliberate philosophies in doing this rebuild was that I expect to be here for 10, 20 or more years, so I wanted to spend that bit more and get things right first time; I did NOT want to be in exactly this position in that time, and certainly did not expect it in such a short timescale.

Problems with Tree Identification

I have a wrong tree in my front garden.  It is definitely not the one I wanted and I'm really cheesed off with it.  It might be what it says on my planning permission, but it's NOT what I wanted.

My original vision for the front garden was to plant some semi-mature trees at the front which matched the ones in the churchyard opposite.  In 2011, I noticed that these across the road were blooming with lovely white or pale pink blossom; it seemed that there were at least three different sorts of tree and they bloomed in sequence, so that there was blossom on at least one tree there for about eight or nine weeks.

When I found a landscape designer there were only two things I wanted: one was a good looking plan to get past the council tree officer and the planning department, and the other was the identification of some suitable tree species.  The first was achieved but, on the second, one of the three is wrong.  Now, you might say that two out of three is not bad, but when I pay someone a decent sum of money to give you expert advice, I expect that advice to be RIGHT.  That is what being an expert means, isn't it?

One of the trees was a cherry, and I opted to go for a Japanese Cherry as I knew these have abundant blossom - you know, the sort of thing that is covered in lovely pink-white blossom and always appears in films and photos of Japan.  Another was something odd and it turned out to be an Amelanchier (right) which is a North American berry tree; it had blossom and a few berries last year which would be edible if the birds didn't get them first.


The third tree was to match a tree which, to my eyes, was a sort of apple: it had apple blossom, apple tree leaves and little fruit which looked like the basis of an apple but never grew bigger than pea-size.  My landscaper took one look when I pointed it out 25 yards away and said "that's a sorbus" and so that was what we went for.  She said that in "olden times" a sorbus was believed to keep witches away and that is why they were often planted in churchyards.  I realise now that her knowledge of a superstition was used in her mind to justify her identification, which seems the wrong way round when you think about it.

Last year I was a bit puzzled as my new tree (left, ignore the hornbeam hedge in front) was the same shape as the one in the churchyard  but had some odd leaves (more like elm?) with no sign of blossom at all.  I put this down to the fact that it was only planted in November 2011 and I was just pleased that all the trees had survived the winter. 

However, this year it is quite clear - it is definitely NOT the same species.  I sent a photo (right) to the nursery who sold and planted the the trees and they think the one in the churchyard is a Morus (Mulberry) but I can't find a photo of one of these on-line which looks like the one over the road, so that might be incorrect as well.

Since I know that I described the blossom on the one in the churchyard in some detail to my so-called "expert", I am really severely dischuffed about the entire affair.


However,  I also planted a malus (crab apple) at the rear of the front garden in front of my new wall, and it is flowering very nicely. This photo is from last year, and it is even better this year - I will put up a photo when I finish the pointing on my wall.

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...

Now you see it, now you don't

They've gone and changed their minds; the operation is deferred for ages (even 12 months possibly), so I will after all be able to get on with the tasks that I want to do this summer.  When I said it was bad timing, I honestly didn't really want this to happen.

All I need now is some half decent weather to let me make a start outside.  The walls, pointing, edge setts and flagstones will all take ages, and I'd like to tidy up and sow some grass seed as well.  Then there's refurbishing sash windows - perhaps I'll get a couple done if I'm lucky this year - and repairing some stucco work at the front (although it's actually cement so shouldn't be too difficult).

In the meantime there is some decorating inside to be done, but that's a job I hate - removing the black gunge that the doors are coated with.  Sanding it just gums up the sandpaper in 15 or 20 seconds, and a heat gun requires three hands as you get these sticky dead slugs on your scraper which have to removed with a sharp knife or else all you do is to spread it around.  The other hassle with the heat gun is having to remove the smoke detectors as they tend to get set off by it.  I've never had much luck with paint remover but perhaps I'll give it another go. 

Bad Timing

I know my brother needs my kidney (see link on previous entry), but in many ways this really is bad timing.  I now have less than six weeks to do a whole load of work in the garden in order to get it ready for my convalescence.

I rather like the idea of sitting out in the summer sun for six or eight weeks, drinking a little lemonade and watching the birds feeding.  The plants will be growing nicely with a gentle fragrance filling the air, while swifts will be wheeling in the sky above.  The alert among you will have noticed the possibly erroneous assumption in all this: what summer?  We're into spring and even that refuses to work this year.  I certainly cannot do any lime brickwork while it's so cold, and I don't even really want to do any concreting or cement work while we're likely to get a frost at night.

I took delivery today of some granite setts which will act as one edge for my paving.  The other long edge is alongside the house; part will be a concrete strip which will support my cast iron grilles where I don't want to pave up to the wall of the old house. Where the paving goes up to the wall of the new extension I will have a strip of self-compacting gravel against the wall of the house as I don't mind that going a bit higher (and I don't have enough grilles!).  There is no point is replicating the earlier errors (of high ground against a porous wall) which I have permanently eliminated by spending a considerable amount.

Once I have done the edges, I can lay the flagstones.  These are on order at my favourite reclamation yard, and I think I've got him down to the lowest possible price of £32/sq m, which isn't bad if you say it quickly - mind you it is for proper 30mm thick real stone, not some thin reconstituted stuff.  I must admit that does sound expensive until you think how much good carpet costs; this stone will be around long after the carpet has given up.

If I can get these done before the operation, I'll be pretty happy, but if I can also clear and lay some lawn I'll be even happier! So, I have work to do as soon as I can persuade myself that the weather is (a) warm enough for me to work, and (b) warm enough for concrete to set properly.

All Quiet on the North Western Frontier

The garden to the west and north of my house is still technically not a garden but a builder's yard.  I made some progress with walls etc in last year's dismal apology for a summer, but I really want to get some major fine weather jobs done.  These include stone facing on a long retaining wall, 10 m of setts laid, 25 sq m of limestone pavers, a fair bit of earth removal, clearing the rubble from the "lawn", planting the new lawn, painting 16 m of picture rail for the lounge and refurbishing some of the 7 sash windows.  (Recently I turned a window cleaner away on the grounds that the state of the windows meant that he would be likely to damage them!)  Even recently I have been too busy with accounts to do much so the garden has been quiet for the entire winter.

However, all these best laid plans really have "gang agley".  I have an operation provisionally booked for May 1st, and so whatever is not done in the next six weeks will not get done until July or August.

I have been running a blog about this potential operation which you might care to visit: http://diaryofakidneydonor.blogspot.co.uk/. If you know of any one who has done something similar then please point them to it - I'd love to have details of people's recent experiences of this.  One thing that surprises me is that the whole thing now is VERY emotional - I can hardly talk or write about it without welling up.  I think this can only increase!

I'm glad I never actually set a completion date; we set (and met) the "move-in" date in July 2011, but thereafter it's just one task after another.  'Er indoors is very patient!!

Ze Flashing Lights!

Those of more mature years will remember the wonderful spoof TV comedy series "Allo! Allo!" from thirty odd years ago - I'm sure it's still shown on some Freeview channel somewhere (or else BBC will show it when they finish "Dad's Army" again).  It was all silliness about a cafe owner who was reluctantly involved with the French Resistance in WW2, in case you're wondering.  One of their running jokes was how the knobs on the elderly mother's bed flashed when "London" was calling "Night'awk"on the radio.

Why am I telling you this? Well, we have experienced the same sort of flashing lights over some period of time. The problem was usually associated with high winds (in my trees) and so it seemed to me to be something to do with the above ground cables which supply the mains electricity to all the houses here. The supply to our house is via a cable hung from the terraced house on one side, through the trees to the corner at the front left; there it splits and our feed goes left around the fascia while the feed for next door routes to the right along our fascia (old photo right; the cable is not visible but goes from the top left corner of the picture to a point above my head, level with the gutter).  I was misled by the same symptom happening to other people locally which caused me to believe that it was affecting a good number of houses.  When we moved in I had some interesting times with the electricity supply (which I mentioned in this entry) as the old cable was perished and totally covered by the ivy.  Although it took a fair few phone calls, the job did get done properly and so I thought it was unlikely that the flashing issue was with my end of the cable.

However, I got fed up with the flashing in the high winds a couple of weeks ago - it wasn't just the flashing, but the fact that it tripped our answerphone which then reset itself saying "Answer on; calls will be answered in five rings".  When the power dip is repetitive, you hear "Answer on - Answer on - Ans - Answer -Ans" etc which is really annoying when you know you are alone in the house.  Curiously the power issue only seemed to affect the phone.  No digital clocks reset themselves and there was no other symptom, until the day when (unusually) I had the digital radio on and it all went garbled for some time; it only came good when I switched it off and on.  Then later the same day it went off entirely for over a minute and I decided this was too much so called the electricity supplier.  Of course, I got cut off once making that call by the answerphone resetting itself!  Aaaaagh!

Anyway, at last the problem was reported and they promptly came with the emergency team.  To my surprise they reckoned there was indeed a problem with the new connection - it had overheated (WHY?) and melted the plastic sheathing.  Worryingly, they said that it did happen sometimes even with new bits (but I'm a Chartered Engineer and I like to know WHY!). It's been replaced now and the problem has not recurred, so tranquility rules again.

The Saga of the Water Meter

In almost every decision on restoring this house, I deliberately tended to adopt the long term solution.  After all, we expect to be living here for a fair while, so the more expensive long term solutions were always worth considering as we would derive the benefit.  One such was the sheepswool loft insulation (see this page); this was quite expensive but it allows the ceilings to breathe, and is so much nicer to work with than the glass stuff which irritates.  Another has been the acrylic secondary glazing (see this page), which has made the house so much more comfortable, and in any case will have paid for itself in two years or less.  Other investments are purely financial, based on the expectation that we will still own the house in ten or more years' time; one such item was the water meter.  We had one in our rented house in 2010, and the experience was that, with just two of us living there, the meter had saved us about £150 per year.  So it was a no-brainer to have one fitted here and, quite naturally, I wanted it done early in the restoration.

I had identified that the mains supply for the house had a stop cock under a plastic cover in the pavement; there were two stop cocks inside the house; the main one was in the hall and fed a flexible (washing machine quality?) pipe which went to the bathroom above and had supplied the cold tank (which had already been removed to the garden!).  The other supply went to the old extension, and I had had the plumber fit a new internal tap so that we could properly attach a hose for the plastering and floor laying.  When that was working I had the plumber feed the other supply through to the kitchen so that it was ready there, but out of the way of planned work.

So, early in 2011 I made an application to Thames Water for a meter.  They sent out a workman (actually a contractor) who looked at everything and asked me if I wanted an internal or external meter.  I said "external if possible", not wanting to have a meter getting in the way of the kitchen floor and plaster work about to be tackled.  Little did I know.  A crew was sent without delay, and they very speedily fitted a meter under the pavement.  OK so far!

There was an amusing small glitch later in the year - when doing the extension we found that the water supply in the old extension actually carried on under the brick wall separating our back gardens and fed our neighbour's outside tap.  This would not normally be a concern, but in fact it had been used as the sole supply for the construction of a £3 million building at the back; this was an arrangement which preceded the sale of next door, and when they purchased it, the builders had an obligation to pay his water bill for a period.  As it happens, the construction had been completed about two months before I asked for the meter, which was fortuitous.  My neighbour admitted that he had been puzzled that his water bill was completely normal!

Having moved in (July 2011), I had a very low bill the next month, followed in February 2012 by a quite reasonable one of £91 for a six month period.  You can imagine my consternation when in August 2012 I received my second six month bill for £274.  Now, the house next door (not our other half but a separate cottage) had been rented out from February 2012, having been empty for over a year; it was not difficult to do a quick bit of detective work and spot that there was no other water main cover in the pavement for 15 metres, and so clearly they had fitted the meter to a shared supply. D'oh!

I can write this now in the cool light of reflection of the last five months.  That time was regularly punctuated with me telephoning Thames Water and getting not much satisfaction.  It took a considerable amount of persistence to resolve this issue, and their first level help desk staff became predictable in their complete lack of ability to achieve anything.   Their typical response was to say that someone would call in 6 working days but nothing happened.  One really stupid thing that someone did was to rescind all their bills back to when the meter was fitted (although the meter readings WERE valid and acceptable to me for almost a year), and then send out a bill for the standard rate for April 2011 to April 2013, so that I owed them £789, payable at once!

If you have the same sort of issue, my top tip is that at the first excuse you say the magic words "I want to escalate this issue".  Once I had been passed on to the "Escalation Department" I had much better service and progress was made, ultimately successfully.  Sadly for me that did not happen until I had wasted nine weeks and many phone calls in trying.  A second top tip is to keep a good record of your phone calls; it really gets the attention of the Manager in the "Escalation Department" when you can name the idiot who failed to do what he promised four months ago, and when you give a string of names and dates they quickly realize that you do indeed have a point.  The other thing to remember is that it is (usually) not the fault of the person to whom you are speaking, but one of their colleagues, so a plaintive sob story with a hint of desperation gets a far better response than shouting at the poor unfortunate one who was unlucky enough to get your call.

The result for me was that in order to have a meter it had to be internal.  Of course, this would have been much easier if it had been done before installing our new kitchen (June 2011), so there was a bit of an issue as to where to put it.  The only sensible place was under the sink, and Thames Water said that their installer needed six inches "all the way around" to fit the meter.  Now, it is natural to fit pipes within two inches of the wall and floor, isn't it?  This is what my plumber had done, and they wanted me to sort out the pipes before they would send someone to fit the meter.  I rather griped at that generous use of space which would have used the entire space underneath my sink for just the meter, and asked if my plumber could fit the meter as well.  This did not seem to be allowable, but they sent a man to look at the possibilities; he actually brought a meter with him, which somehow I persuaded him to leave and I then paid my plumber £96 to fit it right at the back of  the sink cupboard.  Good job!  All up and running.

I have today received their latest bill and I'm £165 in credit.  They wouldn't pay my £96 but the nice young woman has used a low figure for estimating the consumption if I'd had a meter which gave valid readings.  This has (deliberately or inadvertently?) given that sum back to me, so I'll let that drop, as I am really fed up with phoning their hepdesk!