Thisoldhouse

I'm back :-)

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-05-12 – 17:13:11

Hi family, friends and bloggers -- I am now (nearly) back to full fitness still treading a little carefully after bashing my hooter (nose) and tweaking my back whilst trying to lift a rubble sack which was more than a little heavy..!

So far I have removed approx 6 tons of rubble (plaster / crap / soil) from the garden and bedrooms with still more destroying to do... downstairs ceilings / floors and front garden.

And most recently I have found to my joy dry and wet rot old remnants of woodworm and three old wasps nests.

Regards more photos... what I intend to do is to get the house completely stripped first (as pictures of small patches of blown plastering are not very interesting) then take photos of each room before any treatments (dry / wet rot) / making good and then take photos after treatment and finally some more pictures when plastering and some more still as the rooms / house moves towards finish.

About 75% of plastering has been removed as it was falling off the wall (almost comming away with the wallpaper) -- No building works have started yet.

Still getting silly quotes for work, for the flooring downstairs (complete rebuild) I have been quoted £20K while this morning I have been quoted £3,600 just for re-boarding a floor which I will have to prepare and build myself...!

I thought you were dead!

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-04-15 – 10:56:53

After 4 days in bed, I am starting to feel better and have managed to venture out of the front door, bumped into my neighbours who commented that the house had been so quiet that they thought that (1) something horrible had happened and that (2) I may even be dead!

Well not quite but I have felt pretty rough, all you can do is watch questionable TV programmes ... I have a ratio -- the rougher you feel the happier you are to watch programmes which are well, total ****

I could not bring myself to watch McCloud, Cannon or Diagnosis Murder so I knew the illness was not life threatening, but did find myself succumbing to Jeremy Kyle and Good Morning (not as bad but close)

Anyway, the neighbours have both been in touch, the party wall agreements are progressing at the speed the law allows, the windows for three rooms have been made and are in the process of being glazed, and I have collected the newly glazed skylight...

Marcelo (the Brazilian plasterer) is currently away working on another house but I have many projects to catch up on...

More news and pictures later ...

Easter break!

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-04-07 – 14:34:09

So there we were stripping another room, removing all the plaster, pipework nails and rotten wood, all the old plaster dust filling the air, with more dust than air, I then decided in order to breath I must put on a dust mask and to see some goggles, I then realise after 5 mins why I do not wear dust masks and full wrap around goggles because I have previously broken my nose (twice) and have been told to be careful when wearing anything on my face ... too late ... later my nose and face felt sore and swollen and I realised (confirmed by Louise) that I have cracked or broken my nose again ... aaaaarrrhhhh which is unconfortable but equally very frustrating as this will slow the progress of the house project, but hopfully by not very much.

The house accident book which did have a 100% clean record must now read 1 broken nose!

On the bright side, in stripping this room we did not find anything that was not unexpected, a little wet rot here and there but that was it

I think if we had much more old plaster stripping to do I would recommend hiring or buying a dust extractor...

When 1/2 a day becomes 2!

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-04-03 – 21:27:13

Learnt something today which I had not really appreciated until now, Ok so not the most facinating fact in the world but if you are working in a confined space, times by 4 how long any task is going to take, so a simple job of bracing the skylight has taken 2 days! and the upper beading is still not yet completed!

Its important to strengthen larger sections of in this case MDF as you want to reduce greatly any movement in this structure so that any finish, over time does not crack / split.

Found my one of my CD books today under some building material, so managed to listen to some music; on todays playlist -- Dido, Beatles, Bach, Steele Dan, Robbie Williams and towards the end of the day as the sky looked dark grey and rain spluttered on the temporary (plastic) skylight Radio Head just to cheer myself up... :-/

A little visitor :-)

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-04-02 – 22:04:08

We (louise and I) are both a bit worst for wear today, not from some alcohol infused evening but thanks to a little vistor who, on Saturday, crept into the house through the backdoor which had blown open in the wind.

We suspected something was up as tiny paw prints had appeared all over the kitchen worksurface and this was confirmed when, at one o'clock this morning, the bedroom door swung open and a little pair of ears could be seen in the moonlight, switching on the light revealed nothing and it was only when we searched the front room downstairs that our little visitor could be seen...a tiny cat, with no tail and a flashing green collar!!! Earlier that evening all the houses in our street had been leafleted by a couple desperately looking for their lost kitten - so we called them and together the 4 of us spent a happy 20 minutes trying to coax the kitten out from the builders yard (aka the front room)

However, the Kitten found and returned to its happy owners (servants) :-)...

So just a couple of jobs completed today ...

Prepared the fire place hearth ready for slate

Skylight and skylight window second coat of paint -- beading completed on the ceiling bead and started on the skylight bead ... while some framing board insulation turned up ready for another project.

More updates later...

Overnight we have finished ;-)

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-04-01 – 15:03:45

Well I cannot really believe it! we have completed the whole house, it looks very different too...

I can go back to programming / IT projects, if the world of work is ready for me, in fact Bill Gates has just called and asked (now I am free) if I could possibly fly out and spend some time at his home re-wiring his sound system, and Louise my long suffering girlfriend can now spend all our money on spa days and dancing gigolos, although I cannot say I am entirly pleased about the latter...

Well we have to pack as we have this morning won a ski holiday to Great Yarmouth...and Marcelo has retired enjoying his solid gold collection of custom made mountain bikes :-)

And now our friends at Google are offering FREE broadband brilliant end to a perfect day...

New! Get FREE breakthrough broadband with Google TiSP (BETA).

I feel drained!

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-03-31 – 12:34:57

Drains ... strikes fear into every householder and today I can safely say with a degree of confidence why...to get them flushed / inspected is pretty costly and when drains are shared between householders, the problem of where the problem / blockage has occured, how it occured and who pays for the cost(s) can be problematic....

Yesterday, I cleared with Marcelo all the heavy clay soil around and above the damp course (bridging problems) at the back of the property exposing the very top of the drains. After many hours in pouring rain the work was completed with some mud/clay re-distributed within the garden and some bagged up ready for a trip to the local dump, I was ready to clear up and take a hot bath.

Whilst thoughts of a hot bath and the prospect of a good meal were running through my head these visions were swiftly wiped away by a knock at the door...our neighbour appeared looking a little puce!!!..he had popped home en route to the dentist to be confronted by a terrible smell of drains wafting through his house....although his wife was home she was impervious to the wretched stenk!!!

I was, naturally, panic-stricken worrying we had accidently fractured the drains so spent some time ringing round for an emergency drain clearance/repair service - the costs really varied and the best emergency service I could get was one which charged on a time basis in units of half hours and correspondingly charged for flushing on a time-basis (power flushing). A very nice drain-flusher (!!!) arrived and began his investigation...in the midst of this (loud banging flushing machine, terrible smells, me and Marcello covered in mud/clay and other smelly stuff!) my girlfriend made an unexpected arrival - she had come home from work early as she had a terrible migraine - she took one look at the chaos, said something (which I couldn't hear) to Marcello - who looked somewhat afraid (not an unusual experience for those facing the displeasure of my girlfriend) and went upstairs to bed - sleeping through the remainder of the drain cleansing fiasco.

It transpired that our drain was (relatively speaking) clean and well and unfortunately our neighbour was, by sheer coincidence, suffering from a blockage (in his drains....not personally!) caused by a neighbour further up the street. In fact, our drains and those of our neighbour are unconnected. So all's well that end's well....although cleaning of clothes/house that evening was, I understand from my other half, not a very pleasant task....but by that point I was in the bath I had been dreaming of and awaiting a sumptuous feast!

All aboard the skylark! (skylight)

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-03-28 – 20:42:21

Before I say anything more, let me say this is a complete nightmare, cannot use to thick MDF board, therefore have to brace thinner MDF to get level, all sides are not square and skylight window is not central apart from these issues its a breeze...however, I guess in these days of loft conversions this is not a problem!

Here's the progress ...

then spend a couple of hours pulling your hair out and then ...

and then (almost finally) I ended up with this ...

Skylight windows has been cleaned and coated with anti-rust undercoat paint, ready for decorating. The original skylight window has been cleaned up and ready for some new glass. Sorry bit of a quick (and a bit boring) blog this one, the hallway ceiling, stage one if you like, is virtually completed, so will be moving onto my next project which is interestingly called "what is that smell...AKA cracked drain(s)"...

Upstairs Hallway

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-03-27 – 19:25:09

The current project I am working on, with my working colleage (well OK the talented one) plasterer Marcel is the hallway. Before we started any work (although it is not building work it is refurbishment) I informed my local council where I spoke to the buildings control officer, this is a good idea and one I would recommend to all as you can check with the officer the materials, method and any requirement(s) for Part L of building regulations.

So far all the old laths and plaster on the walls and ceiling have been destroyed (carefully removed) as they had parted company with the walls / ceiling, if you do this, be warned this means 100 years or so of dust covered everything for weeks on end, so if you can tape some plastic sheeting across door frames and seal any laptops or similar in plastic bags before you start.

The hallway beams were not straight so some leveling had to take place, I used plastic shims for this as they come in 1mm to 6mm sizes...

After the ceiling was leveled, boarding with fireline plaster board can start ...

Then after a day or too ...

Ceiling level and insulated nice and warm :-)

The skylight is next up this is a tricky one as none of the sides are level or even, more about this tommorow.

Funny story from yesterday, as I buy my lunch with Marcel (the portugues speaking plasterer) we go a little out of our way to buy some humus from a deli I have never been into, the service is terrible but hey the humus is purchased and while we waited 5 mins to get served (with no one else in the deli) I decide to buy some olives, get back to the house and Marcel says as I put an olive in my mouth.

Marcel:"I am never going to that deli again!"

me:"Yeah, terrible service.." (chewing olive)

Marcel:"No they have a big rat problem"

me:"(I pause chewing) what do you mean?"

Marcel:"I used to go in there all the time, but I saw a big rat coming out of a hole in the kitchen wall at the back of the deli"

me:"Why did'nt you say anything?"

Marcel:"Olives and humus should be OK"

I now spend the lunch hour watching Marcel to see if he has any early signs of food poisoning.

As I mentioned in a previous post, employing roofers urgently to fix what we thought was an immediate problem (leaking roof), was a bit of a mistake, as I have now learnt (to our cost) do a lot of research on roofers and roofing companies, don't just take someone's recommendation, go and visit some jobs. Also when you get the quote check though the detail and ask them to explain it, tell them what you want (step flashing ect) as in our experience they do not ask you what you want they just do what they think you want.

I have now found (I think) a great roofer to come and fix some of the work the other roofing company could not remediate.

More pictures and progress in a later post of the skylark, I mean skylight...

Story so far ...

by oldhouseblog @ 2007-03-26 – 22:13:22

The last residence was addicted to smoking, hence all the internal surfaces were covered in a film of nicotine tar ... nice.

All carpets and wallpaper have been stripped out and some walls and ceilings where the plaster has blow out old plaster has been removed.

After a brief investigation we have found that the oven and washine machine are both broken (only appliances in the kitchen), all drains are broken, down pipes and the soil stack is/are cracked and corroded, the damp course is broken, the heating copper pipes and gas pipes on the ground floor are embedded in concrete, the copper pipes are rotting in the concrete, the garden is covered in approx 3.5 tons of concrete and the roof leaks...(which is sort of repaired -- our first mistake ... more about this later)!

Further investigation may reveal more surpises I am sure, at this stage I am kind of reminded of that film with Tom Hanks .. the money pit .. Apart from this everything is good