Lots of Odds and Ends and decisions to make.
Entry posted by TheMitchells
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Well another month has passed and the OH is now only 2 months away from retiring. He can't wait to get cracking on the house full time - no rest for the wicked.
We have been doing various things, fitting in with our usual work but nothing major; we are waiting for the builder to arrive to start the outside work. the scaffolding has been up for 2 weeks and the builder should have been there at the beginning of the month but its nearly the end of Sept and no sign yet. I have been chasing him up and he promises to be there tomorrow......
We want him to repair the top of the gable wall and add an internal pillar in the attic to support the single brick wall, repair the render and check the overhang of the roof, which isnt too good. As well as repoint the chimney breast. The great thing of having the scaffolding is that we can get a better look at what needs doing.
There is one point where we can see the wooden battens, there is a gap of about 2 inches at the worst place.
the end ridge tile is completely loose and the next two look like they'll be loose too. there is quite a lot to check but hopefully not too much unexpected.
On a completely different subject, its great fun looking at all the other properties around. I did get told off for pointing at a neighbours garden. There was no one looking!
So - updates on the cellar dampness. Having spoken to several of the neighbours it seems that the area does have a high water table. Most of our neighbours and the local Waitrose, 300yds away, regularly has a flooded basement and so I am not worrying so much as before. Also, we realised that the front porch guttering was emptying into a water butt but the butt has no overflow and as it was damaged/cracked halfway up, it just overflowed onto the patio area, directly above the corner which was damp. I have now installed a new water butt and am keeping an eye on it to make sure it doesnt overflow. But this is just a temporary solution until we can find a long term way of taking the water away - there isnt a drain anywhere handy so it needs sorting long term.
In the cellar itself, we have removed all the Rockwool insulation that had been stuffed between all the beams, beneath the lounge cellar. The Rockwool was soaking wet in places and of course the beams and flooring above it was also damp. A hygrometer I bought showed the humidity at 99% and there was mould forming all over that front corner of the cellar.
To help dry it out, we need to add an airbrick at the front corner - it has one at the back corner but not at the front. in the meantime, the OH installed a fan which is moving the air around and since then, the humidity has dropped to 93% with a definite difference in the feel of the place. The moulds have disappeared and it has lost its damp smell. Obviously there is still damp there, but its a lot less than before. We shall see how it changes once the winter rains start.
One question I now have is with regards the removed insulation. we oviously need insulation between the cellar and the lounge above. We dont want to replace the Rockwool as I am sure it was adding to the problem. So we need to find a different method - I shall ask on the forum for suggestions. Maybe wood fibre board to replace the lounge boards?? Or a better insulation between the beams?? I need to research this.
In several blog posts, I have mentioned the dilemma of the bathroom location. However, the dilemma is no more - its staying where it is.
We have tried it in all sorts of places but for various reasons, it just didnt work anywhere. And after an Estate Agent came round, we are reasonably happy to leave it on the ground floor, next to the middle room. He was not too concerned and said that while families would rather have a bathroom upstairs, it was less of a problem for young couples, which is likely to be our target market. However, that then created a problem in that the middle room is quite dark and small and it does not work with the small kitchen. The obvious solution is to remove the large pillar and wall between the two rooms. But as it holds up the whole of the thick rubble back wall of the house, its not an easy undertaking.
So as well as maybe removing the pillar to open up the kitchen and middle room, creating larger, more usable space, we plan to add a sunpipe to the top of the stairs and then open up the stairs into the middle room. That way, there will be loads of light coming into the centre of the house which we hope will add to the sellability.
It didnt take the OH long to open up the stairs. and it looks great.
The uprights look like some branches that have been cut to length and stuck in. They have all the marks of the lathes s well as bark and I love them. It would be great to clean them up and leave them, but the OH thinks I am mad and says 'No'.
I'll work on him
Watch this space.....
As well as giving more light, opening up the stairs means we can remove the bottom most upright (to the right out of sight in the above photo) which will help enormously in moving furniture in and out of the room. And it feels really nice, coming from the lounge and seeing the room open up. Hopefully it will not be too cold and cause draughts once the house is finished.
One of things that amazes me about this house is the fact that it is still standing. Almost everytime I remove some plaster, I find holes - lots of them. And loose bricks/rubble. This is the top of that pillar between the kitchen and dining room - the one holding up the whole back wall of the house.
There are bits of wood, gaps, loose bricks! And below is the upstairs front bedroom window. I assume someone changed the size of the window and bricked it up - but why didnt they brick it up both sides, rather than just the outside??
There are lots of places where i think I may have to add some mortar, just to ensure the walls are stabilised before we do anything else. I have looked into doing a Lime course but realisticlly it will probably be cement mortar.
Today we had a visit from a local structural engineer. We want details of the beam needed to hold up the back wall, if we remove the pillar as well as confirmation of the beam sizes to replace those under the lounge. Our builder has used him before and his price for a visit and report was reasonable compared to others I contacted. (£260 plus vat). At least he turned up which is more than our builder has done...
Anyway, he had a look round and suggested that we use three beams side by side to minimise their size (its a very wide wall), cutting the ceiling beams that hold up the bedroom floor, and refixing them to the new beams with joist hangers. That would keep the height between the two rooms. I had not thought of doing it that way but then I havent done this before, so we are learning, which was the idea.
Then he had a look at the cellar. He said that he'd leave the beams in place. he agreed with our 'expert' brother in law, to remove some of the wall under each beam end, and fix in place an engineering brick with a piece of dpm on top to keep the beams dry. but he then said rather than replace all the beams, just check each one and if needed, cut off the end, then add/bolt on extensions either side which will sit on the new dpm. Again, not something we had thought of doing. He will provide details of new beams, in case we want to do that. But he doesnt think we need to. We will have a chat with our builder to get his opinion then probably decide once we see how bad they are. I am hoping that as the cellar is drier and we have removed the Rockwool, the beams are not getting worse. However, the SE did not have any suggestions for what to use in the place of the Rockwool. Maybe we need to leave the beams bare to breathe and stay dry and think about adding the insulation to the top of the beams, replacing the boards in the lounge. We intend to eventually lay bamboo flooring throughout the whole downstairs so maybe we can consider that.
The last thing to report is that we now have a 2 bedrromed house instead of the 3 bedroomed that we bought. We had great fun the other weekend, removing the stud walls from between the front two bedrooms. Both were too small to be of any real use and openign them up has created a lovely large room. The estate agent agreed that two large bedrooms was a better idea for this house - it will not be bought by a family that needs the extra bedroom and if whoever buys the place really needs it, they can always put the stud wall back again.
And having two large bedrooms has helped convince the OH that we should add insulation to the inside of the external walls to help create a much warmer home. He was concerned that the additional thickness would have made small rooms even smaller but as they are larger, loosing a little of the space is not likely to be noticed at all. And I have costed up the additional costs to be around £4-500. I realise that we may not get that back when we come to sell but hopefully the EPC report will show the benefits and I will feel happier knowing we did something to help keep the new occupants warmer. I know - I should not be doing anything that does not give twice the value back. But it is the right thing to do - even if it does cost us more.
Oh, and we have had a new boiler fitted so hot water again in the kitchen. It allowed us to finally get rid of the boiler from the upstairs bedroom which was really nice. The new boiler is in the kitchen in the alcove, the other side of the bathroom wall, which was perfect for taking the pipes into the bathroom and straight down into the cellar, ready for the plumbing when we get to that.
Well, I think thats all the news to date. Hopefully the next post will have pictures of our nice, new gable wall!! Keep you fingers crossed that the builder actually turns up tomorrow and gets started. I keep telling myself that there's no rush but the weather is changing and it would be nice to get the roof and gable wall done while its still quite dry. Patience, Mrs Mitchell!!
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