The plumbing first fix began this morning with Billy and Andy installing the water pipes for the new bathroom and the radiators. We had no services in this side of the house at all, so the only pipework was old pipework for the radiators, and that was too narrow and pretty furred up with orange gunk. So we are starting the plumbing from scratch, replacing all existing pipes and replanning the routes. Makes sense when the house is in bits.
This meets all my OCD requirements for neatness and order.
New copper pipes emerging in Cat’s bedroom.
Plumbers always write on the walls, plumbers and carpenters.
The floating wall that was fixed yesterday drying nicely.
The bottom section of the A-Frame here will be plastered as this is the end of the floor above, so Dan has cut in the timber frame for this.
The main tie beam has now had the end cut, so the new piece of (old) oak can be connected via a scarf joint, then the steel plate gets bolted across the top of them both.
The end of the tie beam. The rot and historic woodworm is pretty bad on this end, it doesn’t weigh much and wasn’t difficult to cut, never a good sign…
You can see how the woodworm gets to a certain point only. The heartwood is much harder, so woodworm generally don’t attack the middle. A timber that looks badly attacked by woodworm will often be fine, it is just superficial.
The new steel angle for the landing, above the shelves. The last steel was not deep enough so barely went into the wall. This one is deeper. The holes are for more steel ties to hold this in the wall.
Colin offered his services for spray painting the steels for the attic timbers. They came painted with red oxide, but as these will be visible we would like them to be matt black.
They are being sprayed with ‘2 pack’, an industrial acrylic enamel paint, something he uses for aircraft and cars.
One of the steel shoes for the beams in the attic, looking very smart!
The angles behind are for the 7 purlin ends that all need extending into the walls.
The pile of stone that we moved yesterday (it was raining too much for me to photograph it yesterday!)
Skip change time! Soon to be filled with roof tiles…
Colin has discovered the joys of picking at the cement pointing on the house. It is a very satisfying job. He popped over and we lost him for a while and found he had snuck through and was picking at the back wall!
It already looks so much better with the awful, damaging cement having been removed.
A bit of Hornton blue in the middle, you can see the marks where the cement has been removed. The blue stone is much harder than the orange, so doesn’t deface as badly under the cement.
Food porn. Our first courgettes!
Send it off for dendrochronology and you can see exactly when the house was built!
This is such a great idea! The timbers may well be older than the house though as some have been repurposed from elsewhere before they were used in the cottage…