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Mike's ext'n & renovation (sunroom stone floor & plinth)

This is where we don't want anything but evidence of your finest wood butchering in all its glorious, and photograph laden glory. Bring your finished products or WIP's, we love them all, so long as there's pictures, and plenty of 'em!

Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby Mike G » 22 Jan 2018, 18:31

Brilliant that he didn't drop it? Yep.......couldn't agree more! :)
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby Malc2098 » 22 Jan 2018, 19:35

Ha! Yes, and you have an uninterrupted view of the pile of hardcore!
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby Halo Jones » 23 Jan 2018, 11:40

It must feel like quite a milestone :eusa-clap:

Your workshop looks quite sizeable in that last photo!
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby Jimmy Mack » 23 Jan 2018, 11:48

Halo Jones wrote:It must feel like quite a milestone :eusa-clap:

Your workshop looks quite sizeable in that last photo!
If gives a good sense of scale of everything. Lovely to free up some space and a view too.

I expect to see the container being converted into a miniature marvel of sorts on "George Clarke's Amazing Spaces" in the not too distant future.



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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby Mike G » 23 Jan 2018, 11:54

There's a bit of distortion involved in that last photo. My workshop is some 30 metres further away than the house, and quite a deal smaller.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby Halo Jones » 23 Jan 2018, 12:03

I'll have to try that one with LOML - the workshop isn't too large its just a bit of distortion :lol:
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby techauthorbob » 25 Jan 2018, 22:07

PHEW!

I have just finished reading the whole of this post over the last few days - what a saga! (Old Yorkshire word for pudding).

An absolutely incredible achievement, along with having more body parts fixed than me, along the way!

I sure have learned loads about different construction methods and how little I know.

If you want to see big timber construction look at Pure Living For Life on YouTube. Lots of crap but some good bits.

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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby Mike G » 25 Jan 2018, 23:41

Blimey, what an effort! That must have taken hours......
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby techauthorbob » 26 Jan 2018, 00:06

It did, over several days, but I was a Technical Author so well used to reading lots and extracting the relevant bits.

The secret is wife mot around and plenty of whisky!

Seriously, learned loads from this post alone, plus lots about useful materials

Keep up the good work!

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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Container)

Postby fiveeyes » 27 Jan 2018, 23:06

Mike..just caught up reading the thread..you have been busy. Hope to look in again soon, as we are leaving for Arizona, and SoCal in the morning :D . do take care..yes, trying my best to avoid most people...TA...
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (start on the bathroom)

Postby Mike G » 18 Feb 2018, 22:18

I have so much drawing work to do at the moment that I can't get a good run at the house, but over the last couple of weekends I have made a start on the bathroom.

To re-cap, the bathroom is going in the middle of the upstairs of the old part of the house, wrapped around the stairwell. The first job was to get all the plumbing into the floor, and leave "tails" up to connect to the various bits of sanitaryware in due course. I can't say plumbing is my favourite thing on the planet.

Anyway, here is the completed plumbing. In the following photo, the hot and cold feed come through (well, under) the white wall at the top left of the picture. They're in 22mm copper, and we'd just poked them through into the floor void when we were doing all the work in the new part of the house. As it happened, they weren't in the most convenient location. The general principle here is to use 22mm for as long as possible, and with long swept bends, so that flow rates particularly for the bath, remain high. This picture show hot and cold running along the wall, and two feeds for the shower tee-ing off in 15mm (they're going into a wall, so there is no choice in the matter). The two tails sticking up nearest the camera are for the hand basin:

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Stairwell is on your left in this photo, and it shows the tails for the basin (nearest us), and then on to the bath supply on the far left of the view:

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After the bath (nearest), the supply heads off to serve the downstairs toilet, and the cold (capped) will run around to the loo in time (too much stuff in the way at the moment):

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I mainly used traditional end-feed fittings, with a few old Yorkshires I had left over here and there:

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When I had checked everything, drained the system down, and made the final connections, it was time to refill and test. I didn't need to run a dusty finger under each joint to find leaks, in the normal way. No, it was spraying against the wall like a pressure wash! That meant racing to turn the water off again, drain everything down, mop up the puddle which had run through the floor and ceiling into a puddle downstairs, get everything dry, heat the joint up a bit, apply copious amounts of flux, and then heat it properly and add some more solder.........all the while hoping that there wasn't remnant water at the joint which would render the joint useless. Anyway, it worked, and nothing else leaked. Phew..........that's a nasty job behind me. Insulating was a 5 minute job (you need zip ties), and you can see the pipe benders in the foreground):

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Time for the floor:

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I used new hand-made nails:

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The old floor is all over the place. The joists are all over the place. My new boards were much thicker than the existing boards. So all in all, much messing around trying to get a semi-reasonable floor:

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This is all I needed to put down to enable me to start on the walls. I'll fill in the missing boards later. I then built the wall between the landing and the bathroom, using 3" (70x45 PSE) timber:

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The above photo shows the raised bit above the stairwell. There will be a short sloped ceiling over part of the stair, which will have a shelf and cupboard over it in the bathroom (and forms a useful pipe-run for the basin waste).

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Finally, I'm going to have fun sorting this ceiling out:

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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (start on the bathroom)

Postby jules70 » 21 Feb 2018, 00:12

Some nice pipe bending there and swept bends.

Not a plumber but learnt every drop of water needs to be out the pipe before re-soldering any joints !

Seeing all the copper, what are your thoughts Mike on plastic ?
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (start on the bathroom)

Postby RogerS » 21 Feb 2018, 08:01

Keeping 22mm pipe on some of our runs was the worst decision I made. For example, the run down to the kitchen made use of existing 22mm pipe. Oh how I wish I'd ripped it out and replaced it with 15mm. It takes forever for any hot water to come down to the kitchen tap and then once you've turned the tap off, you've got all that hot water sitting in the pipe wasting the energy used to heat it up in the first place.

I should have bitten the bullet and put in a secondary return like I did in our last place.

In reply to Jules, my take on plastic is positive...with the caveat that you always potentially have the risk of a rodent deciding it's thirsty. Modern barrier pipes are much better than the original ones. 22mm plastic is a right ballache to use, though. You need to check that the rubber rings are inside each fitting. I didn't and one had either been removed, never fitted in the first place or simply lost. Result...one weeping joint.

Interested to hear Mike's take.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (start on the bathroom)

Postby Mike G » 21 Feb 2018, 08:04

I'll be using plastic for some of the plumbing. The shower feeds through the stud wall will be in plastic, and radiator flow and return from the lounge ceiling into the bathroom and bedroom will also be plastic. I wanted to do as much in 22mm as possible, and with the tight bends and nooks and crannies I was working in, plastic wasn't an option. The fittings are really chunky, too, meaning they're unsuitable for tight spaces.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (start on the bathroom)

Postby Mike G » 21 Feb 2018, 08:06

RogerS wrote:Keeping 22mm pipe on some of our runs was the worst decision I made. For example, the run down to the kitchen made use of existing 22mm pipe. Oh how I wish I'd ripped it out and replaced it with 15mm. It takes forever for any hot water to come down to the kitchen tap and then once you've turned the tap off, you've got all that hot water sitting in the pipe wasting the energy used to heat it up in the first place.

I should have bitten the bullet and put in a secondary return like I did in our last place.


Agreed that this is an issue. My circumstances were somewhat different as the pipe runs are actually very short, but the convoluted route would have impeded flow in smaller bore pipe.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (start on the bathroom)

Postby RogerS » 21 Feb 2018, 09:19

Did you consider using a booster pump? Knowing LOML's likely choice of taps I knew that the dribble of water from a cold or hot water tank would mean basins took forever to fill owing to lack of pressure.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (start on the bathroom)

Postby Mike G » 21 Feb 2018, 10:11

No need, as we have a mains pressure hot water system, and have good mains pressure. The thing is, having got the benefit of good pressure, I didn't want to give it away again by a constricted pipe runs with lots of elbows.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (start on the bathroom)

Postby wallace » 22 Feb 2018, 10:32

I love the way you only add what needs to be i.e most people would have ripped up the original floorboards and laid new, whereas you just filled the gaps keeping the original in place
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (start on the bathroom)

Postby Mike G » 22 Feb 2018, 11:33

Apart from its location, I bought the house because of those floorboards.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (bathroom & stairwell)

Postby Mike G » 05 Mar 2018, 14:20

It's weekend work only at the moment, so not much progress recently. I've also lost a dozen or more photos (which may or may not be a good thing!).

I thought I would start with a plan of the bathroom, so that people can have a better idea of what I am doing, and where stuff is going. It is much less easy to see in photos taken inside small rooms. So, this is the proposed bathroom plan:

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The hatched area in the middle is the area of low headroom, because of this ceiling:

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The photos I have lost were of plasterboarding the studwork wall to the landing, and building and plasterboarding the wall between the bathroom and the adjacent bedroom (to the left, in the above plan). These left an opening which was in need of some oak........so here are the top of the oak posts to the bathroom door:

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This is the door head, upside down. You'll see that there is a half-lap on the left hand end, because, from the plan, you'll notice that the adjacent bedroom door shares the same corner post:

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It was a bit of a balancing act to get the frame assembled leaning over and partially on the lower floor level, and here is the result. This is the view along the landing from the top of the stairs, before and after:

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Note the little bit of sole plate sticking out past the stud wall end. This has a corresponding mortise in the foot of the post, to lock the post into place. Note also the half-lap to the top corner of the door head.........and the temporary floor. This floor was the next job.

This is one of the boards, before and after. Not the crudeness of the underside, and the length-wise relieving cuts to help reduce curl:

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And finally, after a coat all round (yes, underneath as well) of Osmo PolyX oil (I really dislike the stuff now), this is the in-situ raised landing floor. Note the hand-made nails:

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The reason I dislike the Osmo is evidenced in that photo. The left hand of the 4 boards was oiled a year ago. It's a nasty stale urine colour now.

The floor had to be done before I could do the door to bedroom 4, because the posts sit on top of it. So, on with that next doorway:

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That last shot shows the old bedroom wall about 3 feet behind the new one. This will be removed in the next week or two. The battens etc for the little gap to the right of the post had to be pre-fitted, because there is no access for a screwdriver or hammer to be able to fix the once the post is in place. Obviously the sloped ceiling complicates things somewhat.

The real complication is that I couldn't get a fixing through the doorhead into the sloped ceiling, so I planted on a steel plate and screwed this through the lath-and-plaster into a rafter end behind:

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Next job was the stairwell, here:

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You can see I have already placed a pair of joists across the opening (this will be supporting one leg of the bath, so need to be meaty). What you cant see is that I chamfered most of the bottom edge away from one of them, as the 2 metre headroom rule is really really tight over this stair. Anyway, here is the end of the "rafters" over this opening:

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And here they are in place:

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Looking back the other way, from the loo location back towards the door:

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And finally, looking down the (temporary) stairs:

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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (bathroom & stairwell)

Postby Karookop » 02 Apr 2018, 17:18

Mike, this is regards from SA. Missing your posts and seeing your exceptional vision on how to execute rather difficult challenges. Always keeping the "long eye" on future activities, designs and builds.
Hope your Spring comes soon with a vibrant garden and.....gathering some energy to build a lekker braai!
Keep well and regards from the South! :obscene-drinkingcheers:
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (bathroom & stairwell)

Postby Mike G » 02 Apr 2018, 18:15

Thanks Karel. I'll be posting a big update in a few days time. Quite a bit has happened, albeit slowly.
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (bathroom & stairwell)

Postby mjdewet » 04 Apr 2018, 08:54

Mike, I'm in agreement with Karel:

That garden needs a decent 'braaiplek' Not a bbq-thinga-machgick...

But you'll have to import some decent firewood then...

One never wins do we?
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Mega update 1)

Postby Mike G » 29 Apr 2018, 21:29

In an experiment which only you guys can be the judge of, I thought I would only update the thread when I had made substantial progress. This because I have typically only been working on the house at the weekends, so progress has been slow. Well, I think I've got enough to post now (about 100 photos!!). Let's start with the first 30 or so.

Here's where we left things. I was working in the bathroom:

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You've seen that. So, the new stuff:

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I then insulated that for sound (as I do all around a bathroom No-one wants to here what goes on in a bathroom.....).

Then I thought I might stick a little low level wall out into the room in the middle of nowhere, just for fun:

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You'll also note some framing above the slope. All will become clear in due course.

It was becoming really really difficult to work, because the bathroom is too small and awkward, and the room next door, the 3rd bedroom, had 2 parallel walls 3 feet apart, with doors openings at opposite ends, and packed solid with bits of wood, plasterboard and so on. It's worth bearing the following in mind. The dashed line running top to bottom to the left of the bathroom wall by the shower is the line of a tie-beam, but also an original cottage wall. This shows the 3 foot wide corridor quite wall, if you imagine that dashed line as a wall. Anyway, it was in the way, and it needed to go.

Here's a view along the length of that "corridor". this is the "before" shot:

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You've got to start somewhere (well, after you've cleared a bit of space):

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After the first swing of the sledge hammer it was clear that the bedroom side of the wall was cement rendered in absolutely rock hard inch thick foulness. Behind it though, was a 300 year old wall, painted with the original limewash. It was obvious that the original wall had been plastered on both sides of the same lath, so was in effect only an inch thick:

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I paused for a long time, sorry to be taking down such history. I've beaten myself up over this wall for the last couple of years. Anyway, here's the original:

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The near side is modern, and the ochre-coloured stuff is what the original occupants of the room would have seen.

Demolition proceeded:

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There was no sole plate. The bottom of the studs were nailed directly to the floorboards:

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Lots to clear up:

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All gone:

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Now you can see in through the new doorway, and get the first glimpse of the enlarged bedroom:

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And a view from the other end, showing the tie beam with a bit of modern softwood (painted black) planted on it's bottom edge with some lath & plaster above. Since doing this demolition we've decided on a change of plan with this beam, and that plaster will be coming off.....but that's for later. Here's the beam:

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Right, now I'd got a place I could keep tools and materials, I could now get on with the bathroom.

Refer back to the plan:

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The hatched area crossing the middle of the room is an area of lowered ceiling (only about 1780 high.......5-10"), between two tie beams. It used to have the chimney going through the middle of it, and is the reason for the slightly unorthodox layout of the bathroom. Clearly we couldn't have any sanitaryware underneath that lower area. You can't clean your teeth if your head is banging on the ceiling! Anyway, it was something of a mess, so time to do a little work on it:

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If you look very carefully in that last image you can see a piece of blacksmithing, which was nailed to the tie beam and bracketed over the wall plate on the outside. It was this at the end of each tie beam which had held the house square for 300 years. Anyway, it was about the get hidden again. First, though, a series of ad hoc battens, packing and fixings where I could, pulling everything tight up to the tie beam, and bridging the hole left by the chimney (demolished probably 3 years ago:

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The ceiling all over the upstairs in the old part of the house is in a parlous state. I toyed with a number of different ways of dealing with it, but settle on this:

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I'll probably be screwing a couple of hundred of these in place eventually, but there's only 40 or 50 in the bathroom, tying the weak laths nice and tightly back to the cured joists. It's a horrible job, drilling out for each one, as it sprays lime and grit all over you, and the room.

There was far, far worse to come though..........
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Re: Mike's extension & renovation (Mega update 1)

Postby Malc2098 » 29 Apr 2018, 22:03

Fascinating.
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