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The builder's are coming - floorboard laying

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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby Andyp » 28 Mar 2017, 19:43

RogerS wrote::( No-one from the builders have been here since Thursday. Friday was planned for but then he had a minor accident at the weekend. Hopefully here tomorrow while we are off looking at tiles and granite worktops. Well, LOML is looking at tiles and granite worktops, I'm just standing there pretending to look interested. ;)


Careful Roger. If she chooses the wrong one it will be your fault for not stopping her. :D
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 30 Mar 2017, 08:24

Luckily there was a large Tesco's nearby with a good cafe! During the drive the phone went and it was my builder "Can you remove the two radiators on the walls for tomorrow morning?". I'd been putting this off as it needed a visit to the loft to tie up the ball valve feeding the CH expansion tank and I didn't really fancy walking over the hidden joists underneath all the insulation but needs must.

So 6.30 pm this evening having dropped SWMBO back at the rental, I was back up at the house summoning up the courage to clamber up in the loft without much in the way of light. One of the 'joys' of moving is never knowing where anything is. Including my inspection lamp. I need not have worried as one of the previous owners had put down duck boards all the way from the hatch to the cold water tank and expansion tank. I cll that a result! So tied up the ball valve and drained the system.

But while I was up there had a look at all the pipes, many redundant but which ones? A right dog's dinner TBH. I'm going to have to bite the bullet and lift up a lot of insulation to find out what goes where. At least there are lots of handholds :lol:

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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby Deejay » 30 Mar 2017, 08:38

Morning Roger

While the system is drained, is it worth fitting a gate valve on the CH feed ?

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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 30 Mar 2017, 09:04

Deejay wrote:Morning Roger

While the system is drained, is it worth fitting a gate valve on the CH feed ?

Cheers

Dave


Already done, Dave :D
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 30 Mar 2017, 14:44

Been exploring. Removed some of the plasterboard from one of the downstairs sitting rooms to reveal where the original fireplace was located. The flue is still open behind it and a man is coming in on Saturday to send a camera up for a looksie.

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Upstairs is a second fireplace which looks to be immediately over the one below and so I'm not too sure how the flues go relative to each other. Hopefully the camera will reveal all.

The purpose of the camera was to determine where the flues went to see if we could get a new window opening and soil pipe through the East wall. But I got to thinking about this a bit more and came to the conclusion that, from that perspective, the camera is useless since it has no positioning information relative to the outside wall surfaces as it goes up/down. Since the downstairs fireplace is the only one that we are likely to want to use (if ever!) then it becomes a binary decision upstairs and easily resolved by taking a few stones out!

Which is what I've started to do.

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That's not a birds nest but rodent. So far nothing to see but there are a lot of chinks there. I need a smoke bomb in the downstairs fireplace.

Then had a discussion with the builder of my plans for the upstairs floor and he pointed out one or two 'issues'. Removing the chipboard here is not a problem as that studding rests on the joists.
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But here, the studding rests on the chipboard and it will be a right BA to shore it up.

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And the studding for this corner also sits on the chipboard.

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I need a Plan B.

Why not lay the floorboards directly on top of the chipboard, he suggested.

Well, there is a problem with the step at the threshold to the room. They cocked up putting in the joists upstairs. We think that they did this room by notching the 6x2's to sit one way in the RSJ. Then they realised that they'd cocked up the floor height out on the landing vis vis the level of the top stair. So they had to notch the 6x2's elsewhere upstairs to match the landing and top stair.

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So I reasoned that adding floorboards in that room as he suggested would exacerbate the step problem.
"Not if you lay the landing floorboards on top of the chipboard there".

"But that will make the top stair level wrong" I countered.

And so, we're talking 20mm here so I've temporarily added some boards to the top stair to simulate the finished level and to be honest no-one has noticed the extra 20mm.

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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby chataigner » 30 Mar 2017, 19:23

I ended up doing exactly that (adding a floorboard thickness to a top step) at my last house and no-one ever commented. What was more of a bu**er was that the french windows had also been installed referenced to the height of the chipboard floor. Adding a wood floor meant you couldn't open the doors. I puzzled over that for quite a while and eventually just lifted the chipboard, sloped the tops of the joists down towards the doors, put the chipboard back and added the wood floor. Again, no-one ever noticed. I thought 20mm or so over 1m would show, but it didnt !
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 01 Apr 2017, 16:52

Chimney man came this morning. It's really great having someone along who clearly knows what they are talking about as you can learn an awful lot as I did. For example, I hadn't realised just how dangerous wood stoves can be in stuffing vast quantities of carbon monoxide into the house if the flue is incorrect.

Anyway, back to the inspection. He had a monochrome camera that he fixed to drain rods and up we went. Towards the ground floor ceiling the flue took a slight divert to the left (facing the fire) and shortly afterwards we saw the raggedy stones turn to smooth course of bricks that coincided precisely with the ones here in the first floor.

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The flue the carried on up until we could see some sort of obstruction deliberately placed over the top. We wondered if it was there to channel the smoke towards one of the chimney pots but there was very little updraught. Three smoke pellets later and a very smoke filled attic and house confirmed that the flue was blocked. All the smoke we could see outside came out of the vegetation up by the base of the chimney pots.

So that's another job to be done when the scaffolding is up for them to do the chimneys and water tables.

But the bottom line was that the flue didn't go anywhere near where we want to put in a new window and also soil pipe.

One question I have is why didn't they put a line of noggins further up the studding ?
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 02 Apr 2017, 09:04

They've also moved into the hall to remove the ceiling detail. We discovered that there has been water ingress as a lot of the plasterboard was black and damp. On inspection outside we located broken tile but it does beg the question as to whether or not there is any roofing membrane up there. The rotten plasterboard is roughly centre picture. Another one for the list.

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And the big surprise was that the ceiling 'stucco' is not, in fact, made from plaster but tin passed through a roller to stamp out the pattern!

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A question for Mike. When you started out with your house, did you set yourself daily targets? How did you mentally prepare for it/handle the process ? I find my head spinning at times as one's thinking about routing of pipes, electrics, layout, design, arranging supplies...the list is endless.
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby Mike G » 02 Apr 2017, 19:21

RogerS wrote:......And the big surprise was that the ceiling 'stucco' is not, in fact, made from plaster but tin passed through a roller to stamp out the pattern!


I've seen this before, believe it or not. There is a pub in Sudbury (The Black Boy) which has such a ceiling, and they've stripped the paint leaving a bright shiny metallic finish.


A question for Mike. When you started out with your house, did you set yourself daily targets? How did you mentally prepare for it/handle the process ? I find my head spinning at times as one's thinking about routing of pipes, electrics, layout, design, arranging supplies...the list is endless.


I think daily targets are just a way of measuring and highlighting under-achievement, Roger. Whatever you think you might do, you'll find something else gets in the way or sends you off at a tangent, particularly so when you are still at the uncovering and discovering stage. I had the benefit of knowing that I was stripping everything. Nothing came as a surprise, because nothing could have been any worse than what I was planning to do anyway. In your circumstance I would really not want to work without drawings, because you can zero in in the merest detail and see how it relates to other stuff, thus eliminating or at least reducing surprises.

There is a certain rhythm to restoration jobs, particularly when there are trades involved. You do all of job X throughout the house, then move on to job Y, and so on. It is well worth breaking this pattern, though, once you get so far, and move to completely finishing one room, before moving on to work on the next one. There is something very positive about seeing one little corner of the project emerge from the chaos, and then another and another. Builders will have it that nothing is finished until everything is finished, and that can be quite depressing.
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby Mike G » 02 Apr 2017, 19:25

Just an aside, Roger. That ceiling may actually be worth something. I wouldn't skip it. You might get a few quid for it with an architectural reclaim yard, or through eBay.
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 03 Apr 2017, 09:40

Mike G wrote:Just an aside, Roger. That ceiling may actually be worth something. I wouldn't skip it. You might get a few quid for it with an architectural reclaim yard, or through eBay.


Thanks, Mike, duly noted and removed from the skip!

Cracking start to the week. Six on site (seven including me). Two inside building, three outside hedge layering and removing unwanted fencing, one doing the heavy lifting preparing the ground for LOML's garden.

And the bonus is that the gaffer of the hedging team happens to be an arborist who was on my list of 'must get this chap in to see about some trees.

Need more parking space!
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 05 Apr 2017, 14:04

Mike G wrote:
RogerS wrote:......And the big surprise was that the ceiling 'stucco' is not, in fact, made from plaster but tin passed through a roller to stamp out the pattern!


I've seen this before, believe it or not. There is a pub in Sudbury (The Black Boy) which has such a ceiling, and they've stripped the paint leaving a bright shiny metallic finish.



Any ideas what this type of ceiling is called ?
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby Mike G » 05 Apr 2017, 15:51

Sorry, no idea.
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby Andyp » 05 Apr 2017, 16:50

Any use Rog?

https://www.tinceilingtiles.co.uk/vinta ... vintage-5/

Could be worth a few bob. How many have you got?
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 05 Apr 2017, 17:36

Brilliant, thanks Andy. :eusa-clap:

Have emailed them. Seen to be the vogue in the US under the name 'stamped metal ceilings'.

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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 06 Apr 2017, 17:12

Been a busy week.

This
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has become this :
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The arch will be reformed to match another arch elsewhere in the hall.

This
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became this
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and now this
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It took six of us to lift it into place ....

There is an even bigger one to go in outside. The builder wants to weld the two together but I think I'll try and persuade him not to as it will become a thermal bridge to the outside.

Question...does anyone know of an epoxy that will glue stone facing to steel ? The original steel had a different profile ...I think that they probably fabricated it specially as they could then cut a rebate in the stone facing, drill and epoxy in bolts through holes drilled in the steel.

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The shape of our steel is the traditional one of an H on its side. Unless the stone people can cut a groove inside the stone that will then let it slide over the web of the steel....I just thought of that approach while typing this up.

Monday the plan is to remove these very large and very heavy stones then build up the pillars to support the outer steel.
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and to open up the outer skin of stone in this new window
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The sandstone outer mullions, cill etc have already arrived and refreshingly economically priced.
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Meanwhile, LOML has had one of her beds prepared...four layers of rotten terram came out plus huge stones and rotten wood.
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The bank in front has been cleared by yours truly...jeez, that pyracanthus is a thug.
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And lastly, this...
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became this
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Time for a beer or two
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby Andyp » 06 Apr 2017, 17:27

After all the frustrations I hope it feels good to be making progress on so many fronts.
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 06 Apr 2017, 17:54

Andyp wrote:After all the frustrations I hope it feels good to be making progress on so many fronts.


It certainly does...
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby Malc2098 » 06 Apr 2017, 18:01

Just the two beers?! After all that, I'd go for the dozen! Well done. :eusa-clap:
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby TrimTheKing » 06 Apr 2017, 18:16

Cracking progress that mate. :eusa-clap:

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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby woodstalker » 06 Apr 2017, 20:59

I can recommend a rotavator for the garden to prep the soil!

Amazing progress; in that last photo have you laid that hedge?
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby Mike G » 06 Apr 2017, 21:02

Traditional hedge laying can be quite brutal, but the hedges look (and work) just great afterwards. I don't want to make you too jealous, but all of ours are completely green, the blackthorn has been in blossom for weeks, and the bluebells are fully out. I don't think I've ever seen a better display of primroses than we had this year, but they are now past their best. Oh, and it still hasn't rained for weeks.
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby RogerS » 06 Apr 2017, 21:38

woodstalker wrote:I can recommend a rotavator for the garden to prep the soil!

Amazing progress; in that last photo have you laid that hedge?


The guy doing the garden bed used our cultivator to finish it off after he'd done all the hard grafting.

No, I didn't lay that hedge...two guys did it. It was hard graft for them.
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby woodstalker » 13 Apr 2017, 21:16

RogerS wrote:
woodstalker wrote:I can recommend a rotavator for the garden to prep the soil!

Amazing progress; in that last photo have you laid that hedge?


The guy doing the garden bed used our cultivator to finish it off after he'd done all the hard grafting.

No, I didn't lay that hedge...two guys did it. It was hard graft for them.


I had to use a ratchet strap attached to the handle bars for me to sit in and use my weight to be able to hold it in one place, my arms were in bits for days afterwards!

I was quite surprised, but is suppose i shouldn't be, at the regional variations in hedge laying. I just assumed the method my grandfather used was the method. Definitely hard graft taming an overgrown hedge though! Looks good.
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Re: The builder's are coming ....

Postby TrimTheKing » 13 Apr 2017, 23:53

What do they do with those thick trunks, part cut through them then bend to ground level and wind the branches together?

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