advice on a career change into property restoration!

[Stephen]

It never seems to rain on people in suits... :wink:

I rarely wear a suit (only if before His Honour) and often get caught in the rain!

clipboard-carrying hardhat wearer ( :roll: )

I sometimes carry a clipboard; what is a hard hat?

Do I sense a 'feeling' towards us cuddly professional types?

Seriously, I agree that too many professionals laud it over craftspeople and fail to involve them sufficiently in the project process and decision making. This is because many do not have a clue and only understand academically. However, some of us have got our hands dirty and do know how to do it.

On the other hand many of the problems we see on historic buildings today are due to 'craftspeople' knowing what is "best for the building" and failing to involve professionals.

The most important thing in any project is that all involved work as a team. Any career path taken should instill the need to understand team working.

That said, of course I will always be team leader!! :mrgreen:

Stephen

 

[CHRIS]

Becka

The advice that Gervase has given you is solid gold.

I third

I work with many trades everyday on many jobs in the SE and I know that good people are had to find, but remember you have to start somewhere and that is at the bottom!

It can seem nice and idealistic to read a few discussion groups and get the bug for building especially on the rebound from being made redundant, but to be blunt it is hard work and c£$p work conditions most of the time. I would look at some of the places local that do NVQ basic levels in trades like plastering or bricklaying as most builders dont just do period buildings they also (when times are hard) use modern stuff so dont get blinkered into just period property as you are seriously cutting down on potential clients especially when just starting out. Why not think about retraining into emerging markets such as Health and safety or Environmental sciences the pay will be better and more up your street - I know I could do with some trained H/S people for scaffolding or high level working. Or you could go on a Site engineering course to use Levels and setting out instruments as they are in short supply.

You could PM me as you are up the road from me and I could put you in the right direction.

cheers and good luck.

 

[Penners]

remember you have to start somewhere and that is at the bottom

I tried applying that principle for many years. But I got my faced slapped so often.....

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Well then, you should have had a hard hat to hand!

 

[Becka]

Having had a brief chat but very helpful chat with Stephen on the phone on thursday he's opened my eyes to the possibility of the professional side of things being an area I may be more suited too, which I hadn't really considered but makes alot of sense given my more academic/scientific background and we arranged to meet to discuss it further sometime soon I'll let you know more when we've met but I think at the moment I'm thinking that I will still do some of the short getting hands dirty courses, for my own satisfaction and to help with my own home and to give me some practical knowhow as well as training for something in the surveying/listed building research/C.O. side of things and hopefully find a happy medium.. So, whilst the plan for my future is definitely still on the fuzzy side, it's definitely starting to get clearer

 

[JoceAndChris]

It sounds like your pondering is leading you to a useful understanding of your strengths; and how kind of Stephen to help shape those thoughts.

I've looked into being a CO; I'd love to be a CO. But from what I've read you need at least one degree in History of Art or Architecture, a useful and proven track record of being able to submit drawn plans, a general mastery of everything within both our vernacular and elite built heritage, a photographic memory for the complex minutiae of regulations governing development: combined with endless patience and the ability to construct a mind-alteringly powerful argument. So I'm thinking of saving that particular career choice for the next life.

 

[Gervase]

Blimey - looks like I crept in under the radar then! It was the track-record in the practical building side of things that got me a job as part-time conservation officer. That an an ability to bullshit plausibly until the cows come home. Shh! Don't tell anyone...

 

[Becka]

I have a first degree in Cell and molecular biology, so not exactly related, but i guess it proves a scientific, analytical mind, certain level of intelligence and literacy etc and means I can hopefully do a masters course or similar rather than a second full degree.. However, if anyone can think of anything period property/ heritage (or horticulture/wildlife) related that would enable me to also use any of my earlier degree I'd been very keen to hear about it..

 

[JoceAndChris]

Blimey - looks like I crept in under the radar then! It was the track-record in the practical building side of things that got me a job as part-time conservation officer. That an an ability to bullshit plausibly until the cows come home. Shh! Don't tell anyone...

Um, I seem to recall a certain anal familiarity with the minutiae of early 19th C blacksmithery, as well as the practices of sailors scrubbing decks long ago, and, oh, all sorts of other things, so don't try to pretend now it's just coz you know how to hurl cow dung up a chimney.

Becka- I'm very awed by your scientific first, I'd take you on if that's any consolation.

Apropos of nothing apart from your request for more career ideas, my mother in law works in a field centre like this one:

http://www.field-studies-council.org/malhamtarn/

and has a very happy time. Running those places must be a full-on but fascinating lifestyle.

 

[Gervase]

if anyone can think of anything period property/ heritage (or horticulture/wildlife) related that would enable me to also use any of my earlier degree I'd been very keen to hear about it..

While we're flinging dung, exactly why cow dung is so effective for parging chimneys would be a good subject for a dissertation. We know it works, but not how it works - is it down to the cellular material that has passed through the cow's stomachs, or is it the mucus and other fluids that the cow has added to the mixture, as it were? As far as I know, no-one has yet studied this (perhaps understandably - two years immersed in cow crap isn't most academics' idea of a good time :wink.

 

[Becka]

JoceandChris - thank you I'm just lucky that my brain 'gets' biology And I still find it fascinating, but unfortunatly I find computers deadly dull and the track I've found myself on leads to computer biologist which I don't want to be and the labwork side is out now thanks to work related injuries to my wrists back when I was a white-coat wearing scientist hence being at the point where I'm looking for a new direction..

Gervase - you've got me thinking.. is it just cow muck that's suitable? or is that just the way it's always been done and cows are convenient and produce what's required in suitable quantities..? my first thought presuming it is cow specific would be that consistency would be a factor, fresh cow muck being alot sloppier than other large herbivoures like horses or sheep and therefore possibly containing more mucus which would be basically long-chain polysaccharides which would tangle together and hold the whole thing together .. what precisely are the benefits of parging with cowmuck over other materials or no parging at all?

 

[Gervase]

I think consistency and availability has a lot to do with it, but other protein-rich fluids were available - blood being one - while other faecal matter can be steeped in water to break it down. Cow dung is probably the most convenient, however, and cows do seem to have the sloppiest and most finely-digested dung of any ruminant (although sheep flushed onto fresh pasture after a winter on silage can be quite spectacular!).
As for the parging use, my own hunch is that perhaps lime reacts with something in the dung to form a irreversible hydrocolloid which coats the substrate, preventing penetration by large molecules of tar, oil and grease and yet which remains vapour permeable - rather like some modern medical dressings.

 

[Becka]

Hmm.. it's definitely ponderable.. so it's a mixture of lime and dung? or its reacting with the lime mortar/pointing already in the chimney? (it's a long time since I saw your programe and I've forgotten ) the 'preventing penetration by large molecules' instantly flicked up cell membrane phospholipids in my head, as these have hydrophillic heads and hydrophobic tails to they naturally organise themselves into layers or cells in the presence of water and form a relatively impermeable barrier. These would be in plentiful supply in cowmuck what with the cows diet, the cow cells and it's truely enormous bacterial stomach flora (I read the other day that cows have nothing in their genetic make up that says 'I eat and digest grass' it's all the bacteria in their guts!). My second thought with this was that, in theory it wouldn't be very water permeable, assuming that the phospholids orientated themselves in the usual double layer, hydrophillic heads outside, hydrophobic tails inside, but I suspect that this would be balanced out by the fact that there would be alot of osmotic pressure in a working chimney to draw water through and out of the brick work as there would be a warm draft going up it alot of the time and the layer is unlikely to be contiguous as there would be alot of other proteins and saccharides and bits of cow dinner mixed in. It should be more or less impermeable to alot of other stuff though, and may even actively repel some fats etc or alternatively capture them into the parging layer where they can be scrubbed/scrapped off more easily when the layer is reapplied.. 3rd thought, combination with lime, I seem to recall that lime dries out very slowly and may never totally dry out (?) (And I know slaked lime is dangerously hydrophillic but I'm not sure about how it would be when it's been used and is quite old) so I'm guessing it would probably have enough water in it generally to attract the hydrophilic heads on the the molcules which would then start the ball rolling as they would attach to lime particles with ether tails sticking out which would then attract the hydrophobic tails and voila membrane, as in this pic http://cellbiology.med.unsw.edu.au/units/images/Cell_membrane.png
I may of course be completely barking up the wrong tree and, as you can see, I can bullsh*t for britain too on occassion.. :wink:
and I'm not sure how stable this would be when it dried out.. and what effect heat would have, in theory, higher up the chimney it should be fine as there will be some moisture and not too much heat, but i'm not sure about near the fire.. :?

 

[Becka]

actually thinking about it, I imagine heat must help in someway, maybe it sets the mixture? putting something that is degraded by heat up a chimney wouldn't have caught on.. :OP though you have to wonder at what the first person to think of coating his chinmey in cowmuck was thinking/on!?!

 

[Gervase]

The usual way seems to be a couple of coats of cow dung slurry slapped on with a brush, and then a coat of parging mix mage from a 1:3 lime:sand mix with dung instead of water to make a sloppy mix. At least taht's the way I do it, and it seems to work pretty well.
As for the lime going off, I would think it would carbonate pretty quickly in a chimney when exposed to combustion gases - Ca(OH)2 + CO2 etc etc. And, to muddy things further, there's the flocculation of lime :wink:

 

[Becka]

Hmmm I will ponder further..off to my allotment for a think..

 

[Schoolmarm]

Drying out is avoided if possible, carbonation is the required setting method.

 

[Becka]

just been told that, despite having been given the impression we had till mid July we have to decide about voluntary redundancy by 5th June! with the idea that any who are approved are gone by the 12th! bit scary, effectively 3 weeks to come up with at least a fairly suitable plan for the rest of my career!..