cellar - a bit further on

[fluffytail10]

Well I found a builder who had a look down my hole and thinks the cellar can easily be emptied and converted to some sort of room. He noticed that there was new (ish) brickwork at one end of the room and suggested this may have been the entrance where the beer barrels were brought in. So I dug around a bit outside and have indeed found some kind of entrance! It has been bricked up (rather badly) and hopefully can be opened to make a window. Still looks far too small to get barrells through, but perhaps they only used small ones.

Sadly builder disappeared on holiday without sending quote so we'll maybe have to try to find another one. He also used the 'c' word (concrete) quite a lot, and insisted that the whole think needed tanking in concrete and plastic membrane. Still, I reckoned he would have been ok to put in a window and remove the rubble.

Anyway the excavating whiled away the last few days of the holidays, and amazing to think it was under the flower bed and we had no idea it was there.

anyone else found anything interesting their garden?

 

[JoceAndChris]

Lovely find there - very exciting! You must be thrilled to have another space to play with. Have a good read around before committing to anything regarding sealing/damp, I'm sure you are anyway.

No exciting finds here lately, unless you count my discovery of 13 bullace trees I didn't know I had - quite sweet wild plums.

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Well I found a builder who had a look down my hole.

Sadly, builder disappeared on holiday

Oh dear - Penners is going to have fit with those comments! :shock:

 

[Penners]

Curse you, FW!

I'd already seen the first comment and thought "No, I mustn't... I just mustn't...".

 

[FamilyWiggs]

Curse you, FW!

I'd already seen the first comment and thought "No, I mustn't... I just mustn't...".

I was very tempted to ask for photos, in line with PPUK Porn rules.... 8)

 

[Penners]

However, fluffytail10 got our attention!

Well I found a builder who had a look down my hole ...looks far too small to get barrells through

Dragging myself desperately away from any risk of prosecution, may I ask if we can infer that your house was once a pub?

 

[fluffytail10]

yes indeed it was a pub, well at least it was in 1841! called the Dukes Head. The locals are in some debate about what happened after that, some maintaining that our house/neighbours house remained a pub till 1965, others that it moved to another house in the village now called Duke House. I found a scent bottle in the bottom of my hole, dating to 1930, though also a plastic beer bottle bung which I guess mast be later. All a bit of a puzzle really!

Got quote from builder for £2500 to: put in window, empty rubble and re-route service pipes, treat woodworm, open up floor to reveal staircase, put in banisters etc.Does that sounds right?

Yes I'm afraid being an infant teacher I use words like hole, knob and pussy without a second thought as in...
Me holding cat puppet and saying "Look everyone I'm stroking my pussy," - much to the amusement of other adults in the room. :roll:

 

[jocelyn plummer]

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Penners]

Got quote from builder for £2500 to: put in window, empty rubble and re-route service pipes, treat woodworm, open up floor to reveal staircase, put in banisters etc. Does that sounds right?

Without actually seeing the premises it's very difficult to give an informed opinion, but based on your description, it sounds very reasonable. Does it include the cost of the window frame and banisters? If so, it's even more of a bargain!

 

[fluffytail10]

Well we have had all the rubble removed, and are able to walk around - just. Sadly the low head height probably prevents it being anything other than a store room but still in such a small cottage any space is welcome. Of course there were the usual horrors, mainly woodworm, which had eaten through some of the beams supporting the floor above, and we need to have them replaced. Glad we found out or eventually we'd have gone through the floor.

Still its been very interesting. The floor seems to be intact and consists of bricks and there is a slight gully up the middle of the floor. Also,the little annex seems to me to older than the main part. The floor in here is vaulted brick and flint and the ceiling has a gorgeous curve to it.

So now the questions: what would be the best way to clean the floor bricks?, what should I paint the walls with - must be white and breathable? and does anyone think the cellar looks older than 19th century - I'm so desperate to have an 18th century cottage! (at least in part).





PS I know the builder used concrete to fix the arch - but it is structural - don't be too hard on me

 

[JoceAndChris]

It's very difficult to judge the age of your cellar. In my limited experience the barrel vaulting was popular over several centuries, my undercroft from the early 19th C has that, and there's an identical groin and barrel vaulted undercroft in the antiques shop in town that was built 100 years earlier than mine, apparently.

The bricks that I can see in yours do look like typical Victorian ones to my eye. I'm sure Mr Hughes would be able to give a far more scholarly reading. What other clues are there as to the age of the building? Does the footprint of the cellar match the footprint of rooms above?

Whatever its age it's a lovely and exciting find that will put value on your house too. I'd paint the walls with either limewash or casein distemper.

Soap and water on the floor bricks, gentle scraper on stubborn bits. Liberon do a multi pronged treatment that makes them gleam - Stone Floor sealer and Stone Floor wax (breathable) if you want to go to town on them.

 

[Carol]

Our cellar has casein distemper on the walls. Lovely stuff, breathable, goes on to a range of surfaces, comes in all sorts of colours and easy to apply. (But as a fellow KS1 teacher, you are probably adept at all painting anyway!) You now have even more space for all those 'possibly useful one day resources' you cannot quite bring yourself to throw out too. Or it that just me!

 

[Feltwell]

You now have even more space for all those 'possibly useful one day resources' you cannot quite bring yourself to throw out too. Or it that just me!

I'd be careful that it's dry first though. Some cellars are dry enough that you could store paper in there, ours on the other hand is more typical in being damp. Any cardboard boxes left down there go a bit mouldy and warped after a while, even when they are stored off the floor on slatted shelves.

 

[88v8]

Very nice.
Pop a humidity meter (hmmm there is a proper word for that...) down there. After the building works have dried out, if it's below 50% it could qualify as 'dry'.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=humidity+meter&tag=googhydr-21&index=aps&hvadid=7877369209&ref=pd_sl_1j1x59xrr_b

Is it apparent whether the floor bricks are bedded in mortar, or just sitting on the ground? If the latter and if it does eventually turn out to be dry - wait six months to be sure - you might have the option of lifting the bricks and lowering the floor just a few inches... depending on the wall foundations or the absence thereof.

Ivor

 

[fluffytail10]

well funnily enough storing school stuff was my first thought! Imagine all those lovely matching storage boxes, each with a laminated label and a photo of what's inside - my idea of heaven!

It seems to be remarkably, dry or will be when the dripping water pipe has been fixed. I'm still hoping for my TV room but storage may well be the only outcome.

Next job will be to get some lighting down there and then we can start on cleaning the floor bricks and painting walls - though we may well leave it now till the spring to see how wet it may get in winter.

Anyway thanks for all your advice

 

[Feltwell]

well funnily enough storing school stuff was my first thought! Imagine all those lovely matching storage boxes, each with a laminated label and a photo of what's inside - my idea of heaven!

Blimey - don't go into our spare room then, it will be your idea of hell!

 

[fluffytail10]

I have sent off for a humidity meter and shall be watching it with interest - will it maintain that all important %50? fingers crossed.

The main area of the cellar does indeed fit the footprint of the room above - the annex however goes off under our front driveway. I'm defo thinking of putting our chest freezer down there, at the moment it's down the garden in the big shed, and a real nuisance if you need peas in a snow storm.

thanks again

 

[Feltwell]

Freezers are fine in a cellar, even a damp one - well, within reason! Ours has been in our cellar for 5 years now, the damp atmosphere doesn't seem to make any difference to the freezer or the food. One thing we did do was stand it on a couple of old pallets, originally because the cellar flooded during one very wet spell - but actually now I think standing a freezer on something to raise it at least a couple of inches off the floor and let some air circulate underneath is a good idea anyway, stop any dampness building up underneath the freezer. A brick under each foot of the freezer is a better idea, our pallets were done in extreme haste (it was midnight and the cellar was starting to flood!) - I should really take them out as eventually they will start to rot.

Why not put an ordinary cardboard box with some paper inside in your cellar for a bit, see what happens? Keep it off the floor, obviously. If after a couple of months it still looks OK then you're probably safe to store items.

Our cellar is really only good for storing things that aren't susceptible to damp. I've got some plastic slatted shelving units down there, and keep things like sealed bags of salt for our water softener, and items in plastic bottles. Even then we have to be careful, after a while it's not unknown for the labels to come off. I've also got a load of apples stored down there now, we'll see how they survive.

 

[fluffytail10]

ok, so there may be a bit of damp

 

[JoceAndChris]

:lol: