German half timber restoration

[a twig]

Somewhere on here recently ish we were talking about German timber houses and how fussed people were about maintaining and restoring them.

Cue YouTube recommending me this series from a creator called Laura Kampf

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLsyCFICnr819K6cWPGm1LUp9xDfhk-HP

All super relatable - the “oh the house is mainly ok just needs a bit” then “oh, well now we have taken off this bit, there’s something else - etc etc”

I enjoyed it anyway

 

[Cassie]

The inevitable Pandora’s box/can of worms. Every seemingly little thing leads to a massive, expensive, time-consuming chain reaction! Reminds me of the first house I attempted to make habitable. A simple electrical check revealed that the whole house was “wired” by extension leads all plugged into each other and run under wet newspaper/carpet/Lino or hidden behind bits of furniture that were too rotten to remove by the previous owners On that occasion, the survey was only good for lighting the fire

 

[TudorCottage]

I’m just glad we’ve seen most of these videos after we moved into our place. I don’t think we would have taken the plunge if we had seen them before

We had the oak framework checked over by a suitable tradesmen and he concluded that the majority were fine, a couple were showing signs of surface rot which he repaired in a professional manor.

He was also pretty sure that the majority of the frame was original, which considering it would have been erected nearly 500 years ago is quite amazing and shows just how tuff English Oak is.

 

[worms]

Yes, I've been following that Laura Kampf one on Youtube, watching as all the horrors unfolded! Apart from anything else it has been good to see someone on the journey through the process of learning about old properties and the slowly changing perspective on how best to approach the work.