Phase 2 Starts....

[MdB]

So in phase 1 of the house renovation we rebuilt a couple of walls, replaced a lot of cement with lime and basically made the house sort of habitable. It only took us 4 years and the kitchen is still a mess....

Time to start Phase 2 where we plan to add an extension and insulate the back of the house.

The first job was to remove the asbestos cement roof from the garage so we can get proper access to the end wall. It is in a poor state and the chimney needs to be rebuilt to allow the open fire to work again. Removing the roof turned out to be not too difficult (apart from the bunny suit) but double bagging the asbestos sheets was a pain. That job is done now though so tomorrow, the render will be coming off to see what state the stone is underneath. Internally this wall was in poor state and took a months worth of evenings to repair. It will be interesting to see what we find on the outside. To rebuild the chimney, it needs to be completely opened up and the old liner removed which will be fun. It is currently filled with lose fill - especially at the top - and this is causing the wall to bow outwards as the fill drops over time. Currently there is quite a big crack running down the outside of the render following the line of the chimney.

The crack in the render is just visible in this picture. It is worse close up.

As part of Phase 2, the garage is going to be replaced by part of the extension which will be made using modern construction methods. This causes issues were it meets the old wall. There is such a high water table around the building that moisture rising up the old stone work is going to be a major issue to deal with. Something like 5 years ago, I dug a trench next to the wall inside the garage to bring down the ground level to a bit below internal floor level. This certainly helped with damp but it definitely didn't sort it completely - the water table is just too high. Often, we find the bottom of the hole to be full of water that has migrated in through the soil.

No water in the hole today but you can see that the side walls are still damp to a high level.

The plan is to replace the dirt floor with an insulated concrete floor with underfloor heating built in - the same as the rest of the house. To help contain the moisture levels, drainage pipes will be included underneath the floor to help keep the ground water levels low. We will also leave a strip next to the old wall which will be filled with limecrete to increase the area of evaporation and to reduce the amount of digging needed next to the old wall. Hopefully this ideas will be enough to contain the damp. Only time will tell.

 

[middi]

What can one say. Get on with it and good luck ( it will look good once finished )

Middi

 

[JoceAndChris]

That's a vast amount of work and expense! Good luck.

 

[MdB]

To gain access to the upper part of the wall, I spent this morning building some rather dodgy boarding across the top of the garage.

It doesn't look like much but this crack in the render has slowly been getting longer and wider since we moved into the house. The likely cause is the wall moving outwards which is obviously not a good thing...

Cement removal.

When I was working in the bedroom on the inside of this wall, I inserted a number (21 I think) of stainless steel bars into the larger of the cracks. Quite a few went all the way through the wall and hit the render on the other side. As I've now removed the render the bar + nut and washer are now visible. Hopefully these will help hold the wall together.

Before repair / repointing, it is necessary to remove all the lose material. Henry was rather useful in helping do this.

The wall looks like it isn't in too bad a state on the outside. At least it is better than the inside which had cracks the could easily swallow my crowbar. It is going to be a lot of work but so far, it doesn't look like it will be too bad / difficult. The chimney still needs to be opened up but I thought I would repair the wall either side first as this seemed sensible.

 

[Penners]

It doesn't look like much but this crack in the render has slowly been getting longer and wider since we moved into the house. The likely cause is the wall moving outwards which is obviously not a good thing...

When I was working in the bedroom on the inside of this wall, I inserted a number (21 I think) of stainless steel bars into the larger of the cracks. Quite a few went all the way through the wall and hit the render on the other side.

I'm not quite sure I understand the way that your steel bars work, MdB. If they are intended to reinforce the cracked/moving outwards gable wall, shouldn't they run the full length of the house, so as to tie the two gable walls together? And might it not be an idea to have a large spreader plate on the outside, under the nut, on each one?

Has the crack stopped growing since you inserted them?

Or have I misunderstood?

I'm full of admiration for the huge amount of work that you (and Henry) have taken on with this house.

 

[MdB]

If you look at the picture of the crack, outwards means towards the viewer. The chimney at this point has been back filled with lose sand. I believe that as the wall moves, the sand is dropping, gradually forcing the inner wall and outer wall of the chimney apart. The wall has been very poorly made with few (if any) through stones and the centre is rubble + voids with very little dirt to hold it together. The ties will hopefully help hold this together.

 

[Zebra]

What a marvellous job it looks like you've made so far of cleaning up that wall ready for repointing. I remember seeing the wonderful results from your repointing one of your other walls, so I'm sure this one will be equally well done. No wonder Henry looks so pleased with himself if he's cleaned up all that muck.
Whether the steel bars do anything structurally or not, I'm sure a good quantity of lime mortar shoved into all those joints will make it all seem much better.
Did you get all the sand out then? That's a terrible idea surely, filling a chimney with sand?

 

[MdB]

No wonder Henry looks so pleased with himself if he's cleaned up all that muck.

Henry gets the easy job of the final clean before lime gets added. He hasn't needed to be emptied as of yet. The main work of racking out the joints was done with a hooked garden knife (now very blunt!).

Whether the steel bars do anything structurally or not, I'm sure a good quantity of lime mortar shoved into all those joints will make it all seem much better.

Lime is good in compression (keeping things apart) but useless in tension (keeping things together) where as the steel bars should be better. It can't harm anyway and they won't be visible so there is no downside to fitting them. I was quite pleased to see that I'd managed to get some lime mortar 600mm through the wall into the space around the end of the bar. It gives you an idea of how bad the wall was on the other side...

Did you get all the sand out then? That's a terrible idea surely, filling a chimney with sand?

Not as yet. The chimney will be opened up once I've repaired all the main cracks. Oh and did I mention, the sand has broken asbestos cement tiles in it to add to the fun....

 

[MdB]

So we might as well get the old liner out. We do what we can from the top and we do what we can from the bottom but the whole thing is jammed so there is nothing for it but to go in from the middle.

I would have preferred not to have damaged the old wall as much as this but I went in where the liner had previously been installed and then repaired with cement so no great loss.

Inside I discovered lots and lots of sand with approximately a bag and a half of broken asbestos tube. Fun.. This revealed the ceramic liner and yet another bodge. The line of the old chimney is dead straight (as shown below once I'd opened the whole thing up) but the ceramic liner wasn't. Half way up someone had decided it was necessary to put a couple of bends in it. I have absolutely no idea why. Very strange.

Inside the ceramic liner was a stainless steel gas liner which did a good job of keeping everything locked together but after a struggle, it was all removed. (Though I did surprise my dad a bit when one of the ceramic liner sections made a bid for freedom and slid down the stainless liner to the bottom of the chimney.)

Once all the old liner had been removed and the walls cleaned up it was possible to examine the state of the old chimney.

(The left of the picture is to the outside. To the right of the picture is our bedroom. The picture is taken pointing up but also pointing along the line of the wall.)

As can be seen, there is quite a major crack in the wall where the outside face is moving away from the inside face - not helped by the sand infill in the chimney which was helping push the faces apart. This crack goes in a long way with myself being able to put my arm in up to the elbow in places.

Fortunately, when I worked on the wall from the inside, I inserted a number of stainless steel bars which bridge this crack and I have now incorporated into the repair.

I would like to pretend that I do all my work to the best quality possible but as this is all going to be hidden and was in rather an awkward spot to work on, I don't mind too much that it was done quickly and is all a bit scrappy. I've added a number of wall ties into the repair so that when the chimney is reclosed there will be some added strength at the weak point.

Once I'd repaired the worst of the cracks, a good look was made of the rest of the chimney, especially the front face. It turned out to be both a bit too tight for the new liner and to be in poor condition so it also was removed. I felt worse about doing this but if the chimney was going to be brought back into use then something had to be done.

The end of the house is now looking rather sorry for itself but at least progress is being made.

 

[MdB]

Whilst I was mucking about with the chimney, Mrs MdB and cousin, got rid of their aggression by taking it out on the shed which was in the way of the extension.

 

[JoceAndChris]

Wonderful wonderful work! Well done! Love the pace at which you do your house, it's careful, planned out work over years.

Don't feel bad about the poky out top bit of chimney, do you think it was original anyway? These things are better replaced or repaired and made usable.

Like the smashing up of the shed too, would Mrs MdB need a holiday here do you think? I've got so many things that require that attack!

 

[angrybird]

WOW MdB! you have been working hard,the stone walls are beautiful .why oh why did they cover them up :roll:
well I know your lime pointing will be good as I was a great fan of your chimney breast in your lounge,the look of your walls made me have the confidence to take off all the old cement that was plastered all over my dining room wall and lime point it,then I got the bug and did the same in my kitchen.
Mrs MdB looks a natural with that sledge hammer, I found great gusto using mine when I imagined the stubborn concrete was my ex husband :lol:

 

[AMc]

The line of the old chimney is dead straight (as shown below once I'd opened the whole thing up) but the ceramic liner wasn't. Half way up someone had decided it was necessary to put a couple of bends in it. I have absolutely no idea why. Very strange.

I've seen that arrangement in the soil pipes running down several storeys in a school conversion we lived in a few years back. The plumbers told me the logic was to allow for expansion in the pipe when lots of bath water warmed it up more at one end than the other and the pipe would change length slightly. The reason I was looking at it was the developer had used the wrong fittings and the expansion had cracked the pipes at the bends so "bath water" was leaking into the wall and then across under the laminate floor which resulted in a nasty smell and some interesting mushrooms :shock:.

Perhaps someone thought this was necessary to deal with expansion in the liner?
Alternatively they didn't have the right bits and used what was to hand?

 

[MdB]

Perhaps someone thought this was necessary to deal with expansion in the liner?
Alternatively they didn't have the right bits and used what was to hand?

Definitely not the former. The liner sections were not bonded to each other so they could move were they wanted to (and let the smoke out...). The bend was also not enough to make much difference to this anyway.
It could be that they used what they had to hand but my guess is that they started putting it in with little care and ended up half way up off centre and just put a bend in to get themselves back on line.

 

[LadyArowana]

It could be that they used what they had to hand but my guess is that they started putting it in with little care and ended up half way up off centre and just put a bend in to get themselves back on line.

Honestly, it could have been worse. Congratulations on progress so far, particularly impressed with the demolition by Mrs MdB

 

[Penners]

they started putting it in with little care and ended up half way up off centre and just put a bend in to get themselves back on line.

Now that's my kinda building! :wink:

 

[MdB]

they started putting it in with little care and ended up half way up off centre and just put a bend in to get themselves back on line.

Now that's my kinda building! :wink:

It wasn't you that installed it was it??? :evil:

 

[Penners]

If the local stock of cider and pasties diminished greatly, back then, it probably was.

 

[MdB]

The next new dance craze starts here.

I'm going to call it "The Dust".

 

[Penners]

Go, baby, go!