Please encourage me and tell me your most thankless renovation job!?

[Rosemouse]

I'm pretty new here. I've asked a couple of questions, and I've been planning stuff for about a year. Last week after months of studying the situation and obtaining a bunch of quotes, I finally decided that the best way to insulate the floor of my attic was to do it myself. So with my friend Marc, we set about pulling up all the old rotting pine floorboards in the 102m square attic space. But first we had to untack acres of disintegrating plastic sheeting, and remove two trailor-loads of rotting spongy synthetic carpet pieces, the sort where the foam backing disintegrates into poisonous powder. . Underneath are the roof rafters, and between those the ceiling of the rooms below, which is 1930's terracotta brick suspended with metal rivets into the rafters - so you can't stand on them. The space has been insulated with paper and cardboard, lots of it, the oldest dating to the 1920's, the newest to 1964. Everything has to be separated out to take it to the tip (did I mention i am in France, it all has to be separated). Did I also mention the only way in and out of the attic are narrow very steep stairs that are more like a ladder through a trapdoor, and that there are no windows? And that the entrance to the attic is a sliding panel in the side of the tiny toilet - so you have to slide past the actual toilet to access it. All the rotting floorboards have to be slid down the ladder stairs and then manually twisted out of the toilet and thrown out the bathroom window. We have done four days and today I spent seven hours on hands and knees or suqatting over the rafters so as not to touch the brick roof, with eye mask, face mask and earphones on, vacuuming up seven bags of mouldy dust and old plaster and bits of rat-chewed paper. And I didn't even complete a quarter of the space.
I am really glad I decided to do it myself, because all that disgusting mouldy gunk needs to go away, but omg what an introduction to the amount of work these old hovels take. There are at least another two days just of cleaning - we have removed countless bags of paper, cardboard, and dust, and the tip man knows me by name. Oh, and then we have to reverse everything and haul all the insulation and new floorboards up the stairs and lay them.
Please feel free to lift my spirits, and tell me what the worst/longest/most thankless/filthiest job is you've undertaken so far. Because I feel it can't get much worse than this but also i don't want to tempt fate by declaring this! (also I am having the time of my life - who knew you could enjoy this so much!)

 

[a twig]

Clearing a 2 storey chimney filled bottom to top with jackdaw nests and a selection of dead birds (including dead chicks that had clearly fallen out of previous nests) and mice.

12 rubble sacks and 7 Henry hoover bags to clear over the course of a day.

Incidentally @Rosemouse if you were thinking that in future a larger loft hatch / better loft access would be a good idea, maybe consider doing that now to make the rest of the clearing easier!

 

[a twig]

Ooh just remembered - longest job was removing a cement talking slurry that had been painted over the external face of our bath stone walls (both storeys). No strippers or DOFFs would touch it, took 2 weeks to grind it off stone by stone with an angle grinder and vanity disks, wearing overalls and FFP3 face masks due to the risk of lead paint.

Every evening my hair and beard were solid with stone and cement dust and I had to shower outside with the freezing cold garden hose before my wife would allow me back in the house

 

[aockenden]

That sounds like a real hoot to be certain. The cramped access would definitely be a huge irritant for me as well. For me, the most hateful job is absolutely cement render removal. It’s been slapped up to 4 inches thick over literally every inch of our stone walls internally. Jackhammering it off the wall while wearing a respirator, ear defenders and goggles for hours (and sometimes days) on end takes me to dark places.

I’ve done so much of it in our house for the past 3 years that my SCM and Levator Scapula muscles started seizing up, causing dizzyness, facial tingling, tinnitus and even blurred vision. I finally pinpointed that those were the muscles involved and neck stretching has fixed 90% of that now but it got really bad for me for a while. It was bad enough I couldn’t drive and would trip and fall a lot. I thought I had a brain tumor or MS and actually got a full body MRI to try to figure out what was going on.

This journey can be a painful one, there’s no getting around it.

 

[DaveG]

Clearing a 2 storey chimney filled bottom to top with jackdaw nests and a selection of dead birds (including dead chicks that had clearly fallen out of previous nests) and mice.

12 rubble sacks and 7 Henry hoover bags to clear over the course of a day.

Incidentally @Rosemouse if you were thinking that in future a larger loft hatch / better loft access would be a good idea, maybe consider doing that now to make the rest of the clearing easier!

I was thinking the same! For that sort of hell I’d be picking my least favourite room below and giving it a “sun roof”!

I cannot compete with that sort of pain rosemouse but in our previous house, a dinky little end of terrace 1970 ex-council house I wanted the (12mm!!) ply floor taken up and replaced with boards that didn’t make the pipes below shake about every time you walked the landing.
As my builder was cutting the floor up they realised it was the only thing holding up all the stud walls which hadn’t been built over any floor beams. 12mm ply! Holding up stud walls and everything else!
Long story short, our 3 bedroom turned into a 1 bedroom in a matter of hours. 2 walls had to come down. Boiler had to be taken off the wall and relocated so we had no heat, no hot water, no electricity in large parts of the upstairs for a weekend and to give access for work we had to push our bed up to a little corner, wedged behind a big wardrobe which became a partition wall to all the work. By now everything in bedrooms was VERY dusty. I actually had to buy an air purifier there was so much dust to sleep amongst. Getting to bed involved walking across narrow boards. Lighting was work lights on extension leads. We had to squeeze our 2 daughters and all their stuff into the one remaining bedroom. I spent everyday for about a fortnight getting up early, shifting everything around for whatever the work was that day before shifting it all back and starting over again the next day.
I forgot to mention this was also midway through our only bathroom (thankfully not toilet) renovation so it ended up being a couple months of having to go to friends and family for showers.
Small point but I remember having to do several stud walls worth of pulling all those plasterboard nails out the timber ready for new boards.
Finally when we got walls back out bedroom had walls and ceilings replastered. We slept in there with the window open in what felt like a very damp bed for 2 nights.
Those times felt like they dragged on forever but we got there eventually!
Then we sold up and moved to start over

 

[Rosemouse]

I was thinking the same! For that sort of hell I’d be picking my least favourite room below and giving it a “sun roof”!

I cannot compete with that sort of pain rosemouse but in our previous house, a dinky little end of terrace 1970 ex-council house I wanted the (12mm!!) ply floor taken up and replaced with boards that didn’t make the pipes below shake about every time you walked the landing.
As my builder was cutting the floor up they realised it was the only thing holding up all the stud walls which hadn’t been built over any floor beams. 12mm ply! Holding up stud walls and everything else!
Long story short, our 3 bedroom turned into a 1 bedroom in a matter of hours. 2 walls had to come down. Boiler had to be taken off the wall and relocated so we had no heat, no hot water, no electricity in large parts of the upstairs for a weekend and to give access for work we had to push our bed up to a little corner, wedged behind a big wardrobe which became a partition wall to all the work. By now everything in bedrooms was VERY dusty. I actually had to buy an air purifier there was so much dust to sleep amongst. Getting to bed involved walking across narrow boards. Lighting was work lights on extension leads. We had to squeeze our 2 daughters and all their stuff into the one remaining bedroom. I spent everyday for about a fortnight getting up early, shifting everything around for whatever the work was that day before shifting it all back and starting over again the next day.
I forgot to mention this was also midway through our only bathroom (thankfully not toilet) renovation so it ended up being a couple months of having to go to friends and family for showers.
Small point but I remember having to do several stud walls worth of pulling all those plasterboard nails out the timber ready for new boards.
Finally when we got walls back out bedroom had walls and ceilings replastered. We slept in there with the window open in what felt like a very damp bed for 2 nights.
Those times felt like they dragged on forever but we got there eventually!
Then we sold up and moved to start over

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Oh my god you win...this sounds horrific and you win because you had no choice! I could always just close the door to the attic and live with the dust but your whole house was falling down!

 

[Rosemouse]

Clearing a 2 storey chimney filled bottom to top with jackdaw nests and a selection of dead birds (including dead chicks that had clearly fallen out of previous nests) and mice.

12 rubble sacks and 7 Henry hoover bags to clear over the course of a day.

Incidentally @Rosemouse if you were thinking that in future a larger loft hatch / better loft access would be a good idea, maybe consider doing that now to make the rest of the clearing easier!

Ugh, that sounds ghastly!
Where the opening is situated and the way the ceiling beams are placed there isn't a lot of scope to change the positioning alas.

 

[Rosemouse]

Oh these have cheered me up immensly! There's nothing like a bit of schadenfreude to make you forget that you yourself are knee-deep in ghastliness! Keep em coming!

 

[eezageeza]

Clearing a 2 storey chimney filled bottom to top with jackdaw nests and a selection of dead birds (including dead chicks that had clearly fallen out of previous nests) and mice.

12 rubble sacks and 7 Henry hoover bags to clear over the course of a day.

Haha, we played that game recently - took us a day to 'sweep the chimney' - a job we'd estimated might take 30 minutes!

I told the story to a neighbour, and he said that when faced with the same problem he just dropped a burning firelighter in the top the chimney, and waited - all the debris burned from the top down, and he just had to clear away a tonne of ash! Don't try this at home kids - it sounded like a recipe for burning the house down to me, but he seemed to have got away with it!

 

[Flyfisher]

Snap - been there, done that. Ours was a fireplace that had been completely bricked up and plastered over. Opening it up was easy enough but it took about 12 wheelbarrow loads to empty the chimney of decades of accumulated dust, twigs from Jackdaw nests and numerous dessicated jackdaw skeletons! Fortunately it was all bone dry so very easy to remove but it was certainly a surprise at the time.

I don't think I try the firelighter suggestion though - chimney fires are no fun!

 

[Cubist]

As nothing appropriate comes to mind from my past I'll offer a bullet I've been dodging for the last 15 years.

The formal gardens here are demarcated by low brick walls bounding the paths and planting areas and most of these are no more than four bricks high. Shortly after we moved in the First Lady decided that these walls did not compliment her vision for the gardens and that radical intervention would ultimately be required. While keeping these spaces tidy - my only permitted activity in that domain - I found that said walls had been constructed with regular house-bricks using a lime mortar. As a consequence it was all too easy to dislodge one or two with a misplaced boot or other implement. These, naturally enough, I was obligated to repair on an ASAP basis as to do otherwise might trigger the job of removing all of these walls with the aim of implementing the never thus far revealed target layout. Judicious arrangement of our renovation activities has thus far pushed this landscaping project out to some indeterminate time in the future but the plan, such as it is, is still there. Don't get me wrong, the prospect of playing with a mini JCB holds considerable attraction as does seeing the delight on First Ladies face when the job is finally done....BUT she likes the appearance of the bricks and wants to re-use them all and the very idea of spending interminable days chipping away the old mortar from their backs and sides just fills me with dread - there are more than 3000 of the bloody things out there!

@Rosemouse has again surprised me and triggered my curiosity so some questions and suggestions if I may;

Underneath are the roof rafters, and between those the ceiling of the rooms below, which is 1930's terracotta brick suspended with metal rivets into the rafters - so you can't stand on them

A ceiling constructed of Terracotta Tiles held in place to the joists, not the rafters surely, with metal rivets???? I think I would want a safety helmet and perhaps full body armour to occupy those rooms below!

How big are these tiles? What are these rivets?

All the rotting floorboards have to be slid down the ladder stairs and then manually twisted out of the toilet and thrown out the bathroom window.

For the demolition I would suggest you cut the boards to a manageable length, maybe 2 feet, before trying to get them down those stairs and out the window.

Getting any new boards up there though.... no ideas here sorry.

 

[TudorCottage]

My current project of renewing the French drains around the cottage. 80% of the prep work was done in a few days. The last 20% is taking longer than the 80%

I left it to last as it’s the most used bit of pathway. Consequently it’s the most compacted, it has several electric wires running through it, 2 gas pipes and the mains water pipe. And as well as the usual clay it has a lot of chalk running through it which is really slowing progress.

And not being in the first flush of youth, is also starting to take its toll

 

[Gothichome]

My most thankless job is cleaning up the bat droppings in the attic. Every year I cut up a couple of cheap plastic tarps and place them in strategic spots, usually around the chimneys and a couple of other places, if nothing else the bats are consistent in were they roost. Once a year I go up and fold up the tarps to dispose of and lay new. Good for another year.

 

[a twig]

Snap - been there, done that. Ours was a fireplace that had been completely bricked up and plastered over. Opening it up was easy enough but it took about 12 wheelbarrow loads to empty the chimney of decades of accumulated dust, twigs from Jackdaw nests and numerous dessicated jackdaw skeletons! Fortunately it was all bone dry so very easy to remove but it was certainly a surprise at the time.

I don't think I try the firelighter suggestion though - chimney fires are no fun!

A farmer friend of mine plagued with jackdaws used to “sweep” the chimney of his inglenook by discharging both barrels of his 12 bore up it every year

I politely declined when he offered the same service to me

 

[Flyfisher]

And not being in the first flush of youth, is also starting to take its toll

I can sympathise with that. It's a good job that all my roof renovations were done about 15 years ago because I don't think my knees would be up for it nowadays. But it's not only the physical things that suffer, it's also the motivation and if a job isn't an immediate priority it tends to be left for a while these days, especially during the winter months.

Though some things really can't wait and the most recent example was a blocked foul drain into a septic tank. I suspect it actually happened over the Christmas/New Year period when we were full up with various house guests but had taken a few weeks to 'back up' as it were. All sorted now, though I've spent more enjoyable Sunday mornings.

 

[Rosemouse]

As nothing appropriate comes to mind from my past I'll offer a bullet I've been dodging for the last 15 years.

The formal gardens here are demarcated by low brick walls bounding the paths and planting areas and most of these are no more than four bricks high. Shortly after we moved in the First Lady decided that these walls did not compliment her vision for the gardens and that radical intervention would ultimately be required. While keeping these spaces tidy - my only permitted activity in that domain - I found that said walls had been constructed with regular house-bricks using a lime mortar. As a consequence it was all too easy to dislodge one or two with a misplaced boot or other implement. These, naturally enough, I was obligated to repair on an ASAP basis as to do otherwise might trigger the job of removing all of these walls with the aim of implementing the never thus far revealed target layout. Judicious arrangement of our renovation activities has thus far pushed this landscaping project out to some indeterminate time in the future but the plan, such as it is, is still there. Don't get me wrong, the prospect of playing with a mini JCB holds considerable attraction as does seeing the delight on First Ladies face when the job is finally done....BUT she likes the appearance of the bricks and wants to re-use them all and the very idea of spending interminable days chipping away the old mortar from their backs and sides just fills me with dread - there are more than 3000 of the bloody things out there!

@Rosemouse has again surprised me and triggered my curiosity so some questions and suggestions if I may;


A ceiling constructed of Terracotta Tiles held in place to the joists, not the rafters surely, with metal rivets???? I think I would want a safety helmet and perhaps full body armour to occupy those rooms below!

How big are these tiles? What are these rivets?

For the demolition I would suggest you cut the boards to a manageable length, maybe 2 feet, before trying to get them down those stairs and out the window.

Getting any new boards up there though.... no ideas here sorry.

I think I've used the wrong terms and they are joists. Apologies, I don't actually know the terms for a lot of things in English because I never had to learn about them before moving here and all my friends, helpers and builders are French. The things I am referring to are called solives in French, the bricks are called cloisonne bricks, they were very much used in the 1920's-50's to build partition walls and ceilings. Theoretically I could apparently stand on the ceiling and it would support my weight, but also, the consequences of that theory not working out would have devasating repercussions.
I cannot seem to post photos to this thread, I've tried but it's not working. If I can work it out i can show you pics of all the weird stuff. We also found lots of receipts from the old garage that used to be run from this house, the oldest is from 1921, and they have beautiful old michelin and citroen and liberty stamps on them, and there is a hand-typed letter from De Dion-Bouton which apologises for the company no longer manufacturing cars because they have to manufacture weapons. This is what my attic ceiling has been insulated with!