Rebuilding Victorian WC

[jsmac]

Hello,

As mentioned in another thread we have to rebuild the original ground floor Victorian loo. We think that it was built at the same time as the rear of the house, which I've talked about in the same thread.

The room that we're planning using as a dining room was originally a breakfast room or tea room or similar. The house provided lodgings and it looks like the outside toilet was brought inside simply by dropping a couple of posts and building two walls by rendering over laths. It is a solid enough structure; so much so that our roofer was surprised at how thin the walls are. I still don't quite understand how it is holding up a sash window.

Our original plan was simply to replace the roof and do some redecorating but uncovering the lath walls, as well as a more modern repair that used a sheet of asbestos to repair an a section of the wall where presumably the laths had rotten, has made us pause and consider our options. At any rate, it has seen better days and since we need to drop the outside ground levels we thought that this would be a good opportunity to rebuild it. It has no footings so digging down is not possible.

The contractors we've had round to make recommendations have suggested putting footings in and building a timber structure that can then be cladded. In another thread Ivor helpfully suggested that it is not entirely necessary to build footings (after all, there hasn't been any for 140 or so years) so that has changed my thinking somewhat.

A couple of questions:

How would we go about rebuilding this room without putting down footings? It will only be 2 sqm but presumably the timber structure needs to be sitting on something solid? It is unclear what the floor of the WC is sitting on at the moment. The floor is linoleum on top of a piece of timber ply that we think they put in when the toilet was replaced in the last 10 years or so.

And is there a way of building a timber structure that can then be rendered? And would this normally be a more expensive option than timber cladding?

Working out what the best way to proceed is is proving difficult. Most of the contractors that we've had look at it haven't exactly been helpful and some of the quotes have been beyond ridiculous.

As always any thoughts would be most appreciated.

Thanks.

Scott

 

[livias]

You could lay a concrete slab. We have just put one down for our porch. It is about 4 inches thick and has a layer of steel running through the middle. I woud then lift the wall off the ground with threeish layers of brick. You will then need a dampcourse. This is a roll of stuff about 4ins wide and 6mm thick. I expect someone else will know what it is called. Build a structure on top of that out of 2*4 treated timber.
And then I would use sawn lath and lime plaster and limewash. I don't know much about cement render :roll:

 

[88v8]

That looks a jolly confection.
Nice to see the bi-colour windows.

When you've lowered the ground level, see how the soil is. Stable or not.

There have to be some sort of footings. A slab could be considered as footings. If Building Control (booooo) were involved they would probably want the standard deep footings on the grounds (haha) that someone may in the future wish to build a full-blown extension on it. They would also want a certain insulation value, yes, even though it is only a loo.
However, they're not involved, I presume.

Wood clad, like a shed, is easy. You can build a shed, can't you. As Livias says, dwarf wall, wood frame. Assuming the aesthetics of a woodshed on the front of the house are OK with you. Then plaster on wire for the inside.
Render over chicken wire (chicken wire is really 'Period') 20 gauge stainless
https://www.meshdirect.co.uk/stainless-steel-netting.html
would also be OK, and would aesthetically replace what's there.. A plasterer could do that, preferably in lime but perhaps in cement, we don't really like cement. With what is the house rendered? Perhaps be guided by that.

Find your plasterer, get him round and talk to him about what you intend, he may have ideas about fixing the wire.
These chaps are in Margate and look reassuringly expensive, you could at least pick their brains.
http://www.artisanplastercraft.com/services/specialist-plaster/lath-and-plaster/
No doubt less glossy options are available.

Stainless wire, make sure it's fixed with stainless nails or staples. Usually find those in Builder's Merchants.

Drawing on the experience of our former neighbour's garage, if you went the render route, do not fasten the wire direct to the wood frame. What I mean is, stand it off an inch or even half an inch, because where the wire was against the wood the render hadn't got behind the wire and it had cracked and the water had got in and rotted the wood.

Nowadays there is other stuff on which to render. Better than chicken wire, actually
https://www.meshdirect.co.uk/stainless-steel-wire-mesh-13-x-13-mm-holes-19-gauge.html

The garage was only rendered on the outside. You would be rendering, or what we nowadays call plastering, on the inside I presume, so mesh both sides of the frame. Run lights wiring and piping beforehand, of course.

Do recall when our previous house had work done, the sides of the dormer had to be rerendered, and the builder used wood lath and rendered it in two-coat cement made with soft sand to be more flexible. Thirty years later that was still fine.

Anyway, some possibilities. Now, if you don't go the lightweight route, that is to say render or wood clad on lightweight frame, you would be into bricks n blocks, and because of the weight - conventional footings.

Ivor

 

[Flyfisher]

Hard to see exactly what scope you have when rebuilding in terms of wall thickness etc, but I broadly agree with previous comments.

I similarly rebuilt part of our outbuildings. New slab/footings similar to existing (about 4 inches in our case), a few courses of brickwork to raise above ground level, 4x2 pressure-treated wood frame, OSB sheeting on the outside, vertical 2x1 battens covered with breathable membrane and then weatherboarded.

In this case, the membrane and weatherboarding could be replaced with lime render over stainless mesh. I'd choose lime not so much for its breathability in this context but more for its resilience to cracking if (when?) the wood frame moves slightly with the seasons. Also in this case I'd add insulation between the wood frame before plasterboard and a skim on the inside. I guess Celotex or similar would be best though I've also used rock wool for internal stud walls.

Agree with Ivor about building control; they would no doubt want everything to modern regs, deep footings, thermal performance etc etc. I wouldn't involve them if possible and just treat the job as repair of existing.

 

[Zebra]

You could use woodwool board to render on to externally.

 

[CliffordPope]

I thought this was going to be about rebuilding the WC.

Some tips from experience:
Scrape and chip out all the rust from the cistern, not worrying about any holes that appear. Paint the inside with polyurethane resin, reinforced with fibre-glass over any holes. Smooth the outside with car filler, then sand down and paint thoroughly.
The key to getting these syphon systems to work well is adjusting the water level in relation to the projecting height of the discharge pipe, and having the inside of the tank smooth so that the bell drops cleanly.

Emphasize to users that the force of the discharge has nothing whatever to do with how hard you pull the chain. That is simply priming the mechanism. It is the drop under gravity which initiates the flush, and having pulled the chain a couple of inches you simply let go.

The bowl needs to be a design match for the high-level system. A high level flush enters the bowl with more force than a low-level one, so the pan profile has to direct the flow around the bowl and then down. With a flatter profile bowl the water can sometimes overshoot and splash.

Don't bang the seat or lid back against the lead pipe. If the downpipe is dented it can impede the flow.

If condensation is a problem dripping from the cistern then consider feeding it from the hot pipe instead of the cold, but use a low-pressure valve not a high one. It will rarely actually be hot in normal daily use, but will usually be lukewarm rather than stone cold.

 

[jsmac]

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions.

As some of you have surmised I will not be involving Building Control. We are replacing like-for-like (or a modern version anyway) with what is there so I am choosing not to include them in the process.

It is helpful to hear of your experiences in building a similar structure on top of a concrete slab and several courses of bricks. This is route that we're going to take and are now just waiting on quotes from the builders we've had round over the past few days.

The house has been rendered in a mix of cement render (more recently) and lime render, which has been uncovered in places where the cement render has blown. We were originally going to use weatherboards to clad the external walls of the loo since the rear of the house is cladded but having learnt that it is indeed possible and cost-effective to render the outside that is the direction we're now proceeding with.

The suggestion of using wood wool to render was very helpful as this lead me to ring the folks at Mike Wye who had a number of suggestions of what materials to use. Our working plan at the moment is as follows.

A timber structure on top of a concrete slab and several courses of bricks with a dpm.

Externally it will be lime rendered on top of wood fibre boards - i.e. https://www.mikewye.co.uk/product/pavatherm-combi/

The walls and ceiling will be insulated with Pavaflex (or similar) wood fibre insulation - https://www.mikewye.co.uk/product/pavaflex-flexible-wood-fibre-insulation/

Internally the walls will be made of OSB boards, battens and then lime plastered wood wool boards - https://www.mikewye.co.uk/product/savolit-plus-wood-wool-board/

My partner is determined to reuse as much of the original wood cladding that currently makes up the internal walls of the loo so we're thinking we'll have cladding halfway up the walls and then plaster the top half and the ceiling.

I will update this thread when we start making headway. Taking down the current structure will no doubt throw up more curiosities, as it will when we start digging. Eeek...

Thank you again for all your help.

Scott

 

[Zebra]

Sounds great!