What you doig on your period property this Easter weekend

[jocelyn plummer]

Love your reply Zebra--it would be good if we could all rally round as a team---we'd need plenty of kit kats though!!

Moo, you deserve to sit back , after all you are only into your second year so the 'new' house must be looking good, restored, repaired, fresh and clean. We are into our fifth year and I need to start again at the beginning---------!!

BTW our previous lovely house in the Holy Land is on the market again, and our previous house in BM is a fab holiday home with Norfolk coastal cottages--need a mortgage to rent it for a week though!!

 

[Keithj]

I'll be doing very little apart from cleaning off some tannin stain on the inside wall in the bedroom, and applying limewash to it.

Good Friday evening, just settling down for a rest after church and before dinner. Doorbell rings. Very enthusiastic salesman wants to tell us all about the benefits of uPVC double glazing.
M got to the door first (so by convention led the discussion) and was surprisingly gentle with him.

 

[Lime]

I will be doing ladder work today with a pair of wire cutters.


Yesterday I would have replied, absolutely bloody nothing.
Last night at half past eleven, one of my outside burglar alarm boxes (I have 2) started to sound intermittently and quite odd.
About 20 minutes later I eventually stopped it, I thought, after re-setting the house alarm, giving a command to the box to stop and eventually removing the back-up battery from the internal alarm box just in case drastic measures were called for.

This morning at twenty minutes past six I was awoken by a continuous but odd alarm from the box.
I went downstairs and switched off the alarm completely.
This initiated the 20 minute long alarm sequence of both outside boxes sustained by their internal and very, very old batteries within them.
The alarm ended at exactly seventeen and a half minutes to seven (according to my alarm clock that I had been watching intently back in bed) hoping to god that either the batteries would die and/or the proscribed 20 minute automatic cessation of the alarm would kick in.

 

[paulb33]

Top coat of lime roughcast..

www.redhouserestoration.wordpress.com

 

[Zebra]

Update report everyone?
I've got two coats of undercoat on both doors, well almost. I've got all the joists down, mostly, at least in the big room. Went for a lovely walk though and a cup of tea at a posh shop with a friend.

 

[Keith Bowman]

Update: I committed myself to doing nothing and have succeeded

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Well done Zebra!!! I managed to cut the lawn and wandered through extensive fields of rape with my black Labrador whose coat got covered in yellow pollen!

 

[skier-hughes]

My vegetable patch all weeded, dug over and ready for planting. My neighbours veg plot all dug over.
Went out for the day today, looking at vintage clothing for a wedding we are going to........ Anyone got a 1920's style tailcoat?

 

[davidbrac]

My vegetable patch all weeded, dug over and ready for planting. My neighbours veg plot all dug over.
Went out for the day today, looking at vintage clothing for a wedding we are going to........ Anyone got a 1920's style tailcoat?

no tailcoat but can you pop over and dig my garden?

 

[philpjuk100]

A bit of work on the car brakes! (but it is like the house timber framed!)

 

[angrybird]

I have been finishing off my dry stone walls whilst Mr Angry has been making a start on the veggie patch..... rain has just stopped play so time for a cuppa and some chocolate cake

 

[worms]

Sidetracked by a strange hot object tracking across the sky. Much too bright for applying whitewash, seedlings frying in my makeshift polytunnel cloche, so replaced the polythene cover with fleece. Even breakfasted al fresco!

 

[jocelyn plummer]

Lucky you Worms, damp dull and drizzly here--just as well since I had planned and cooked a traditional Easter Roast!

 

[paulb33]

Shocking weather gave our neighbours respite from the chip, chip, chipping: http://redhouserestoration.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/chipping-render/

 

[malcolm]

I perked up after a couple of days off and did my very first cementing today. I've been renting all my life and never had the opportunity. I chose something easy to start with. Water from misaligned pipes had worn the old cement away leaving a gap to let let water into the kitchen wall.

 

[88v8]

My builders, building our garage, or as t'other half refers to it, your garage, worked today, and good Friday.
The Friday was marked by a foray to the local aggregates supplier in search of a ton of ballast, a joint enterprise of his van/trailer and my Landy.
Arrived 0800h, their yard was open, oddly their sales office was not. We parked and waited.... eventually after 45 mins it dawned on us what day it was.
Off to a less 'observant' builders merchants where we bought a ton in 25kg bags at 'orrible cost.
Harrumph.

Ivor

 

[Feltwell]

Shocking weather gave our neighbours respite from the chip, chip, chipping: http://redhouserestoration.wordpress.com/2014/04/20/chipping-render/

Paul, what size balcony do those columns support? If as I suspect it's not that large then you'll be pleased to know that they are probably grossly over-engineered for what they do.

Concrete is strong in compression but weak in tension, which is why it has reinforcing steel put in it - the steel makes the finished item better able to handle tensile forces. Corrosion of that steel is a problem not just because the steel itself loses strength - though the corrosion has to be pretty advanced to do that to any meaningful degree - but because when it corrodes within the concrete, the corrosion products i.e. rust occupy more volume than the steel itself did, creating a pressure within the concrete which blows the surface layer of the concrete off - "spalling" - which then lets more water in, making the corrosion worse and spreading it further, etc etc. In a civil engineering context the main enemy is salts - mostly from road de-icing, which should be no issue for you, but it can also be from contaminated aggregate or water used in the original mix, which may be a problem for you. This is often the case if sea dredged rather than quarried aggregate was used.

Chances are the reinforcing steel is doing relatively little in your columns anyway, they need some steel in them but it's mostly compressive force they will be taking.

The reinforcing steel needs to be under 40-50mm of concrete cover usually - it has to be close enough to the surface to do it's job in aiding tensile strength, but far enough in to be protected from the weather & salts. Although that is a spec designed for civil engineering structures such as bridge abutments I'd aim for a similar level of cover by the time you've finished rendering.

Past steel fixings being added to those columns definitely won't have helped! Much like they do in stone (including on my own house :roll: ) they rust over time, the rust creates an expansive force within the concrete or stone, and cracks appear. I suspect that if they hadn't have been added you wouldn't have a problem now.

Rendering in lime I don't think is necessary - I can't see that it will do any harm, but you could render in cement if you wanted. The main thing I would concentrate on would be making sure any underlying cracks are well raked out and well filled with no voids prior to rendering, you may need to open them up slightly to do that. You mention clay subsoil affecting your patio - I take it that you're happy that heave has not affected these columns at all?

I should caveat that all the above is based on 20-year old knowledge of how civil engineering structures, esp. bridges and retaining walls, are constructed and also some university research that I did at the time on corrosion inhibition in reinforced concrete - none of which I have used in the subsequent 20 years, I'm rustier than your reinforcement!

Get a structural engineer in to do an on-site assessment if you want a proper opinion, but unless those columns are far worse than they appear in your pictures I don't think you've got that much to worry about and I can't see those needing major repair in the future so long as you keep the water out.

 

[paulb33]

Great information Feltwell. thank you. The balcony is fairly hefty. It's 4 foot deep and 20 foot wide. a 1 foot plinth. Hard to tell what's in there. Despite my assumptions, I've not found any steelwork. As its dried, it's become very crumbly - making me more nervous! I've asked a structural engineer to pop round tomorrow.

I'm minded to use lime..... The big issue, is that the balcony has settled and fails to drain adequately. For years now, water has been pooling above and penetrating down into the columns. The pillars were sodden and I'd like to prevent this by encouraging breathing.

They seem to contain a lot of coal and ash. Now dried, they're quite friable.

I've gone quite deep into the columns and failed to find reinforcing metalwork. The cracks all track back to rusting fixings, so maybe it's just the old nails causing my current state of paranoia.

Yes, the patio has shifted badly. The previous owners lowered it 15 years ago. It's since dropped again. But, the pillar doesn't seem to have heaved with it. Lets see what the structural engineer says tomorrow. It would make a substantial underpinning job! :shock:

 

[Feltwell]

Those are pretty hefty columns to support a balcony that's only 4 feet deep I'd say - even given it's width. I'm assuming that it's not just cantilevered out from the house and the columns do serve a true structural purpose.

Sounds like sorting the drainage above is a priority as well then. This may be one circumstance where all the stuff about breathability goes out of the window, and waterproofing is the way to go! There's no need to worry about breathability on a structure like that of course.

Good luck with getting it sorted!

 

[paulb33]

Those are pretty hefty columns to support a balcony that's only 4 feet deep I'd say - even given it's width. I'm assuming that it's not just cantilevered out from the house and the columns do serve a true structural purpose.

Sounds like sorting the drainage above is a priority as well then. This may be one circumstance where all the stuff about breathability goes out of the window, and waterproofing is the way to go! There's no need to worry about breathability on a structure like that of course.

Good luck with getting it sorted!

It's apparently not cantilevered. Tied in at sides, rear and standing on the piers. Perhaps I shouldn't have removed the Dulux Weathershield.

The balcony now drains towards the house. Sorting it will need the level building up to drain forwards. I'm hoping to re-render the piers and buy myself a few more years, to save $$$$. Chipping off and lime rendering is only 300 quid on my current project. So, not a huge investment for a temporary fix.

Thanks again for your interest.