August 23rd

Bodge, bodge, bodge. That's all I seem to be doing at the moment.

I suppose it was always going to be like this when we came round to getting the old part of the house in order. In the last few days we've been trying to get the window openings ready to take the new windows, the floor ready in the lounge for pouring concrete and the fireplace safe: it and the wall above were very close to collapse - the end pier of the fireplace literally fell out. After building new walls inside the fireplace, drilling and epoxying steel rods to support the pier, casting a concrete back and sourcing some oak for the lintel, we now feel it's a solid as it's going to get.

The underground pipe will supply air directly from outside to the woodburner. Geting the combustion air directly into the stove will help keep drafts at bay. 

Shuttering around the window opening and getting concrete inside was a tedious and time consuming job, but at least now the window will fit.

Both the air source for the wood burner and the soil pipe for the bathroom exit under the old doorway. This doorway will be 'bricked up' and so we had to use pre-stressed lintels above the pipes and cast in a concrete platform.

All the walls in the lounge will need to be 'tanked' - a dimpled plastic sheet is laid up the wall to about 2m and this is turned into a drainage channel at the base of the wall so as to collect any condensates. This complcates hugely the concrete slab we plan to pour next Wednesday, chiefly because we need to create the channel within the slab and it needs to be between the wall and where the dpm  rises from under the concrete. Said channel needs to be on a suitable gradient and then discharge condensates outside through a new hole in the wall. Fun huh?

All this 'faffing' and 'bodging' is a far cry from when we built the extension - everything seemed so 'pure' and 'perfect' back then. Me, I'm going to build a house from scratch again next time.

August 15th

Now the new floor is in above the lounge....

 .... we've been getting the ground floor sorted. Soil pipe for bathroom needs to go under here. Dave was visiting and got roped into some demolition (think he even enjoyed it). We ripped out the old suspended floor and hired a concrete breaker to get the old kitchen floor up. Dave atacked the wall to make a doorway between the lounge and extension (kitchen/diner)

 Half way there

He's through! 

 Joc attacks the dividing wall foundations

 Ddddrrrrrillllllinnnnggggg.

Soil pipe bedded in the protective pea gravel

 The 'new' way into the kitchen/diner

Floor all level, waiting for the sand, dpm and concrete

August 10th

Went to the Lakes for a few days to make the most of the weather. Margaret, Kevin, Dil and John came too.
Joc was going well and we visited some old BG landmarks.

An afternoon stroll up to Bleaberry Fell from the campsite - Castlrigg Farm Campsite (aka 'The Boys' site)

Halls Fell Ridge on the way up Blencathra

 We came down Doddick Fell

 Cycling around Thirlmere

 And in the afternoon a stroll up to Skiddaw. Looking across to Mungrisdale Common  - the way up Blencathra on the BG round.

The mandatory BBQ

 August 2nd

Dil and John took the rotten old floor down. Some of the joists had sound bearing in the wall... but most didn't. No wonder it was so springy! 

Then had the mates round (Mike, JD and Marg) to help take the rest of the wall down. This used to be an exterior wall and lots of useful stone was set aside for use in the garden later. It's good to finally see the size that the new lounge will be.

Unfortunately, now everything is clear, the extent of the rot in the lintels above the window and door was apparent, so spent 3 days engineering supports for the stone walls above and then hacking them out. Drilled some 12mm holes all the way through the wall and pushed through some steel needles to support the stone. Used acrow props and some timber to hold all the needles in place.  Now it's finished it all feels a bit safer!

Finding a good bearing for the lintels has been tricky - you never can find a well bedded stone. Had to simply build a layer of concrete bricks as a base on top of mud and loose stone.

This is before placing the the new interior lintel. Here an inner lintel holds up the rubble fill of the stone wall

July 27th

 Great forecast for Dartmoor

... and Joc was feeling better in her second week after the first chemo session... so we went down for a few days to make the most of it. Camped at the back of the Fox and Hounds (Shortacombe, near Okehampton)

 While Joc went with Dil and John for a walk, I ran part of the route we did on OMM 2010.

 

  Sean was there

 BBQ everynight.

  And some good sunsets