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