Week 2

It's amazing to believe we've only had the house two weeks, it feels like an age! Despite being back at work this week and only working on the house in the evening, it feels as though it's been as eventful as the first week. Still, it seems like we're making quite a bit of progress!
I'll start with the good parts first:
Having removed part of the big-bedroom wall and buying the timber to put a new one up, we spent the weekend creating the outline of our upstairs family bathroom! We painstakingly and meticulously measured and then measured again to make sure that all of the bathroom suite items would fit inside and that the door wouldn't hit the bath! We then set about cutting timber, screwing it to the walls and ceiling first to give us a frame to work from and then filling it in-between with stud work and noggins. Once we had put the door casing in, it finally looked like a room! It seems a little strange now to walk up the stairs and face a wall, but I think it will work well and look good when it's done.

We had the architect at the house on Monday (which happened to be a bank holiday; that's dedication to your work!) and went over a few more suggestions which means we're not far off submitting our application for planning permission! We've decided that the best plan of action would be to remove the chimney breast and add a door through to the future lounge extension. As well as improving the flow of the future house, it has the added bonus of making the study and mid-sized bedroom more use able. It does however pose the challenge of how we go about removing the chimney... We want to retain the stack above the roof line to retain the look of the original house. We're pretty sure that it'll involve structural engineers and building control which all just sounds expensive at this stage!
Other successes: We had National Grid perform a quick site survey which meant we could choose the location and box-style of the gas supply. The site survey was perfect timing as we've also lined up the central heating to be installed next week which means we can give him a definitive location of the gas meter.

And so onto the not so good parts:

We've started taking up the floor boards in the study to assess the damage. It's not surprising that the joists are falling to pieces as they were sat directly on top of the external brickwork with no hint of a damp proof course! The joists must have been soaking up moisture for what looks like decades and it looks a mess. There were a few rather worrying patches which could potentially be dry rot; being able to push a blunt pencil into the joist probably isn't a good sign...

Reading about dry rot on line, there are a lot of horror stories about it spreading through your house and turning it to ruins; fingers crossed this won't be true in our case. Some courses of treatment seem extreme to say the least but I think the first thing we're going to try is removing the joists with obvious signs of decay and replacing them with new wood and include a damp course! We've made a start on removing the old joists and splicing new ones into place. Hopefully when we get central heating into the property and dry the whole place out it will be fine for another few decades!

Thursday night saw our (read as my!) first DIY disaster. In my greed to collect as much copper from the house to be weighed in, I decided it would be a good idea to remove the back boiler from the newly open up fireplace. Having seen all of the disconnected pipes upstairs, coupled with the fact that this thing had been buried behind about a tonne of bricks for who knows how long, I assumed that this would be empty also. How wrong could I have been... Having made a nice neat score in the pipe with my cutter, one more turn saw a nice neat jet of water starting to spurt out of the back of the pipe. My second incorrect assumption of the night was that it would simply be some residual water left in the pipes and that it would stop very soon, but that thought soon disappeared when I realised that rather a lot of water was coming out and with quite substantial pressure! I quickly ran to get a bucket and started shouting madly for backup! With my wife sat there manning the buckets, my first job was to switch off the mains water supply to the house and open all of the taps to drain the tanks as quick as possible. The taps very quickly dried up but the water was still pouring out of the pipe which we just couldn't figure out! So I then started frantically searching around the house, taking up floorboards to try and follow the pipes to their source. After about 20 minutes (and several buckets of water later) we finally determined that the back boiler was still connected to the hot water cylinder and that it was connected to the bottom of it meaning that the whole cylinder would need to empty before it would stop! I then decided that if it didn't stop, at some point I might need to try and cap off the pipes, but without any plumbing supplies at the house I needed to go home to get some. Off I went leaving my poor wife to sit there, wet and cold, to empty buckets...

Having returned armed with a few spanners, an odd assortment of plumbing connectors, a blow torch and some solder I was informed that it was still showing no sign of stopping! We then decided that it might be taking so long to empty because I'd only slit the pipe a tiny amount meaning that although the water was coming out at pressure, only a small amount was actually coming out. After some deliberation, we decided the best thing to do was open the pipe further so that it would empty quicker. Opening the pipe did indeed make it come out quicker but it still showed no sign of stopping! After about an hour an a half of emptying buckets we started getting very nervous that it wouldn't stop! I checked and checked again that the source of the water was the main cylinder, that there was no new water coming into the house, and that it must stop eventually! Despair set in and just as we'd started looking up emergency plumbers on our phones there was suddenly a change in the tone of the water hitting the back of the bucket! It was stopping!!! The tank had eventually drained itself and the water had finally stopped filling the buckets. After waiting five minutes or so to reassure our selves that it had definitely stopped we left a bucket propped underneath the pipe and went home for some well deserved tea (only two hours or so late...). I came back just to check after tea and was pleased to see that there was no new water in the bucket.

On the positive side I did learn a lot about plumbing and also a few other things: 1) Listen to my wife... 2) only do one job at a time 3) don't tackle any jobs at the house alone which may result in disaster!! 4) Don't assume.

There are a few things I still don't understand like: why it was still connected when it was buried in a wall with no prospect of ever being used again, why there was so much water when it was obviously used as a heat source - surely it should only have been in the cylinder coil and not the main tank? Still, it's one less thing to worry about as it'll be gone when the central heating is installed.

And finally there was the bad news about the roof. We had the flat roof repaired which caused water to leak into the house in a different place than it did initially. We then patched the roof further which moved the problem back to the initial place. It turns out that the water is actually leaking in the pitched roof and the flat roof just seems to be channelling it. The result of it all is that we're going to have to remove all of the tiles from the back-side of the roof, remove all of the timbers and felt it, before putting all of the tiles back. We've been told we can get it done next Saturday so fingers crossed the weather will be nice and we won't have too much rain between now and then.

Stud

So today we didn't really do a lot on the house other than spend money... We had measured up for the bathroom stud wall last night so tonights job was to go and buy all the bits to make it. Tomorrow night I might think about putting it up, although I might save that until the weekend so we can have a good run at it.

On a bit of a disappointing note, we've had more rain. Although it's not raining into the small room any more, it's now coming into the front bedroom which we were hoping to make our room to start off with. I fear that we may have to have the whole roof seen to :-(  That sounds expensive... Maybe the copper pipes that I've been gradually removing from under the floor boards will contribute something towards it!

Copper copper everywhere

So we've had the house for over a week now and although it looks like a building site at the moment, it feels like we're making progress! All of the rooms are more or less stripped and cleared. We've even demolished a wall ready for the new bathroom!
We felt we'd made a good start on getting a water tight house, having the damp proofing done downstairs and the flat roof repaired upstairs. Unfortunately it seems we've disturbed something in repairing the roof as it now rains inside when it's raining outside... Fingers crossed this has been sorted today.
We've got a date for central heating now and so we've started removing all of the storage heaters. I'll be glad to see the back of them as they've been hard work dismantling them, removing all of the bricks one-by-one and shifting them all downstairs. It's definitely good exercise though!
Whilst clearing the carpets from the master bedroom we found something rather peculiar... Sticking up from a hole in one of the boards was what looked like a copper pipe. After removing a few of the loose floorboards we found that there is a network of copper pipes that have all been either cut off or capped. It appears that there has been a central heating system installed at some point but was removed in favour of the storage heaters. I'm not complaining though as it means we'll have quite a bit of scrap to cash in at some point - a holiday fund maybe...
Taking up the floorboards also solved the mystery of the random downstairs switch which made a horrific noise if it were turned on. There was a water pump between the floors which had at one point been connected to the central heating system... Switching it on just made it spin dry and hence the rather loud, unfriendly sound.

Day 6

It was a late start today... Not because it was late in the day when I arrived at the house, but because there were already four people waiting for me when I arrived at 9! My dad, his gardener and the builders. It might have helped if I'd have known they were all coming...
With the builders turning up today, it meant we had our first paid work done: damp proofing. They started in the morning by seemingly just making the most noise they possibly could! It turns out they were actually removing the bottom metre of plaster from the walls and taking it back to brick. Once that was done they drilled lots of holes and injected goop into it which will hopefully keep the nasty damp outside! With the goop injected they then re-covered the exposed walls with a render that contains a waterproofing agent. By the end of the day they'd managed to complete the dining-room-to-be and they've made a good start on the office. They'd probably have got further but had to shoot off to the builders merchant to get supplies before they closed for the bank holiday weekend...
My dad and his gardener not surprisingly tackled the garden. After mowing the lawns about ten times they started to look respectable. Hopefully if we stay on top of them they shouldn't be that hard work in the future!
With the builders working in the downstairs rooms I was relegated to working upstairs. It was no bad thing though because it forced me to carry on with the relentless wall paper stripping. Before stopping for a lunch break I had managed to clear the rest of the room that we started yesterday. Thats three rooms in total now! There can't be that many more surely...
After lunch I couldn't bear any more of the repetitive 'steam, scrape, strip, steam, scrape, strip...' so I went outside to hack some more branches down. An afternoon with a lopping saw and it's amazing how much difference it makes to the view out of the back of the house. Once they're gone it'll look beautiful!
There's no mention of my wife today and that's because she had a hair appointment so instead did some jobs at home #1 today. Not to feel left out, I also had my hair cut. The difference between the two was that I spent 4 minutes in the chair whilst the clippers did their work, my wife however spent 4 hours!
Lets see what tomorrow brings.

Day Five

Today was a hard day. We didn't do anything more physical than the first four days but because we are tired and it was cold, tensions were running high. Still, it was productive and I had my first forray info the world of suspended floors.
I started the day by clearing the ceiling in the future dining room. Once that was done I decided to reward myself with a bit of demolition and started removing some more bricks from the fireplace. It looks like all of the bricks can be removed, but I think I'll wait for a second opinion before I do...
We then started removing the paper from the walls of our temporary bedroom to-be and were pleased to find that most of it was coming off easily. After pulling off most of the easy bits, we decided to break for lunch...
Whilst eating we started puzzling over how we could for a fire into the new lounge extension and what we'd do with the existing chimney. We didn't manage to get to a suitable decision so instead have asked for a chat with the architect. Hopefully she'll be able to solve our dilemmas!
After lunch, instead of us both going back to paper stripping I decided to lift some of the floorboards of the suspended floor with suspected damp. After grappling for a while with a hammer, chisel and saw, I finally managed to prise up the first floorboard. It was a little depressing to find that the joists were really quite rotten... I'm guessing it's not a good sign to be able to push your finger into wood it's that soft... I'm not sure whether we'll need a complete new floor, our whether we can just replace a few joists. I'm sure re-laying a floor isn't beyond my skills, it's just another job to add to the list...
Towards the end of the day, I decided to stay in the house alone whilst my rather cold wife decided to go home for a hot bath to warm up. Rather than just carrying on with yet more paper stripping, I decided to take the saw outside and start hacking away at the rather larger fir trees. I manged to lop off a fair number of branches but they're so vast it didn't really make a difference.
I ended the day with some good old paper stripping. There well be a bit more to do tomorrow, but by the end of the day we should have three completely stripped rooms! At that point it'll definitely be time for some walls to come out! Fingers crossed...

Day Four

Another productive day. The aches and pains are starting to become the norm and we just keep on working through it...
The main focus again was to crack on with the wall paper stripping and with most of the walls clear, I was left to tackle the ceiling. It's painful work but rewarding once it's all bare and ready and waiting to be made beautiful! By the end of tomorrow we will have two bare rooms!
The only other job we attempted (OK, it was all me I just couldn't resist!) was to take some more bricks out of the fireplace. The first bricks to come out were the ones in the small central fireplace. These came out very easily (but it was to be expected as they were only held in with expanding foam!) Removing them exposed a rather cute looking but traditional fire back which looked in good enough condition to be used. If we weren't set on having a wood burner I'd have been tempted to keep it!
I then started to remove some of the bricks just below the lintel to see what was behind. Again they came out easily but it was a little disappointing to see it built up behind with bricks. I'll take the rest out tomorrow and get a good look at what we're dealing with...
There were only two real breaks in the work today: the first was when the gas man arrived to give us a quote for central heating; It was a mildly pleasant surprise, but like everything else was still a lot of money... The second was a visit from our through-the-wall neighbour. Again lovely people making us happy about where we've chosen to settle down.
I feel we've done enough paper stripping for now, I sense some demolition coming on soon! Lets see what tomorrow brings!

Day Three

A bit of a mixed day today... It was the first working day since we received the keys and so it was the first opportunity we had to get some trade people in.

The first visit of the day was a builder/ roofer/ damp specialist/ plasterer (at 8:30 in the morning!!). We took him around the house, showing him our worry points: the damp, the fireplace, some more damp... Once he'd seen inside he got his ladders from the van, leant them against the wall and nice-as-you-like scaled them and climbed onto the flat roof. He spent a couple of minute poking around and then shouted down to see if I wanted to go up. I had to decline on the grounds that I didn't want to make my wife worry... A few minutes later and he was back on the ground with several photos of some problem areas... The good news was that the roof as a whole wasn't too bad, the bad news was that there was a patch with some water underneath. Also the chimney had barely any mortar left and would need re-pointing (this was potentially the cause of the damp at the base of the chimney and in the roof. There were a few tiles which had slipped out of place but he rather kindly put them back for us! Lastly he commented that the join to the neighbours roof was rather odd in the fact that there was simply some lead flashing rather than the typical valley. A series of rather scary quotes later and he was on his way.

We did a quick skip-trip and then spent the rest of the morning carrying on with paper stripping in separate rooms this time. I was tackling the roof and have to say it really is back breaking work...

After lunch we had the second trade visit of the day, an electrician. As he is a friend we value and trust his judgement. The downside of it all is that it's potentially going to be easier to completely rewire the whole house! Another scary quote...

We had a reasonably early finish for the day but had a lovely surprise just before we left. Some of our neighbours came to introduce themselves brandishing a bottle of wine! We would have been more than content that some people had come to say hello, but free wine gains instant favour!

So at the end of the day we're slightly nervous of costs but are sure that we've got somewhere we can be happy for many years to come!

Day Two

We're sore and aching and looking forward to going to the pub for some well deserved R&R!
We started the day where we left off and carried on stripping the walls. After half an hour or so we got bored and decided to change jobs, tackling the bulging fireplace instead. Once we were decked out in face masks and goggles we started exploring the fireplace very tentatively, using the hole which was already there. We removed the temporary bung (screwed up kitchen roll) and it was like a dam being opened! Years of soot and dirt and other debris finally got a chance to make a bid for freedom. Thankfully we were prepared and caught most of it in a box!
Once that was cleared we threw caution to the wind and started hacking away at the old plaster, in the middle at first and then gradually widening it. We were a bit alarmed to find bricks behind the plaster which were held together with expanding foam rather than mortar but they weren't load bearing and seemed sturdy enough so we just left them.
After a full mornings worth of plaster removal we started to work upwards and were very pleased to discover a sturdy stone lintel in place! As we gradually removed more and more plaster, two distinct fireplaces started to emerge: first the most recent-working fire; a small grill in the centre of the second much larger and more traditional open fireplace. It was great news as we ideally wanted an open fireplace with a log burner in the centre and this made it seem a lot more achievable!
Once the fireplace was cleared we went back to clearing the paper off the walls and finished for the day having for clear walls.

Pub time...