Stripped render and repointed living room wall.

I removed all the render from the living room wall. The damp was not as bad at the base of this wall near the door though it had rotted out the stringer for the staircase and the timber lintel above the front door. I had to improvise a prop to shore up the lintel.

Once this was done I repointed all masonry joints with lime mortar.

Stripping render and repairing damp damaage in the spare room.

I stripped all the render from the wall in the spare room and found damp damage above the front door lintel and in to next doors chimney flue. All the joints were raked out ready for pointing then the damp damage was repaired.

Stripping render above stairs.

I have decided to take all the render off this wall to find out how much damage the damp has done. I will repair it then decide how to stop it coming in?
I removed all the render in the landing above the stairs and raked out all the joins ready for pointing.

Small Pond in wall Grrr!

Damp damage at base of living room wall. Had to stop in this picture as hole kept refilling with water. Waited for a few dry days then completed repair.

Haven't posted in ages but I have been chosecracking on with the house. I've stripped the render of of the wall under the stairs raked out the joints and repointed the joints.  I also repaired the hole in the base of the wall that were washed out by penetrating damp.

I've also striped the render above the stairs and in the spare room but found a couple of holes in the spare room.

Hi Gang,

sorry not been on for a while done a fair bit of work but lapsed in taking photo's. Getting to grips with the breached tanking on the adjoining wall under the stairs. I had stripped  all the tanking 2" of hard concrete of the wall by mid November. The inside staircase stretcher had been concreted into the tanking at the base so the damp came through at this point and has rotted of the bottom of the staircase I just stopped then because I was a bit fed-up.

Anyway its the new year and its back to work I've started to chasing the concrete out of the mortar joints between the stone. I plan to repoint this with lime. Its a bit cold to do this now I know its inside but if the lime mortar freezes before it sets its useless. So I'll do the pointing in March.

I've decided to use a passive tanking to solve th damp problem using a dimpled membrane and a drain at the base to allow the water to come through and drain away. The barrier formed by the concrete tanking allowed pressure to build up with washed out the lime mortar in the base of the wall in some places. The membrane I want to use is transparent so I can inspect the wall and check for damage periodically. It is fixed by plastic plugs that you can screw timber studwork to the plaster board the wall. I think I will make removable T&G panels so I can check on the tanking. I'm only going up to the level of the existing tanking above that I will leave a bare stone lime mortared wall. I have to replace the staircase and the supporting floor joist ass that is also rotten where it was concreted into the wall.

What else have I done well I replaced the flashing on the porch as it was leaking and we had a flood but forgot to take any picture. To be fair it was raining with hailstones and I soaked through but had to get the job done so didn't take any photo's. I will take some pics and post them when the weather is better.

That's about it folks.

KBO

Loads of work done but no post sorry

Hi Folks,

really sorry I haven't posted in a while just been so busy we had acroprops holding up the ceilings in both the living room and kitchen and with Karen not happy with this state of affairs. I thought it wise to crack on and get it fixed.When we rebuilt the wall I found that both concrete lintels had cracked. They had been laid flat to span the 500mm thick walls but were only 100mm thick so cracked. I found the original lintel in the garden it was at least 250mm thick but they had smashed the end of it so I couldn't use it.

Any way I wanted to use granite but there was no way I could lift two 250mm by 250mm by 1.2 meter stone lintels into position on my own. So I bought two green oak beams instead Its good for 400 years and will see me out. One problem its very heavy not as heavy as the stone but almost too much for me to lift.

The oak came rough sawn so I smoothed off with a smoothing plane and put a 45 degree chanfer on all the edges they came up quite nicely see I am still putting those boat building skills to work and yes I will finish the boat. Well once I've stopped the house from falling down around my ears.

Well they're in and they were heavy, I got the first one in by lifting one end at a time and sticking various objects under it as it got higher. HiFi cabinets; storage boxes; bricks that sort of thing. A bit dodgy and I ran out of things and still had 2 feet to lift the beam to get it in place. I did it almost broke me and I didn't have the strength to lift the second one. So I finished for the day and had a think.

Problem solved I had 6 2" by 4" by 8 feet timbers I bought to put the boat up in the garage roof so I could get the car in there as well. I used these to make a four post arrangement either side of the doorway and clamped two timber across the ends to form cross pieces to support the lintels. Then I just slackened the clamp and lifted each cross piece with a lever then tightened the clamp. I did each cross piece in turn a few inches at a time to lift the lintel. The Romans and Egphians would have been proud. One it was at the right height I just slid the lintel in place.

As you can see in the photo I cracked the stonework on the right hand side so had to rebuild if but its all done now and the beams are pointed in with lime mortar.

I originally wanted to cut mortise joints into one of the lintels to house the floor joists in the living room but the ends of the joists were rotten and had been propped up on the old lintels with bits of batten and covered up. Oh yes another bodge job but I can't leave something like that it would bother me.

I wanted to use timber joist hanger but all the ones I looked at looked too modern and would have looked just wrong on these old beams so I made some. I was aiming for an antique blacksmith look and I engraved a Celtic knot design into the one that's most on show. I would have done both but I don't have an engraver or a dremel so I made an engraving tool out of a centre punch and did the job by hand using a hammer. Looks good but took two days. The hangers are made from 50mm by 50mm by 6mm thick angle iron they aren't going anywhere and are heaver gauge steel than any of the Stimson strong ties I seen.One of the joists was a bit more rotten that the other so I extended the hanger out another 50mm using a box formed from 18 gauge sheet steel welded in place to form a joist shoe. I rolled the edge to make it more decorative. They were painted with zinc primer and Matt black paint. I fixed them with M10 150mm coach screw and bolts. I'll put some photos up when I can.

Got the lintels fixed but the floor boards in the landing are rotten so I had to do a temporary fix to make this safe. I put some boards over the joists while I was working so Karen and my daughter could get up and down stairs. Needless to say Karen was not pleased. Its sorted now sorry no photos the landing is restored and safe to walk on. The joist by the wall in the photo is rotten also and needs to be replaced so I will do a permanent job on the floor boards when I do this.

But that's a job for after Christmas I've run out of cash and energy to do it now.

KBO Steve