Strut loose

What little spare time I've had these past two weeks has been spent working on small, but rather dusty and long jobs in the living room. Last Saturday, it was time to take out the steel struts that were supporting the ceiling for the past six months, waiting for the broken beam to be replaced. I finally secured the ends with bricks and mortar, so time to put it to the test.

Finally, an unrestricted view the length of the living room!

The newly exposed beams and clay plaster ceiling got prepared for replastering by cleaning off loose material and hacking out a channel alongside each beam, to allow space for securing mesh, if needed.

Newly exposed beams.

After the treatment exposing the edges of the beams.

Looking good! Loooong beams!

I spent hours and hours using a belt sander on the beam which I'd spent hours and hours stripping paint from, and I'm pleased with the results (though my shoulders were not), although there are still cracks filled with paint. But remember, this was coated in about 4 or 5 layers of paint, some oil-based, some emulsion. Some final finishing sanding and some oiling, and this will be a beautiful piece of wood. Well, it already is!

Up in the attic, I continued removing floor boards. We now know these were laid on August 1st, 1952, by Adolf Wagner and Julius Finn (who died only recently), thanks to signatures under the boards. Lots of old grains and a couple of mouse nests. The usual stuff.

Boards are in good condition, but I'm lifting them anyway.

Adolf and Julius, 1952.

We also had a meeting with our architect, and plans are afoot to resume work outside. We'll tender for the facade and external insulation work, and of course, the general builder has to come back and connect us to the sewer system, as well as dig a big hole to install a rain water cistern and prepare a patio area. BBQ season is coming!

There must be a better way

On Saturday, I decided to tackle a job I'd been putting off for some time, that of removing layers of paint from one of the big beams supporting the living room ceiling. First, here's a quick look back to what the living room looked like in April 2011.

Things have changed a little. Walls removed, dry lining removed, wall plaster removed, ceiling plaster removed, cracked beam replaced, beams and stone sand blasted... you get the idea. But that beam, see in the photo above, was untouched throughout all of that.

I tried removing the paint with my Makita brush sander, but the nylon brushes, so effective on raw wood, just polished the paint. I tied with the sand blaster, but by the time the paint was removed, the wood had taken on a driftwood look, with soft fibres stripped away. Not so nice for the oak. On Saturday, I decided to give it a go with a braided wire brush attachment on an angle grinder.

Weapons of choice.

  Definitely tougher work than I imagined, and it took the guts of 5 hours to do the beam. Care had to be taken not to gouge into the wood, or leave the brush in one spot too long, as it could leave friction burn marks.

Removing layers of paint revealed plaster-filled cracks in the timber.

 In the end, the results were just ok. Paint remains in the small cracks in the wood, and although testing with the brush and belt sanders, this stuff is not going to come out.

Fissures still filled with paint.

The living room, March 2012. Click for full effect.

So, is there a better way? I have another one just like this to do in the bedroom. I have a heat gun, but I'm not confident in the effectiveness on a mix of paint types (certainly emulsion and oil-based). I'm considering solvent-based paint remover, but don't relish the gooey messiness of that either.

Still, it's looking better. The new beam we inserted a few weeks ago has now been bedded in with bricks and mortar, so the supporting struts can come away next week.

Under the boardwalk

The weather has been warming up nicely, which makes it a little more pleasant doing work on the house. Stuff that has happened over the past two or three weeks includes lifting more floor boards on one of the attic levels. The existing boards looked ok, and were relatively new, but after the crap (literally) found under the other room, I thought it's be nice to make sure we had no future surprises. The boards turned out to be well nibbled by woodworm, but I've kept them all for reuse somewhere else.

2nd level, west, sans floor boards

The new beam in the living room is partially secured since last Saturday, but some more brickwork is needed to finish the job. While doing that, a neighbour asked why we were only exposing half the beams in the living room. I had taken some of the old plaster down for safety, as it was quite loose, but had to admit, the beams looked well. Of course, this meant the sandblaster had to come out of retirement for an hour.

Part of living room ceiling, a mix of clay and cement plaster.

The contemplative sandblaster, looking like a StarWars extra.

Newly exposed and blasted beams.

 And last, but not least, I had fun with a jackhammer, breaking up the concrete floor in cellar 3. Under this was hardcore rubble, ice and sand. I plan on digging down more, putting in a layer of expanded clay pellets, a limecrete floor, perhaps with flagstones or brick as a final layer. The main idea being that it is a breathable floor to regulate moisture. No treasure found yet.

That was fun, and easy!

Another post bites the dust

A small update. Coming to the top of the stairs to the second floor there used to be a wall with a door.

August 2011

After removing all the plasterboard from the ceiling and walls in this landing area a few months ago, we were left with posts exposed where this wall was. These wobbled like hell, so were clearly not playing a structural role, so yesterday I took them out.

September 2011

This has opened up the area between the staircases, and now avoids the need to step over the beam that was at floor level (see photos below) when making one's way to the next level. As it turns out, this beam was simply resting on the floorboards, so it looks like it could have been a later addition, probably so a door could be built in.

February 2012

The effect of sandblasting the timbers is also clear!

Of course, the posts and beam haven't completely bitten the dust. They've gone into storage in the barn with many other timbers and will probably get reused for other projects. Some day...

The Zellofant cometh

After a couple of false starts, today was the day the Zellofant came. We spent the best part of six hours together, so I got to know it very well. What is it? A great big masher for Zellulosefaser-Dämmstoff, or cellulose fiber insulation, also known as minced up newspaper. It's an environmentally-friendly material that also happens to be a pretty good thermal and sound insulator. In our case, it has been used to insulate the roof, by blowing it in between the rafters which have been covered with, well, an envelope of brown paper.

The Zellofant.

Bales of cellulose insulation.

The Zellofant feeding.

During the course of the day, 141 bales of compressed cellulose insulation, each weighing 14kg were fed to the Zellofant, which promptly spat them though a hose to the professional up in the roof. By cutting into the paper envelope, he was able to blow in the cellulose insulation, resulting in  200mm thick layer of insulation between the rafters. That, combined with the wood fibre sheets that lie on top of the rafters means our roof is pretty well insulated*.

There's 1974kg of cellulose behind that paper membrane!

This was the last major component of the roof. The rest is just internal finishing (well, we don't fancy looking at brown paper forever), but that can come later. Probably a lot later!


*If you're a interested, the wood fibre boards have a K (thermal conductivity) value of 0.044 W/(m·K) and are 35mm thick, while the cellulose has a K value of 0.04 and is 200mm thick, meaning we should have a total U value of 0.17 for the roof surfaces (if I've understood the formulae correctly!).

The domino effect

The old beam in the living room, which was cracked and beyond repair, sagged in the middle, so was propped up be a post. Of course, this meant that the floor above must have sank, so at some stage, the previous occupants levelled it out. By inserting a new, straight beam, the domino effect was that we had a bulge in the middle of the floor above, in the region of 5 to 7cm high. Today was time to lift the floor to level it out.

Before all the big work started. Looks innocent, eh?

The "bulge" can be seen in profile. And the glass wool underneath...

Looking north into the room after the first steps

Originally, we'd thought to leave this floor as is, since the boards were relatively new and serviceable. However, removing well-nailed tongue and grooved boards wasn't so easy, so there were casualties to the grooves in some cases. Added to that what was under the boards, I think we'll get new floor boards.

The boards were resting on runners which had been jacked up by several centimetres of packing near the centre of the room. Between these was layers of old lime plaster and rubble, dumped on top of the oak beams and clay filling which formed the base layer. On top of all the crud was matted glass wool insulation and, well, actual crud, in the form of mouse and rat droppings. Lots of it! The critters had fashioned tunnels through the insulation, so it was like a little mouse town, with well defined public toilets.

Mouse runs. And that's shit in the lower left corner.

Glass wool removed, packing and rubble visible.

It was quite a bit of work to remove the boards, bag the glass wool, remove the runners (that part was much harder than I expected!), then shovel up the rubble and dispose of all of that till it was in a clean state. Well, it took a full day. Now we've a clean room, and we'll be able to gain a valuable few cm of head space in an otherwise low room. I think the other rooms will get the same treatment, although they are old and most likely the boards are lying directly on the beams.

Almost done. c. 9m-long oak beams exposed.

And from the other side.

The unsung hero in all this is my darling wife, who really did get the shit job this time. She's always cleaning up after me...

Beam me up

Or, up me beam, to be more accurate.

A few weeks ago, my wife arranged to get an old oak beam from a chap in the next village. Lutz (our carpenter) and I duly went over to pick it up, and man-handled 5 metres of solid oak onto his truck and then left it outside our barn. It was supposed to be installed in the living room to replace the cracked beam. Unfortunately, as Lutz was heading off on holiday, it didn't happen in time. So, Jörg and I took matters into our own hands and a few weeks ago, with the help of a chainsaw, we took the old beam out.

The old, cracked one, still in place (middle one)

The replacement beam was moved from outside to one of the cellars where it got a cleanup with a sandblaster and other, finer implements last week. To be honest, the beam had been worrying me, as not only was it to support the floor above, but it does have some structural role to play, as it anchors into the west gable wall. Yesterday, despite having little desire to do any work, I began preparing the sockets (well, holes in the wall) in preparation for the beam. I had no intention of going any further till Jörg arrived unannounced, which led to us asking another neighbour (who happens to be a tradesman) for a loan of a bit of scaffolding and a hand, and who brought two of his helpers with him. Within 30 or 40 minutes of them arriving we had carried the beam up to the first floor and installed it. My precision measurements were mocked, and rightly so. An experienced tradesman took over, hacked a bit with a masonry chisel, and we were done.

The professionals departing as swiftly as they arrived, Jörg and I were left to connect the beam to the iron anchor in the gable (that took longer to do due to breaking bolts!) and attempt to tie it into the beams on the other side of the room. I need a longer drill bit to finish that part, but the main thing is we have a new beam in, and I won't wake up in a sweat worrying about it any more.

The beam, pre-cleanup.

And fitted!

Anchor in the west gable, ready to be connected

Final span is 4 metres

Jörg adding some final touches.

The sockets have to be refilled and the beam wedged in, so the support struts will stay in place till that's done.

In other news: my usual camera broke, for the third time, so it's time for a new one. I had replaced the lens myself twice, after it had been dropped, but I think this time it's from dust. I don't like the colours of the photos my old backup camera takes (see above!).