No smoke without a... chimney.

Another day, another bit of destruction. The two builders, Werner and Wally (nickname, and not sure how you spell it here), arrived this afternoon, despite supposed to being on holiday, to take the top off one of our chimneys. Top blokes, and clearly make a great team (although perhaps a little like the Odd Couple). This chimney will be removed all the way down, but just the top needed to be taken off today in preparation for the roofing work which begins next Monday. They even re-tiled the hole where the chimney was, so you'd hardly know there was ever one there! They did warn us not to hang around the back of the house too much though, just in case.

Before (or rather during).

After (when the sun came out).

In the Dachspitze, right at the top, before.

In the Dachspitze, after.

Next level down, let's call it 3rd floor, before.

And after.

And still a long way down. Cleaner than expected!

In the meantime, after removing the ceiling plasterboards in the slaughter room (I really need to stop calling it that, as it was formerly a bakehouse) to be sure there wasn't any water damage after last Friday's torrent, I'm wondering what they'll do when rebuilding the back wall. This is the wall that was an internal wall till the bathroom was knocked down, and it really needs to be rebuilt as we'll have a new placement for a door and window in this wall. The beams from the floor above span between the wall and an original, large oak beam (must be 7 metres long, spanning two rooms). Either they prop the whole lot up while rebuilding the wall, or we have to take the floor above out and reinstate it later. I'd almost prefer this, as it might give more scope to use lighter, modern material, and tank it better as the bathroom will go above.

Relatively new beams and boards, above which is concrete.

Spot the difference

We should be very happy. The heavy work has begun. But I'm not feeling the love. Having met with three of the firms last Monday, the brickies, who are to do the heavy demolition work, were to begin the next morning, between 8:00 and 8:30, we were assured. Nobody arrived, and there was no call, no explanations. On Wednesday, two experienced, mature men arrived, and by Thursday they had completely removed the extension at the back. Brilliant work! Having spent two days away for work, it was quite a sight to turn the corner at the back of the house have have a completely new view of the garden. So much space has been released behind the house, we now get a feel for what it might be like to sit outside the kitchen on a warm summer evening. Lovely

Before.

After. Rear facade, July 2011.

The only problem i had was the sacking used to cover the gaping hole where the extension roof was. But, it was Thursday, and they were to return on the morning to put some plastic sheeting over it, and to take the top off the left chimney. This has to be completed this week, as they go on holiday next week, and the chimney has to go before the roofer starts in just over a week.

Adding water to the general dirt is not nice.

Friday morning, up at 6:30 to go open the house by 7am. Nobody arrives. We don't have the boss's mobile number, for some crazy reason, so we call the architect who is told they had to deal with a gas pipe problem, and they'd send someone on Monday to cover the hole properly, and besides, the forecast was for no rain. Then, at 5pm, it rains. Heavily. Luckily I had put some small sheeting in the floor under the hole, carrying most of the water away, but no way could it hold back the torrent. Water literally poured in, and went through the floor into the kitchen below. In desperation we call the boss's home, and his wife calls him, and soon, the poor chap who had worked on this the previous two days, and who had been sent elsewhere for the day, left home and came over. I helped him put up the new sheeting. I don't blame him, but the management and communication is dismal and unprofessional. And I foolishly thought that German builders (or rather the management) would not conform to the stereotype!

That's more like it! Still only temporary.

Having punched holes in the plasterboard ceiling in the kitchen to release trapped water, I think I'll take the whole ceiling down tomorrow, as well as removing the corrugated iron roof on the machine room, which needs to go before the scaffolding goes up next week.

Still, let's think happy thoughts, and stop with a new vista of the barn.

Before.

After!

I really hope things improve with this firm's attitude when they return for more major work in two weeks.

All Systems Go

It's hard to believe. After months of delay, we finally got the "Rote Punkt" a couple of weeks ago that means we can do what we want (well, within the bounds of the planning application). What's more, this morning we met with our architect and three of the firms who'll be doing the main works on the house. Tomorrow morning at 8:30, the general builders start with demolishing the extension at the back of the house. They have a week to do this, after which the scaffolding will go up next week, and the week after, work begins on the roof.

In a few days, this ugly thing will be gone.

Demolishing the extension is not a simple task. As the roof is made of asbestos sheeting, they need to do it with protective gear and bag everything. They must also notify the building department, as they might do a spot check to be sure it's all done according to the rules. What we'll be left with is an internal will acting as a thin outer wall, with the bathroom door acting as a temporary back door till the general builder returns from holiday to rebuild the back wall, as well as the other major jobs on his list. But more of that anon.

In the meantime, we have some decisions to finalise about roof windows and what kind of beam do we want to replace the broken one in the living room: steel or a wood composite. The steel will have a smaller profile, but the wood might look nicer if we do not clad it. Perhaps one of the easier decisions to be made...

Like pulling teeth...

Location of cellar 4.

...literally! You'll see why below.

There haven't been many blog posts on progress of our own work, but that doesn't mean to say we've been doing nothing. It's just slow, dirty work, and the place is a mess. But then that's part of the fun, so there will follow a few "in progress" posts, despite the piles of plasterboard lying around the place (we need a container soon).

Cellar 4, before work began, June 2011.

The first rounds of estimates are in, and we're finalising details to select contractors. First off will be the Mauerer (equates to a bricklayer, but I think of it more like a general builder) who will demolish the 1970s bathroom, dispose of the asbestos roof, knock through walls, build new walls, sort out drainage and, one of the bigger jobs, re-lay the floor in cellar 4, as this is where the boiler and pellet storage is currently planned.

The floor of this cellar is a patchwork of cobbles, concrete tiles and poured concrete. All of that has to come out to a safe depth (foundations are probably quite shallow) and layers of gravel, membranes and concrete laid to reduce the capillary action that is currently making this quite a damp room. When it's raining, the borders between these patches of different floor look damp, so much so, that we wondered how high the ground water might be, considering the house is built into a slope.

Stratigraphy!

First job was to dig a test pit, about 60cm deep, after which it was ignored for a week to see if water would seep in. I was surprised it didn't, but then, there is quite solid clay, above which was a 12cm loose course of sand and lime followed by fairly deep limestone cobbles. There's definitely lots of moisture, but just not of the running water kind. If a cobble splits, it's shiny and moist inside, so definitely rising water issues to solve.

We want to keep the cobbles for further use, and that's monkey work I can do rather than paying someone to do it (every little helps), so this has been one of my tasks over the past couple of days (and after a week in Edinburgh, just what the Doctor ordered). Mostly, this has involved work with a lump hammer and masonry chisel to loosen the stone, then just lift. Not too heavy until two-thirds across the area where they are sitting, bonded in what looks like limecrete (I assume so if this goes back some time). This really is like pulling teeth, having to bash a gap between stones in order to then prise it out with a crowbar, leaving a socket behind. I had thoughts of lifting and re-laying the floor in cellar 1, which is completely cobbled, but that's now on the very long finger.

The stones are being stored in one of the cellars in the barn, which we now refer to as the Stone Room. All manner of reclaimed bricks, tiles and other stoney material are being stashed here for better times.

Part of the cobbled are remaining in cellar 4.

About a quarter done, with the easy stuff.

Where it starts getting hard. Literally.

There's been decades of cow and horse urine over these stones, but no treasure found under them yet!

A House of Two Sides

We've known for quite a while that the house was originally split in two halves, each with it's own stairwell (loads of evidence for that!), and presumably entrance door (the two centre ones, obviously). What we don't know, is when it became one, with the stairs on the right hall removed and doors opened between the halves. It was still separated in 1937, according to the plans we have from then. We've theorised about whether it may have been built in two stages, as the fachwerk, the timber construction on the facade, shows differences in style between left and right. We thought perhaps the left might be a little older, but  last Saturday morning, while talking with a expert restorer (Thanks Franz Geiger!), a bunch of clues that we'd alreeady noticed clicked into place.

The facade on the right has diagonal cross-bracing, the facade on the left has horizontal bracing. We were told that the facades are usually symmetrical, so if you look at the facade from the right edge, the diagonal braces go down, up, down, up, down... no up to the left of the window above the former entrance door. It's like something is missing.

The left facade, June 2011. Note horizontal cross-bracing.

The right facade, June 2011. Note diagonal cross-bracing.

One of the more subtle clues is the fact that the upright timbers on the right of the facade have carpenters marks on them, following a numbering system that has been used since the medieval period. The uprights on the left have none. Moving from right to left, the uprights are numbered in descending order, We have ... XIII, XII but no XI as expected left of that same window.

Hard to see, but the central post is XII, the one to the right can be seen as XIII. Note also the different thickness.

The photo above shows that the base beam on the right is thicker than that on the left (not so conducive with one building phase where they might have taken care, or perhaps even tried to use one single beam).

Measuring between the edge of the door frame and the inner wall surface on each side of the dividing wall, and taking into account the usual symmetry in such facades, the distance from the edge of the right door to the dividing wall tallies with what one might expect given the spacing of the timbers on the far right of the facade. There's a bigger distance on the left side which suggests that it's not "in harmony".

Right corner, and new upper wall from 1937.

The corners of each side have differences. The gables on each side are currently masonry, however on the left it has sandstone blocks on the edge while on the right is a large oak post. On this side, there's an oak beam running as a footing under the brickwork. Another clue here is that on the 1937 plans for works, the gable on the right is marked as red, meaning it was new (well, it replaced something that was already there). We now suspect the entire right gable was originally half timbered and one level of this, and the rear wall, was replaced with masonry in 1937. In fact, these walls are made of red bricks, not stone like the rest of the outer and lower walls.

To cut a long story short, we think the right side of the building is older than the left. We think there was a smaller building here, with upper levels entirely half-timbered, and some time in the past the left side was added on, with a stone gable, and that at this time the entire roof was replaced to make a single roof structure. The room layout is almost perfectly symmetrical on each side, but it is odd that no such attempt was made to make the facade symmetrical.

This is all based on clues above, but we'll need an expert opinion, and maybe some dendrochronology to get some harder facts. We'll also do a little more documentary research to see if we can get some earlier maps. It just occurred to me that I found some charcoal while digging a test pit in the stalls on the right of the house (it's damp there, and I was trying to see if the groundwater was a bit high), and this could be carbon dated. If I could find some on the other side...

This is what happens when you have an archaeologist (my wife) and someone who worked in archaeology for almost 8 years (me, but I never called myself an archaeologist). Old habits die hard. Still only a theory though!

Since then, Franz gave us contact details for an expert on putting together the historical story of such houses, so looks like we'll have a better idea later this year.

Half-Life 1950

We've a few old tools lying about, some of which are very odd-looking to a city boy like myself. One looked so much more like a lethal weapon than a farm implement, it put me in mind of Half-Life, and wondering what it might look like if set in an early 20th Century German farm. Bear with me for this intermission :)

 

The classic, and my tool of choice for the last few months. Something to set the tone. If in doubt, crowbar it.

This was hiding at the back of the barn. Might need a little sharpening, but the weight alone would carry it through alien scum (or the Marder).

An upgrade to a two-pronged hay fork would give better reach, but you'd need to be accurate.

Four have to be better than two! Skewer those headcrabs! Or muck out horse shit.

We have about five of these. Lots of prongs, but with rounded tips. Great for digging out beets (it's a Sechszinkige Rübengabel), but not sure how confident I'd be heading into that unlit cellar armed only with this.

This looks like some sort of vorpal weapon. You'd expect lightning to be shooting from it at least, but it's a Zweizinkiger Rübenheber, for digging out beets. It's heavy! They don't make them like they used to!

To be honest, this has to be one of the top tools in the armoury. That blade would actually bend pretty quickly, but really, if Death uses this as a tool of choice, surely that counts as something?

In the Shadow of the Church

Just over two weeks ago, we moved from the highest point of the village, with houses built in the last 15 years, to the lowest, with houses, like our own, considerably older than that. It's like it's become some sort of hobby, but we're now living in a house right next door to The Bauernhaus itself. This is really handy, as we can pop over to tend the veggies, do a bit of work, and when things start going, keep an eye on the work. On the other side (south) is the Evangelisch church dating from 1473. So we are now, literally, in the shadow of the church.

Centre of Mittelschefflenz, pre 1960.

The house we're living in now was built in 1900, with a recent extension replacing the site of an older barn. The house can be seen to the left of the church in the photo to the right. I'm not sure when this photo was taken, but it's pre-1960, as it predates the town hall that was built more or less in the foreground. Where the person in kneeling, by a water trough in the centre, is where the stream, the Kertel, ran until it was culverted (thankfully, it still runs open on the south side of our land, and is really handy for hauling water from for the garden in dry weather). The half-timbered house on the right of this photo was demolished only a couple of years ago to make way for the new town hall, despite originally being a protected building. Our house is out of frame, about 40 metres to the left, but this old photo gives an idea of how open that area was in the past.

View from the Hof of number 2

This house, number 2, is also a former Bauernhaus, clearly, and there's a nice little courtyard at the back with several half-timbered and stone outbuildings and barns. A nice place to sit in the sun, but the configuration greatly amplifies the sound of the church bells. We get a ding-dong for every quarter hour, and deeper bongs ringing the hours. All night. Twelve bells was never so real! After two weeks here, we almost don't hear it any more. But at certain times, 11:00 and 19:30, it goes mad (movie below, with low resolution due to ultra-slow Internet connection, but it's the sound that counts in this case).

 In terms of progress on The Bauernhaus, I was a little premature with celebrating our planning permission, as it's only since yesterday that some of the final points were finally closed before we get the "red dot" that is the go signal. We had to meet the local Fire Commandant to look at the size and positioning of planned roof windows for the purposes of escape routes. All clear now!

In the meantime, our architect has been putting out incredibly detailed work lists, and the first set of offers from general builders have come in. A little bit shocking, and quite a range in price, but the detailed costs breakdown the architect specified is making it easy to compare. With luck, the first heavy works can begin in mid-July, just over two months later than originally planned.

Still, we're now at the heart of the village, and it's much nicer down here, with the company of the resident pine marten..