The Donated House

Handily, Craig was between flats this week, so he came back down here to hang out. We made very good use of him getting from half-raftered to fully raftered.

Sarah-May also came for a bit and helped out with roofing, though it was not her favourite thing, working at height. Especially when the building swayed a bit.

The team got all the main rafters up and got a good way towards finishing the dormer as well. Craig had the joy of climbing out onto the dormer ridge, as you can see below if you look closely.

Meanwhile, after the usual delivery fiasco* the quicklime was delivered successfully to the top of the drive.

(* I do always tell them access is awkward, and I always tell them in what way it’s awkward, and what sort of vehicle can get up here, but do they listen? No, they do not.)

After a few small batches to get the hang of it, we were cruising along. I will video the bits of the process at some point because I wish I’d been able to find a good start to finish tutorial. Nora was very helpful, having done this before, so she could tell us when it was the right sort of consistency. I’d read online several references to yogurt, but it’s always nice to have an experienced opinion to back up one’s judgement about when one’s lime putty does indeed look like yogurt.

We finished up having done 8 of the big buckets (about 50 litre capacity) and 6 of them between 2pm and 4:15 or so, so I reckon we can do 15 in a day. If we ever get a dry day again. At that rate, we’ll need 5 decent rain-free days to get it done, and they’re few and far between here in Todmorden. But at least the first batch is slaking away in its buckets and will be ready to mix into render around the middle of May.

And finally, sunset as seen from the top floor of my house through the rafters.

Turns out you can save quite a lot of money by making your own render.

But you have to start with quicklime, a volatile substance which reacts with water to make lime putty, which then needs to mature for three months before you mix it with sand to make render. So I need to do it NOW! so that it’s ready to use in May.

I’ve ordered a ton bag to be delivered on Monday 15th Feb. Anybody fancy coming over to play Dangerous Chemical Reactions?

Here’s what it looks like on quite a small scale. I’ll be doing seven bathtubs full of the stuff.

Bob came for the weekend, and as promised, he set up systems to keep us from tipping headfirst into the void and ending up dead on the concrete below. Thanks Bob. (And Rob for the additional kit lent)

Having laid the last bit of floor at the top level, we set about scribing the principle rafters.

Anna fearlessly climbed out onto the top purlin and she and Bob (both well strapped in) set about marking the position of the necessary notches.

We did this on a piece of common rafter, which was much lighter and more manageable.

Having marked all four corners, we transferred the lines onto the real rafters, cut the notches into one and hauled it up to test it.

Sadly, the top notch was about 50cm out. My bad scribing was to blame, as I’d mistaken a reference mark for the real thing. Never mind. Glued the missing bit back in and added another notch in the right place.

Which turned out not to be exactly the right place after all, so we took it down, fettled it a bit and put it back. At which point it fit adequately. The second one went marginally better, so we slid those two out into approximate place in order to scribe the top joint.

Then we called it a day because the storm that crippled the east coast of North America is on its way here. No work for the next couple of days.

But it’s amazing how different (and how much bigger) it looks now that you can see the roof line.

Hi.

As many of you have pointed out, I haven’t blogged in a long time. I haven’t worked in a long time, so you’re not missing much. If truth be told, this is all so much harder than I anticipated that I have been barely able to face it some days. December was my month off, which bled into January a bit. I burnt out pretty seriously during the building of the frame, so a month of holing up next to a warm fire and NOT THINKING ABOUT IT AT ALL was very theraputic.

However, I do need to get on with it, as walls are scheduled to be built in late March and they need a roof to cover them. Ben has returned and is, as before, an absolute blessing: pleasant to work with, knowledgeable and skilled. But we are still taking it a bit slow, not working in the wind and rain, etc. I am dying for spring. Earlier this week we had a beautiful, sunny, windless day. It was so lovely.

So thanks for all messages of support and “when are you going to blog?!” and soforth. Please do come visit me if you can. Meanwhile here are a few pictures of the last few days.

St. Antony, who has done more than any other single person to help me with this project, once again took the prize by donating all the old double-glazed units from the house he tore down.

We popped them out, stacked them in his van, and now I just need to audit them and design frames for them.

Helene came back for a visit, on her way north to graduate with an MA in Building Conservation from York. It was lovely to see her and have her help nailing in joist hangers.

We’re mainly intalling floors right now, some permanent and some temporary so that we have someplace to walk while we’re putting up rafters, stacked in the foreground below.

Tomorrow Bob is going to help us rig up some ropes and harnesses to help us not fall to our deaths at any point during the roofing. Thanks Bob.

And Jack had his first wander upstairs. He liked it fine until something got dropped, and then panicked because he couldn’t find a way down. I rescued him and carried him down a ladder on my shoulder like a fireman.