• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

Mike's ext'n & renovation (solar panels)

The ones over the door? That's an outside light. The ones that lead out from under the bottom or second-bottom board? They're power to the workshop and garage, and for some patio lights. The ground level is to be much higher than at present, and I'll maybe do a boxing at the time if it looks like it needs it. I've also got the room to do a box around the electric meter if we fancy it.
 
Another post thats very timely Mike as it gives me a very good visual guide and an idea of some of the issues i'll face when cladding my building. You put me to shame - you'll have the whole house clad before i start mine!

What timber are you using for your door and window facings? I'm not sure if its sawn larch or just treated softwood. Also what dimensions are they? Hard to tell round the doors (100*25 or possibly 150*25)

I guess the only other thing on your mind is the lack of daylight - are you still on track for Christmas after your injury? any exterior work for me now will be at weekends :(
 
The feather-edge board is just sawn & treated pine, ex 175 x 32 (7" x 1-1/4"). Lapped by an inch, it leaves 6 inches of each board showing.

The utility is nice enough, but wait til you see the lounge, which I am doing at the moment. It has plinth bricks at the bottom, and the junction between the boarding and the bricks is.......well............I just love it!

As for finishing by christmas......... No, I won't be finished, but I was never going to be. However, I will be ready to have christmas dinner in the dining room.
 
Ex 32mm means the boards are actually about 23/ 24mm thick at the bottom edge, and 6 or 7 at the top. The linings around the openings are 25mm thick, being standard 2x1s or 3x1s, sawn.
 
Here is the close up detail of the junction between the bottom board of the lounge wall, and the plinth stretcher at the top of the brick plinth. I coved out the back of the bottom edge of the board, as you can see, and this left a 4 or 5mm gap for air circulation and moisture egress, and took the bottom edge of the board below the top face of the brick, allowing external drips to run down the brick face:

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Next job was a couple of coats of black jack liquid waterproofing to connect the DPM to the DPC, and complete the damp protection for the house. Did I mention how much I hate this horrible stuff? Anyway......:

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This is the junction of the utility with the new plinth under the old part of the house, before, during, and after:

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Ground level will be 2 courses down from the DPC, above the top of the horizontal orange pipe.

Here is the opposite junction, between the old and new plinths at the lounge end of the house:

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I cycled past today and Mike was busy working on the front south corner of the plinth, looking very nice it is. [emoji122]
 
Mike,
I am trying to remember the construction of the new plinth, do you still have insulation to go between the block plinth and the outer skin you are just building now?

Love the detail of the weatherboarding.

Ian
 
Thanks Ian (and Dave).

Yes, there is 100mm of insulation in the cavity between the bricks and the blocks. The brick is non-structural, it's role being just to keep the insulation in place, and to look nice.
 
What are you going to do about the bottom board kicking out beyond the corner post????

It feels like I'm jumping in out of nowhere to criticise, which I guess I am to some extent but not in a bad way. Think of it as inquisitive question with a subtext of 'ooh, I don't like that detail' in the context of 'the rest of it looks so good'


Great build by the way!
 
Nothing, Stu. The options are to have the whole corner post sticking our further, which makes an ugly corner detail with the rest of the boards, or to splice something onto the bottom of the post, which wouldn't work in the long terms (this is sawn carcassing timber, not joinery grade stuff, so making joints and gluing stuff isn't an option). The reality is it looks fine.
 
the bear":hv883pt2 said:
Looks great Mike
I seem to remember you had a plan for the elec box, are you going to be boxing it in?

Mark
Click to expand...

Damn, here's another one I missed. Sorry mark.

Yes, I'll probably do a box later. There is a nice frame to work around, so that will help. I might also put a box around the cables.
 
Mike; looking fanstastic as always. Really starting to come together, the satisfaction when things link up must be great.

When you are next giving your back a stretch with a camera in hand would you mind taking a few detail snaps of the window surround boards. I know this is a simple detail but it looks neat and gives a very finished look to the overall appearance...... :D
 
I do like Mikes detailing around the windows but a recent obsession with "This Old House" via YouTube tells me that this is also a good resource for window details. Obviously an American system but it might give you some ideas of what you have to consider with timber frame construction.

H.
 
Mike. While I'm here I must also add that I check for updates every day on your project but do not comment because I have nothing useful to say! I am currently doing a DIY renovation of my place and can only say that I am in awe of the amount of progress you make!

H.
 
Mike, in this picture what is it that looks to be folded up behind the cladding ?

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Are you using a Paslode or framing nailer or hammer? I do remember when I did my last renovation that the Paslode was worth its weight in gold.
 
It's a plastic insect mesh, Roger. I ran out of stainless steel, and the merchants didn't have any more, but had some plastic stuff.

I used a compressor-driven framing nailer for all the woodwork of the extension, but I would never use any sort of nail gun for nailing on boards. Getting exactly the right pressure on the wood is critical, because you can bend it if you nail too hard, and yet it needs to be nailed on hard enough. The only way to gauge that properly with boards is with a hammer.
 
Ah, understand re the mesh.

I know what you mean re getting the right pressure. My technique was to rein back the power of the gun and fire the nail in leaving 1/4" or so to finish by hammer.
 
It's taken 2 weeks of evenings and the odd bit of tea break for me read this from start to finish, my wife thought I was engrosed in another type of website, and laughed like a drain when I showed her a picture of the foundation pads being installed.
Anyway thanks Mike for all the info you've put in here, and i look forwarding the rest of your build, I'm now off to look through the rest of the forum

Harvey
 
RogerS":204ai2d5 said:
Ah, understand re the mesh.

I know what you mean re getting the right pressure. My technique was to rein back the power of the gun and fire the nail in leaving 1/4" or so to finish by hammer.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that'd work.

The other issue was always the nail gun nails. They just don't look right to me, with half the head missing.
 
Harv-53":1fl0fvpi said:
It's taken 2 weeks of evenings and the odd bit of tea break for me read this from start to finish......

Harvey
Click to expand...

Blimey, that's a hell of an effort! Well done.

Welcome to the forum, BTW.
 
This week I laid bricks.

I deliberately kept the foundations a little low, because it is easier to pack the brickwork up than to deal with concrete which is too high. However, in one location I left it a little too low, and so had to put some crocks into the mortar bed below the first course:

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I had already built the corners up in a couple of places, but just to be sure I had got everything correct, instead of stringing a line directly from the brickwork, I used a marked-up batten at the corners:

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Flemish bond (header-stretcher-header-stretcher etc) means lots of cuts. One or two cars went by in a fog of brickdust. Oops:

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Then it was just a constant knocking up of mortar and piling up one brick on top of another:

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Because the ground level slopes along the driveway, I stepped the damp course down at the front of the house:

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Getting there:

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The first frost of the year threatened, so I covered the "green" work":

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Each evening I finished the pointing by the light of a head-torch. The days are getting so short!

Here is the porch, before and after (from the vantage point of the top of a pack of bricks):

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When the weather turned a little wet, I laid out the walls inside:

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Those little walls are to the depth of the finished floor level. I laid them terribly carefully so that I can use them as a guide when I screed (which will be fairly soon).

This shows up the difference in plinth height between the main part of the house, and the porch:

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Nearly finished, but I ran out of mortar and light with just this little bit to go:

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I don't have my plinth bricks yet. They'll probably take a week to arrive, so the brickwork is a course down from finished, and this leaves the insulation exposed. If rain threatens I'll have to dress some plastic sheeting in there temporarily. I also left the ordering of these a little late:

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Thanks Dave, although this new camera makes everything look a little redder than reality.
 
I think having the plinth done makes a massive difference, even if the rest of the outer skin is still to go up. What's the construction of the porch going to be? It looks like it's gonna to be an enclosed room rather than an open porch ( which is what I had presumed you were gonna by to do)

Mark
 
the bear":369ow9dz said:
......What's the construction of the porch going to be? It looks like it's gonna to be an enclosed room rather than an open porch ( which is what I had presumed you were gonna by to do)

Mark
Click to expand...

Hi Mark.

Yes, it will be an enclosed oak-framed porch, sort of like this drawing, but probably with a canopy over the door:

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Hi Mike,

Re your use of crocks in the mortar bed. I know it's poor practice to use thick mortar beds to build up the levels but is it structurally any weaker?

I've spend the last few months building a large koi pond in the garden and as the poured concrete base was not as level as I would have liked I had to use a relatively thick bed (30-40mm) in places to get the the 1st course level.

Jon
 
Norty Raskel":rk4nv8un said:
Hi Mike,

Re your use of crocks in the mortar bed. I know it's poor practice to use thick mortar beds to build up the levels but is it structurally any weaker?........
Click to expand...

Hi Jon.

It's more about the practicality. It is hard to pile mortar up thick enough to hold the bricks if you are trying for anything over 20/ 25mm. The bricks will just slump into the mortar, and you'll find yourself trying to get it back to level over the next couple of courses.
 
You might recall that I had a little brickwork to finish off:

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I pushed some plastic into the gap between the membrane and the bricks, to keep rain out until the plinth bricks were laid:

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Remember these?

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Well, this is what they look like in the flesh:

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Time for some oak work!

I had to get some help from a friend to fetch two of these monsters in. They were in a difficult location:

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A few minutes with a planer and half an hour with the belt sander, and it looks a little better:

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They're 9" x 6" by 3.6 metres, and they'll be holding up one end of each of the bridging joists. In other words, they're holding up the first floor (2nd floor for Americans).

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Here's the issue: a scarf joint about 2 feet from the end of the bridging joist. Previously, there was an internal wall 2 or 3 feet away to the left of the above photo holding the bridging joist, and the bridging joist held up the little extension piece. In removing the wall I supported the big central beam on temporary hangers from above, and now is the time to do the permanent job.

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First up, some work on the new beam. The end brackets needed a recess (I wanted them to finish flush, and I designed the whole thing such that the brackets can slide in from the side, which was the only way I could see of getting them in place. You can see here where the collet of my router worked loose, and the cutter went in over-depth. Frustrating:

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The beam is upside-down in those photos. Some chamfers came next. Here is the process of forming this type of chamfer stop:

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It's only chisel work, and it only takes seconds.

The next job was to cut out a gap in the two bits of bridging joist. This was a horrible job, and took an hour or more. There is no good position to be in, so you are working overhead with sawdust falling in your face, sometimes holding the saw upside-down, and constantly running upstairs to check that you aren't cutting into the floorboards:

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Out with the chainsaw!!

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This is the bracket in place, temporarily:

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Next, after some careful measuring, I had to house out for that saddle bracket from the new beam:

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Finally, to the girding beams which will take the ends of the new cross-beam. Here, I needed to remove the ends of one of the modern joists which were filling in the old stairwell floor (remember there was a staircase at each end of the cottage originally). I really shouldn't have done this job right at the end of the day when I was tired, had eyes smarting from oak dust, and had an addled brain, because I might have cut the right joist!! Instead, I ended up cutting off the ends of two of them! This is to allow the bracket to be out of the way when the beam is lifted into place, then slid along the girding beam to support the new beam:

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Now, the lift!!

Overnight, I completely changed my plans. I had been planning to "rock it up" on a central scaffold, but I decided to winch it up through the hole in the floor I'd made for cutting out the bridging joist. Here is the arrangement upstairs. Note the little red chain winch:

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Here is the arrangement downstairs, with the acrow in the middle to support the place where the stool supporting the beam upstairs is standing:

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Up she goes:

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Note the bucket hanging from the right hand end. This was part-full of sand, to balance the beam which wasn't hung from the middle. You can also see in that photo that the left hand end of the beam is already on its bracket, and the central bracket is just starting to engage with the bridging joists. The winch wasn't quite long enough to lift the beam the entire way. The last 9 inches was done with acrow props:

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Finally (these big lifts are never quick), it was in location:

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The following day (yes, that took all day!), I lowered the beam 6 or 9 inches at one end and cleared some of the old lath and plaster ceiling out of the way above it, which had prevented the floor from sitting down properly onto the bracket. It sat down beautifully (photos next time). Then I started work on the same beam at the other end of the house.......
 
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