Bathroom Updates

So the custom made counter for the basins was brought in today, the first real piece of furniture in the house. It's been plumbed and roughly positioned:

Both the sinks and the taps came from Bathstore.co.uk.

The plumbing from underneath which can't be seen from the door, yet is still to be tidied up a little:

Toilet in position (waste to be repositioned lower and boards stripped back):

The shower has been plumbed also:

The shower tray in position:

The plumbing underneath the floor of the bathroom, including hot and cold water, radiator and waste pipework:

The waste lines leaving the house, still to be connected:

A small update on the staircase walls, most of the plaster has now been removed, exposing the only original ceiling in the house. It's in really poor condition due to water ingress.:

All plaster removed from the outside wall:

And finally, the bath arrived on the top floor today! Using a rented ginny wheel, 20 metres of rope and the hard work of six men, all 170kg of it was dragged, lifted and hoisted onto the top floor.

The ginny wheel was hung from one of the two purlin beams in the attic, where a hole was punched through the attic staircase ceiling and the rope passed down to the ground floor, down the centre of the stairs. Here it was looped through the plughole and tied around the end of the bath.

Throughout the process, varying numbers of men on the top floor pulled on the rope to take some of the weight of the bath, whilst everyone else lifted and pushed the bath up the stairs. Cardboard and ratchet straps were wrapped around it to protect it and to give somewhere to grab onto. Overall it was a great success and only took about 40 minutes once we started. No damage to the bath, people, walls or stairs.

The ginny wheel chained to the purlin beam:

Getting the bath up the first flight of stairs was the most difficult as the rope was at a poor angle to offer any addition lifting force. It slid up though relatively easily on it's cardboard covered side:

The rope attached to the bath:

The various ratchet straps and cardboard protection which worked extremely well:

The feet are still to be installed which will of course raise the bath up.

Thanks to all involved in the lift, including neighbours!

Floor Reinforcement & Plaster Removal

As I mentioned in the last update, the steel T-beam was to be installed into/underneath the top bedroom floor. Here it is in place:

The same horizontally spanning joists that the beam sits under were cut into to allow the upper T-section of the steel beam to slot into place. The chimney breast side had brick removed and was then rebuilt. The same was done on the other side of the room, except this was an external wall so had large pieces of stone removed which was then rebuilt with brick.

Some of the stone that was removed from the outside wall:

The underside of the floor will now be levelled out with plywood to tie the ceiling together, but even as is, the huge amount of deflection in the centre of the floor is now gone and there is virtually no bounce. Once the floor is plyed, it should be rock solid. A huge success.

I also started removing some of the plaster from the stairway walls today. All original plaster will be kept throughout the house where possible, however around the stairs it needs to be removed to attend to the structural issues in this corner of the house, including the large crack that traverses the entire outside right-hand wall and the bowing brickwork on internal walls. Below you can see the crack in the outside wall:

The pink areas are a concrete render that was used at some stage to bind the crack. It will need to be taken off with a hammer drill.

The opposite wall, with bowing brickwork:

The resulting mess:

And lastly, I completely forgot about the original window architrave that was removed from the new bathroom before it was plastered. I spent about 2 hours very gently stripping it back to the bare wood as it was quite fragile in parts. I also had to fabricate a small filler section as someone had chopped a square out of it at some stage over the years:

Some unavoidable damaged to a dry-rotted section:

The small insert which will be filled and sanded:

Filled, awaiting sanding:

Back in place:

A Few Updates

Just a few updates this week. A temporary second hand boiler was installed until such a time when a space is cleared for a new one and there's no risk of getting it damaged. It also allowed the thermal store and radiators to be tested. They worked great and the top floor had heating for the first time in nearly 200 years. :)

The oil boiler:

The two water pipes entering the house:

There was a small issue with the return windows; they were taken out and rebuilt as three over three sash windows which was incorrect. So the new windows were taken out and they were replaced with the correct Victorian one over one sashes with the horn detailing. The paint looks quite yellow in this picture, its actually much more subtle:

The stairs window fully painted:

I finally finished the tongue and groove in the bathroom, it just needs to be bordered now and skirting installed. It will then be painted a light pastel colour:

The stud wall below was made today for behind the shower. The internal wall behind the shower has bowed slightly onto the staircase over the years and would not be the most suitable wall for routing plumbing into. It would also be extremely difficult to neatly locate the shower controls into a stone/brick wall. So the plumbing will be set behind the stud wall and the shower controls mounted on the face (which will be tiled). This wall also allow for a shelf to be built into the tiled wall. The stud wall is only 600mm deep so does not protrude much into the room.

And finally the steel beam arrived which will be used to reinforce the top bedroom floor. This floor is by far the worst in terms of bounce and movement, so the beam will be set into the underside of the horizontally spanning joists and clamped to it:

Thermal Store Installation

So the new thermal store arrived early this week after a very long wait. The store had to be custom built in Scotland to fit in the attic space; off the shelf thermal stores are taller and thinner cylindrical shapes. As you can see from the pictures below, my store is shorter and wider.

The attic hatch had to be widened to get the store into the attic:

Here it is in its final resting place, in the early stages of plumbing. The outer casing is a hardened foam resin insulation.

The pipework leads down to the right side of the rear chimney breast:

The reserve tank from which the store is filled:

And finally the front windows are essentially finished with their final colour, the painter has done a fantastic job. Note that the colour scheme of the house itself will be changed completely. (Light was fading and it was raining, better pictures coming soon):