Prep work

So, I've booked Friday (tomorrow) off work to put on the next coat on the front elevation. I popped off to Womersleys on Wednesday lunch time to pick up a load of sand and lime and goat hair... which is surprisingly soft.

My plan for this evening was to put a scratch coat on the pantry wall... but i soon decided this wasn't the best use of time due to the length of time to clear the pantry of tools and materials that are stored in there, and to get the mixer etc out and then cleaned and put away again. So instead i covered the rear elevation with hessian. This went smoothly and was a lot easier and quicker than the front, mainly due to the height and practice! Once the hessian was up I wet the walls down. Apparently if you give them a wet down for a few days before you render you get more effective bonding.

My ambitious plans for the weekend are to put the scratch coat on the front elevation on Friday, and some of Saturday if needed, and then put a harled coat on the rear elevation with what time I have left.

That's the plan anyway.

I think relatively the back of the house is going to be sooo much easier than the front. It is a lower wall, and I can actually reach the gutter from the top of a step ladder, cutting out the time consuming need to put up and take down scaffolding. All the equipment is stored on that side of the house also, so setting up and putting away will be far less of a bind, one hopes anyway.

So to quicken things along tomorrow I've done a bit of prep work. I've taken the barrow, tools and stand for the mixer to the front, the sand is already there, and most importantly I've been to the coop to buy ginger biscuits and bread buns for sandwiches.

However, as there is a met office weather warning out across Huddersfield for thunder storms and heavy rain, we'll see if I do actually get anything done....

This is what BBC weather has to say for my plans

Hannah gets rendering

Sunday brought some good weather - well, good enough anyway. We were away all day on Saturday and missed one of the finest days of the year yet. Dissapointing in terms of house progress, but Hannah and I had a good time together so it wasn't wasted!

Sunday afternoon Hannah got her hands dirty and lent a hand filling in the gaps on the harled coat that I had done on the Wednesday. I had put it on too thinly leaving gaps, so Hannah and I got to work chucking some mortar on and it's a far more convincing base layer now.

It took about 5 hours from getting the gear out to clearing up, but what a difference an extra pair of hands made. It was a massive help and with out it it would have been another full day. So all good.

One of the highlights of the afternoon was the neighbours labrador 'Ella' geting herself stuck in the hessian drapes. So funny. A lovely dog...

Bad light and rain (and hail) ends play early

English summer is with us, that's for sure.

I had hoped tonight to get a scratch coat on the pantry wall and have a play with some burnt sand mastic - but the weather was against me.

The expanding foam used by the joiners between window and mullion is technically (or simply) not really allowed and should have been done in a traditional manner of packing gaps with slate and filling with burnt sand mastic. However, it is done and ensure's the windows are in pretty well! But, it has taken longer than anticipated to get round to doing the render and the expanding foam starts to rot when exposed to UV rays. i.e. the sun. So i did a little research and asking around and the best thing to do apparently is to use this burnt sand stuff to cover and then render up to.

Now, the sand isn't actually burnt, as sand doesn't burn, but it is a mixture of dry fine sand and linseed oil. It is mixed for use, so you get a tub of sand and a tub of oil, and the theory is to add just enough oil to fill the gaps between the sand, thus making a paste, and not to saturate the sand so that the sand would be moving in oil. I think i got this pretty much right and set to work coveringing over the foam with this stuff preventing any further decay of the foam.

I toiled with wind, rain and hail and used up all i had mixed before being called off as i was frozen and wet through! i have done the door and the living room window at the front of the building... so a little progress.

It seems to go on ok, but sumps a little in the bigger gaps, so i could do with sourcing some slate to pack the gaps a little. Although... traditionally i believe paper was also used.

As for any plastering in the pantry, I decided to not bother getting wet through setting up the mixer etc.

I'm away on saturday but hopefully sunday will see a little more progress with something! I really hope the weather brightens up soon. I have a schedule which would mean all rendering would be complete by the 8th of June - a month. At this rate though.... that is more than ambitious!

Render off, Render on

So it was a weekend of action.

Pops Ward arrived on Friday night and a reasonable nights kip was had by most, although I forgot to turn my alarm off, so Jon was woken at 7am.

Saturday began with a quick trip to B&Q for a wire brush and lump hammer handle at 8:30am. I returned had a quick bite to eat and set to work stripping the render from the front elevation of the house. With my new toy in hand the render really did peel off in big chunks and was promptly swept up by Jon - the labourer for the weekend, and a massive help.

We made a decent amount noise and dust which I think annoyed at least one set of neighbours... but hey hoo. We had the front of the property stripped before lunch and started the afternoon with a trip to the tip to drop off the rubble.

With the rest of the afternoon we stripped the back of the house - which took a little more persuasion as it was a better quality render but still came off relatively easily with the SDS drill.

Surprising the stone was in very good condition at the front and rear of the house, and although done in a cement mortar the stone work has been re-pointed relatively recently so no repairs are necessary at all. Brilliant! A pleasant surprise for sure.

I jumped in the shower and Jon popped off to B&Q to pick up a waste pipe that had shattered when a bit of rubble landed on it. Seemed a good deal to me.

The evening was spent eating curry and making merry with Jon, Hannah and friend Mel Cassidy who had come over from Manchester to hang out with Hannah in the afternoon, which was fine with me as they spent their time baking. You're welcome anytime Mel.

Sunday I did a skive of church and finished stripping off the test wall in the kitchen. Hannah returned and made lunch before heading out to some friends to help with their new born baby. During the afternoon we did another tip trip and I was show the ropes with the mixer. Jon made up some NHL 3.5 1:2 lime mortar to slap on a stipple (or 'harled') coat on to the test wall in the kitchen. Good Fun!

Wet Down the wall

Throw it on

Finished

This stipple coat is literally thrown on to a damp wall to create a strong mechanical and chemical key for the scratch coat (the next coat) of lime render. You can already see the stark difference in style from a modern gypsum smooth flat perfect finished to the natural curves of the wall we will get with a finished lime plaster. The character of the house will ooze once we do that in every room. cool!

Jon made his excuses - something about a long journey, being late, work and family commitments and headed off home! His help was much appreciated over the weekend and as always, 2 people on a job makes things so much quicker!

The remainder of Sunday was spent cleaning the house which had a thick layer of grit and grime following the removal of the plaster in the kitchen. This brought a realisation of how filthy it is going to be in the summer! clearly it's very important to get all the filthy jobs done and tidied as quickly as possible to make living bearable.

Monday was May Day, and the weather was rubbish. I spent late morning and the afternoon putting up scaffolding and hanging Hessian in preparation of the first stipple coat. This took a surprisingly long time so was worth doing when I had the spare time - however tempting it was to put my feet up and dream of holidays!

Monday night Hannah and I got an Indian takeaway and watched Spiderman 2... which I didn't realise I had seen until about 30 minutes from the end. It's an ok throw away film, it has some truly hilarious moments and we enjoyed pulling it apart :-)

Tuesday I went to work for 2.5 hours and took the rest of the day off to get some lime and sand from Womersleys, and then go up to Shildon to pick up some more scaffolding. Jon had kindly dropped off a couple of towers, but I had used these to hang Hessian off, so had a big gap in the middle of the house that I couldn't reach... so as I had taken Wednesday off work to get the first coat on I needed a quick solution, so for the sake of £25 petrol I did my first motorway jaunt on my own and did a smash and grab on the Haven while the rents were away having it large in Wales (or something like that). Thanks Pops.

Wednesday I braved the wind, rain and cold and got the stipple coat on. It took all day 9 - 6 to get it done. This is where you notice most what a difference a second man makes. The stipple coat should be about 3mm thick and I was aware in the kitchen I had applied it too thick and so attempted to get it thinner on the front elevation. The thickness of the plaster also needs to match up as best as possible with the neighbours for aesthetic reasons, but this isn't too important.

Wet if down
Throw it on

The render went on well and has cured very well, creating a strong bond to the wall, but I have perhaps done it too thinly, and some gaps may need filling in. This is a job for Sunday with the help of Hannah.

Finished - ish

Now, the Hessian was attached to the guttering and the scaffolding, which would be fine on nice calm summer days, but as gales of started to blow I was startled while listening to the radio and drinking tea on Wednesday night to hear scraping scaffolding and the thud of restraining straps pulling against the house (Good thinking Ben, this stopped more serious problems!). So the Hessian was acting as big sails on the HMS Scaffolding and she was fairly intent on setting sail on her maiden Voyage to lands lush and green... bowling green.

It was a nice idea

It was perhaps (yes) naive to think I could leave the scaffolding up, but I didn't know it was going to be windy! So anyway, much to the neighbours delight I'm sure, I took the scaffolding down and finished about midnight ish. Live and learn.

I think that brings us up to date pretty much.

Cheerio for now.

Plaster Costs - A very boring post.

I will be posting an update soon enough on the weekend action, but as mentioned in an earlier post, the cost of materials for rendering is significantly less than the 4k quoted for a pro to do the work... for those interested, here is a sweet spread sheet I made.

I just learnt how to publish a google document so wanted to share it with you all...

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rOmYOuOzCo69ZlnJZsiaigA

In the editable sheet if you change the area, coat thickness or ratio, it does all the calculations for you. THis will make it super easy to spec the indoor plaster costs too. Great! I love spreadsheets.