• 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)

Superb work Mike. I wouldn't even worry about those holes slightly off kilt - if anyone notices and asks, tell them it's your signature. ;)

A question chap... Are you tiling the canopy porch, if so, do you have enough room for a ridge tile to tuck in under the ridge beam of the main porch? Are you dressing lead as well - maybe soakers? I can't remember how it's done with oak framed... is it soakers and 'something else' if using plain tiles?

You could always make a really nice fancy oak Tudor barge board or a nice under cloak profile (can't remember what they're called) for both porches if the holes bother you. 8-)
 
Thanks Paul, appreciated.

There won't be any barge-boards. I'm keeping this simple. If I decide to cover it up it will be with a little carved something or other. I popped the roof on the canopy today, and there is loads of room for the ridge tiles, but your question about waterproofing the junction with with walls is perceptive. Yes, there'll be
lead soakers, but I am also going to do a render fillet, in the old-fashioned way. I might even set some cut tiles in it. However, the soakers won't work on the canopy roof where the roof crosses the oak tie beam/ door head. I'll either have to cut a slit into that for a cover flashing, or rely on the render fillet, and maybe a dollop of silicon.
 
Wow, wow, wow, is all I can say!

Mike, please do keep us some good weather, as we'll be leaving for your fair coast for a visit to our children and grand-kids near St Albans, and also Bristol.
:obscene-drinkingcheers:
 
It's not special, Thys. It's not too bad, but this isn't high summer, you know.

St Albans is 90 minutes away, I reckon. If you've got any spare time........
 
I made 2 more pairs of rafters. The free standing ones have a bridle joint at the top, but the ones planted on the face of the porch have a halving joint (lap joint):

8nOAFQZ.png

NGQDXTF.png

KkTGIka.png

Once everything was pegged, I could proceed to battens. I did the slate undercloak at the same time. I am not felting this roof. You'll be able to look up and see the underside of the tiles:

8FZpvg6.png

The whole point of building the porch now was so that I could get the render carrier board on and the render done before winter arrives. Once I sorted the membrane out, I did the boards up the roof junction with the wall, some window surrounds, and then some battens above:

SwtAymY.png
 
Will you be doing the rendering yourself Mike? Plastering is the one job I definitely have no skill in and will happily pay for someone else to do - anything else I am happy to give it a go!

Steve
 
I'll probably do the rendering of the panels between the posts of the porch. You can hardly go wrong on such small areas. I won't be doing the front of the house. I am getting more confident with plastering, and even tackled (pretty successfully) the ceiling of the study, so I'll be doing most (if not all) of the rest of the plastering inside. The front of the house, though, isn't an area for an amateur!
 
Absolutely outstanding work Mike. I bet a lot of your neighbours are very jealous, as well as they might be. :eusa-clap: :eusa-clap: :eusa-clap:
 
Thanks Richard. Well, we don't really have neighbours......

BTW, we live about 3 miles apart. How is it we've never met?
 
Having hijacked your thread earlier, I was forgetting my manners.

Super work, Mike, and so pleasing on the eye.
 
The whole point of building the porch was so that I could prepare the house for rendering. To that end, I ran 3 rows of tiles (and associated lead soakers) each side of the roof alongside the house, and then mortared in the first of the ridge tiles. As I will be sitting scaffold boards on the roof for the rendering (called plastering everywhere but the UK, I think) I didn't want to tile the whole roof:

dncJaFs.png

FUGZRd8.png

You'll note in those photos that I also put a vertical batten at each stud location, and fixed 4x1s either side of the windows, 3x1s above, and generally 2x1s below. I am now ready to tackle the window surrounds.

Because I am using render carrier boards, which are 15mm thick, rather than laths or "wire" (EML = expanded metal lath), which are much thinner, I need a little more thickness in the architraves around the windows than I was planning. To this end, I set up my planer in such a way as to be able to run long rebates in ex 75x19 PAR, then glued it to the architrave:

tlJ0WhO.png

That gained me about 9mm in thickness, which should be about spot on. After fitting all the cills, I tackled the windows under the eaves first. Before, then after:

VqgyGNC.png

Akkxq3J.png

These three windows are done differently from all the others on the house, because they are tight up under the eaves. I ran the architrave around 3 sides. All the other windows will have a pentice board, which is a traditional local feature, simply a sloping board above the window head which keeps the top of the window dry. Here is an example:

F9b4PhC.png

I have always made these such that they can be removed and replaced even once the building is rendered. The fixings are on show underneath, so you would simply undo the screws and slide the board out. This is because the pentice board is highly vulnerable, and will be the first part of the exterior of the house to rot. So in 20 or 30 years time, or whenever, the can be replaced easily.

Here is the same window with its architraves in position:

9zjY7Gi.png

And this is how the render carrier board will butt up to the sides of the window architrave:

c58ZTiU.png

The theory is that the render will be about 12mm thick. I reckon there is about 18 or 20mm of exposed architrave, which gives us a nice edge to finish against.
 
I've changed my mind on that Andy. Lead over pentice boards is a later repair, normally. I am just going to put some DPC over the junction and dressed up behind the render carrier board, which won't show through the render. It will take any moisture that gets through the render back to the outside at the window heads.
 
I wasn't reading wondering how you'd be able to repair or replace, then you explained! I have a partially rendered wall which for whatever reason was rendered over at some point. Awful job sealing in a cupoboad door frame which has of course rotted and will not be a simple job.

Will the architraves give a long life span when painted all round? Looks like standard pine, why not oak?
 
Yes, it's tough stuff is lime render. Not quite as strong as concrete, but not far off.
 
MattS":1ollkhdl said:
.....Will the architraves give a long life span when painted all round? Looks like standard pine, why not oak?
Click to expand...

They're less vulnerable than the pentice boards, but again, they won't last forever. The micro-porous paint is marvellous stuff, though, so I expect they'll last quite a while, and then when they need replacing, they can just be prised off.
 
The Savolit Plus render carrier boards were delivered ahead of schedule this morning, so I got on and fitted a few. There were some bits and pieces to finish off first, and another coat of paint to do on the pentice boards and architraves. For access to the southern gable, here is my mobile scaffold:

io41tLj.png

I have to park it so close to the house that I shuffle across and climb out of the passenger seat. For any further work, I'll put another board or two up on the roofrack. Anyway, as a reminder, here is a "before" photo:

egaj1aW.png

Then progress today:

vlRAJJw.png

9AcdZ8e.png

This close up shows the load-spreading washers (stainless steel screws for lime, which eats anything else). It also shows that the insulation bulges the breather paper in some places so much that it touches the back of the Savolit boards:

t0Ff1Qs.png

The fix isn't difficult. Just push some battens in behind the boards:

0aHcbIs.png

Bingo, we have a proper gap, and airflow. The technical info from the manufacturer says that with the right number of fixings per board, and with full edge gluing (which I'll be doing .......I've left the appropriate gaps), that the ends of the boards don't need to meet on a batten. I ignored that, and made sure that all joins were fully supported. I was pleasantly surprised by how firm this substrate is. It easily took the weight of a ladder leaning against it, and that is prior to gluing.

The plasterer can't come next week, but so long as the weather stays something like he should be able to come the week after, and finally, after so long, the house will start to look a little finished.
 
Are you going to use the same system on the newer part of the house.....you haven't shown many pictures of the new part recently but I seem to remember it has a man-made board as the outer layer already.

Ian
 
Yes, Ian, I will. The plasterer suggested I get one part completely ready in case he gets the chance to come earlier, so I'll focus on the front (old) part of the house until it's done, then do what I can around the back, albeit all my scaffolding will be tied up at the front. For various reasons, there is a lot more render on the old part of the house than the new, but we'll get to that once I start reporting on that work next week sometime.
 
You've made some fantastic progress Mike since I last commented. The porch look great and it good to see the house getting weather tight before we head into winter. The roof is going to be coming off my house as we head into winter!
I have a question regarding the architraves around the windows. Is that a local architectural feature as I don't recall ever seeing them externally anywhere before?

Mark
 
Yep, it's common in local vernacular here. Sometimes plainer profiles are used. It's driven by the render. It is difficult to get a weathertight gap between render and window in a timber framed building, due to movement, so no doubt someone got fed up with filling such a gap every year and just plonked a board over it.
 
Just to prove to myself that I have actually made some progress, this is the front of the house a year ago today:

vRbJalZ.png

RjUPjBa.png

And this is what I was doing 2 years ago this week:

tnDq9Jj.png

e578OMO.png
 
Wow - I really wouldn't have estimated 2 years Mike. I would certainly be flagging by now! Take pride in how far you have come and how the quality has remained so high. :eusa-clap:

Steve
 
I know the feeling, Mike.

I've only been going at mine for six months and with some builder effort as well. Truth be...I think I'd rather have done much more myself and at my own pace and project plan. But LOML was adamant that we didn't take forever this time.

Photos taken from a while back provide my impetus to press on.
 
2 years wow, I would have said that was a year ago. What do they say about time flying and having fun?

With ref to the window architrave, it may be that I've seen the plainer version before but never really thought about it as an architrave.

Mark
 
Mike, what are the single socket boxes for alongside the doubles ? Data ?
 
Yep, they're 5 amp sockets, so that we can switch lamps from wall switches.
 
Mike G":3lgr9pxw said:
Thanks Richard. Well, we don't really have neighbours......

BTW, we live about 3 miles apart. How is it we've never met?
Click to expand...



Hi Mike

Everytime I go into or through Sudbury and out to Polstead (my workshop is that way) I keeping looking for your house and never see it..... If you ever need a labourer for the day, happy to oblige.

All I can say is I doff my hat to you Sir! The amount of work you have done is amazing.

Cheers

Rhichard
 
It's mainly been just more of the same for the last couple of days. Window surrounds, scaffolding, and Savolit boards:

oBolBv4.png

jcrSdjk.png

QfP3eHu.png

I can't get any higher up the gables than that with just a tower scaffold. I'm getting hold of some scaffolding in the next couple of days. The corners are unusual in that there isn't going to be a stop bead and a square corner, but a rounded corner. The plasterer hates it, because he's got nowhere to stop, but it looks great when it's done. Here's the board detail:

nlkWvMU.png

ERPGaFL.png

I got sick and tired of the perspex over the porch, so cut up some spare glass I had and pinned it into the window openings:

QRN9Tvy.png

C3kvyVL.png

It's just temporary, to get us through the winter without getting the inside of the porch wet.
 
Proper job, as they say down 'ere!

BTW, I had that question mark in the box image problem again. Opened the picture in a new tab, go back to the post, reload the page and the images are all there again!
 
Nice progress
How long does the plasterer reckon he'll take and is the render self colouring or will you have to paint it?

Rod
 
The plasterer says he can't price this. He's doing it on a day rate. I'm hoping it's a couple of days per coat for the front part of the house, with me helping.

The render is going on au naturale, and we'll be adding limewash next spring (in a dull green/ grey.......approx Farrow & Ball no.11)

https://www.designerpaintstore.com/...ive-colours/archive-colour-stone-white-no-11/

I quite like "Drab" and love the name!!

https://www.designerpaintstore.com/...ll-archive-colours/archive-colour-drab-no-41/
 
Nice
I saw this today and thought of your door [emoji3]

63d25ff15bf5902bc413b96ab93e4350.jpg


5b569d97c6ec0a6433244fb0b0a09016.jpg


Hinges

7a80fae513231359321443c6ca10df55.jpg


Rod
 
Rod":2tdv9arx said:
.....I saw this today and thought of your door [emoji3].......
Click to expand...

Isn't that beautiful? I have a thing about doors. If I go into a cathedral to look around, I look up first, at the roof, and then I go around the periphery looking at the doors.

Interesting hinge positions. It looks like horizontal boards internally, then vertical, then the raised detail on the outside.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top