Repairing An Old Door

Repaired an old door today.

Splicing in a lime block

After looking closely at the door I decided that it was lime, there are lime floor boarding the house so that's a clue and I could tell from the close even grain and the way it cut with the chisel. I did think at first it was elm but it was far too soft for that.

The corner had rotted away with woodworm so I chiseled this out and added a block off an old lime floorboard.

Gluing the block on

 

Carving the detail in.

 I then had to carry the moldings on across the new block. I did this with my carving chisels, it's good to use them as not much work calls out for them any more and luckily it's lime as its one of the best woods to carve. I was pleased with the finish and by the time it's oiled up it will look like a quality repair - not hidden from sight though as that's not being true to what you're doing to a three hundred year old door!

Repairing Old Doors

Some low quality photos on this post sorry! 

Last week was pretty cold, not getting above freezing for most of it and I had the pleasure of being out in it everyday except Friday where it hammered down with rain all day. Installing gutter in the rain is a job even I draw the line at, so I went on to repairing some doors that the other carpenter and I had hung previously.

These door weren't the easiest thing to hang in the first place with big cast hinges to remove & fill and frames where the wood seems too thin to hold the new screws needing splicing. On top of that some have got panels that are split and need replacing.

I first removed the beads from one side of the panel, on doing this I discovered that the panels are also fitted into a grove in the door. There is no way I could split the door apart and expect it to go back together (things would fall apart), instead I had to cut right round the panel (the multimaster came in handy again here) to remove it.

I then planed some boards to 10mm thick and fitted then in the door and replaced the beads I saved.

Now the painters fun starts - they're going to need quite a bit of prep work before they're ready to paint! Still doing this work preserves some of the character of the house rather than just buying new doors.

Ceiling Repair

A Bit of Restoration Work

This is some work I did a few weeks ago for a long standing customer. They live in a beautiful old Rectory in a near by village and I love working on the house.

The work was a semi emergency repair to a ceiling in one of their B&B rooms. I say "semi emergency" as I was there to look at some other work they wanted doing and she showed it me this as "future work" but I thought it was a little too dangerous to leave any longer.

A past leak in the roof had cause the lath to rot and plaster to crack

I arranged to do all the work while they were on holiday so there would be no disturbance to them and it would be all painted and cleaned up by the time they got back.

Getting the scaffold up there was the hardest part, it all has to go up slowly to avoid damaging any walls, door or paintings. I also cut sheets of ply to protect the floor and wallpaper.

The loose plaster removed and rotten lath - the roof is no longer leaking!

I only had to touch the cracked area and it came down on top of me! Messy job - I wouldn't have wanted to leave this repair any longer!

Now for the bit of controversy - the modern repair.

I'm afraid to say that no lath went back up. Instead two layers of plasterboard to bring it out to somewhere near the same level as the old plaster. And also no lime plaster was used just multifinish as this repair needed to be finished in the week with paying customers due in the B&B at the weekend - no chance of waiting for lime plaster to dry!

I first framed the hole out to make sure there was plenty of fixings for the plaster board, then cut the boards so there was minimum gaps all the way round.

The hole boarded out ready for plastering

I got my friend, Sean, to plaster the repair and blend it in with the old ceiling, I like using top tradesmen I can trust when it's not my area of expertise and I've known Sean for many years andhis work is always of a high standard.

This repair may crack slightly in the future at the joint between old and new, but that can be filled if needed and will blend with some of the other cracks already in the ceiling, i do think this will be minimal though from past experience.

Sean plastering and blending it in

I then waited a few days for it to dry before giving it about 5 coats of paint and removing all the other evidence that I'd been there.

She was a happy customer when she returned from her holiday! No mess and a B&B room ready to hire out with no risk of a ceiling dropping on any ones head!

Closing The Gaps On Some Windows

Although I keep being let down with work at the moment what I do have is pretty varied!

Wednesday and Thursday this week I spent trying to close the gaps on some old windows. The windows need replacing really, and the customer understands that, but due to budget (as the house is listed and the windows would not be off the shelf) they decided just to have the gaps closed up a bit to try and save on heating and to make the house a bit more comfortable to live in.

First job was to take out some leaded glass from an old frame, break the frame apart, clean it up and re-glue it back together. I had to be really careful with the glass as its hundreds of years old, really thin and the lead holding it together was pretty weak. Then I had to linseed oil putty the glass back into the frame once it was back in position. My putty work will never win any awards as I don't do much of it, but it looks fine where it is and should last a bit longer now.

I then worked on closing the gaps on the four large windows on the front of the house. Not really a very fun job, sticking strips on and planing them down to fit. But it did mean I worked with hand tools for 2 days straight, mainly my three favorite planes (60 1/2, No.4, No.778)

The gaps are much smaller now and it should make the house less draughty, I even filled and then primed the repairs, ready for the windows to be painted.

A lovely old house to work on (the upstairs even had wide hewn oak floor boards).

Complicated Little Roof

I had my first time off ill from work in 6 years this week, but by Tuesday night I was ready to get back at it.
I started this little roof on the Wednesday morning and straight away I knew it wasn't going to be straight forward. There's 4 steels marked on the drawing to go in; to take the old roof and support the ridge beam as well as the end gable brickwork, there's also a dormer window and a large valley gutter one side with a parapet wall containing a concealed gutter on the other. The first thing was a bit of head scratching and deciding where to begin ( as the picture below with drawings, bevels, scale rule and calculator shows!)
We decided to get the "cranked" steel in first, then the steel that's supporting the old roof, involving stripping the tiles, removing the old dormer window and cutting the old rafters.
We then managed to get a couple of rafters up with a ridge board (scarf joint ready cut) ready for us to place the new ridge beam so the brick layer can build up to it.
The sun was setting fast as we finished off tonight, but next week should see us shoot ahead with it (although I can already see that the drawings are missing another steel as there isn't one to pick up the shorter section of the new roof, so i guess we're have to come up with a solution for approval!).
Only a small roof but hundreds of things to think about! People forget how much a carpenter has to remember!

Structural Work On Roof Done!

I managed to work through the list from the structural engineer over the last few days and tick off every item from his list.
The first was to remove a section of the wall plate as the cantilevered section was rotten (the bit sticking out past the wall). This wasn't as awkward as I thought it might be, just a few 6 inch cut nails to contend with. I half lapped the new section of wall plate on, which I planed down to size as it wasn't standard, and added the strap across the top to meet the requirements the engineer had set.
This picture shows quite well why I think the roof should have been replaced- the rafters are cut on to the wrong side of the wall plate creating pressures and forces in the wrong place so its pushing out not down. I know the purlins reduces the load but I just don't like to see work left thats not right!
The next step was to splice the barge board on the end where it had gone rotten, as well as add a new cocking fillet.
I then had to add 450mm new ends to the rafters which had the worst levels of decay.
The worst job was to then chisel a section of wall plate around 4m long and add a ply facing. This was to straighten it up and provide a fixing for the gutting. This job did my chisels no favours as it was full of nails.
I also added a ply soffit to both ends and fitted the a complete new gable ladder with barge board on the far side (not an easy job on your own!).
When I'd finished I couldn't help but add a fineal to both ends just to finish it off (I wont get paid for that bit but I don't care!).

Adding a Purlin to a Roof

We're still waiting for decisions to be made about the roof at Summerfield park, but I did get permission to undertake all structural works detailed by the structural engineer.

This involves things like splicing the wall plate, repairing rafter ends and changing the gable ladder on one end (the whole roof should really be replaced but I've been shot down on that due to the councils tight budget so I'll just do as I'm told).

I did have an argument with the structural engineer when he came as he originally said that a prop in the roof was doing nothing (it was under so much tension you could play a tune on it)- but to leave it in just in case (this way he wasn't going against his original survey. I wasn't really very happy with this answer, so I got him back out to look again, he then agreed with me that something should be done. I suggested a high level purlin should be added, he just needed to tell me the size.

In the end it had to be 250mm x 100mm by just over 5m long and to be C24 strength. It took ages to find someone who stocked a timber this size and strength (most suppliers stock up to 4.8m and normally only C16 strength), still it turned up yesterday so today I could have a bit of extra help to get it into the roof.

I wont say how it got up there for many reasons but it involved 5 men and quite a bit of grunting. Once it was in the loft space I let the other guys go to another job, just leaving just another chippy and myself to fit it. A little brick work making a recess in the gable wall to take it, then packing it up with slate and using mortar to fix it in. I think it was at the limit of what we could lift between us but we were both really pleased when we could take the old prop out and have the rafters sit on the new purlin.

I think I'm doing the rest of the repairs on my own, should keep me out of trouble!

Renovating a Roof

The last few days at work I've been renovating an old roof. In the end I think it would have been easier to have taken it completely off and start again but never mind. At least we didn't have to alter the purlins by doing it this way (although some of the rafters had to be packed to catch the purlins).
On one side of the roof I replaced every rafter due to rot and woodworm whereas on the second side I just extended each one down so it will cover the future external insulation as these were all sound. Where the rafters were replaced everyone had to be cut to a different length due to the building being out of square, this made it a bit of a slower job, but its only a small roof!
I decided that although the specifications said to insulate between the rafters and on top I made it a "warm roof" and insulated only on top, this keeps the air flow between the rafters but used a more expensive insulation to meet regulations - the building inspector was happy with this solution.

The roof insulated and counter battened, ready now for felt, batten and tiling.

Door hanging

It's funny how the jobs people are really pleased with are sometimes your bread and butter work like hanging doors.

Yesterday I hung a door in the opening I'd cut through a brick wall the week before. The customer was really pleased with the result, and so was I as we'd managed to install lintels without damaging the plaster or wall paper on the other side - not an easy task.

The door itself was reclaimed so I had to make up the frame from scratch to suit it (the wall was also an odd thickness). Then I wedged the lining to suit the door.

There is always a bit of messing around when hanging an old door (packing out hinges, filling old holes) but its worth spending the extra time as they look good when they're done and in keeping with the property. Next week I've got to make up some architrave from scratch to match whats in the rest of the property