So its time to start to make some changes post flood to the
design….
Having now had the joyful experience of tidying up after a
flood its plainly obvious that if you can avoid having any porous materials
below water level – that’s something you very much want to do!
This includes
timber walls. Although you can clean down and dry out timber it transpires that
due to the (to remain nameless) contamination in flood water it will mold and
rot quickly. I have therefore decided that anything touching the floor less
than 3 foot at road level and 5 foot at river level will be stone/brick etc,
this includes the stairs and walls.
Seems logical enough right? Only problem being I have
already built a lot of the walls – full length in timber. So its time to take
some unrewarding steps backwards – but I’m sure my future self will thank me
for it.
This is the once 'ready for render' external wall with its two outer OSB skins removed to reveal the timber frame
Timber frame has been cut off and temporary propped up
New brick work on external wall finished and external skins reattached to timber frame. These line up flush with one another, so once rendered there will be no way of knowing there are two different wall types beneath
Same inside - all internal stud work to frame out the old walls has been trimmed off 3 foot above floor level
Last chance to install some plumbing for the workshop sink before block work goes up
3 layers of concrete blocks, then new sole plate to the timber walls sits on top. new soil stack also bricked in the corner with sink pipework
View from inside workshop of new block work bottom of external wall. As you can see a new sole plate for the timber frame above now sits neatly on top. Obviously this would of been much easier to achieve building in the right order - but it seems to of worked out well. These new block bottoms to the walls will now be 'tanked' (water proofed) to further protect against the flood.
As you may have noticed from the pictures there are currently no staircases in the building. While this is still the case and easy access i have finished/added to the old stone wall which the main staircase will run up next to. Above is a photo before the work. You can roughly see that it has a 45 degree slop to it. This was once the single story roof line of the building in probably its earliest incarnation with the water wheel sitting in the mill race in front of it.
Now filled in up to mezzanene ceiling above, reusing slate we have had to take out of some walls for new roof line elswhere in the building. It was quite enjoyable to do, although incredable time consuming, this small section took nearly 2 days, but i am pleased with the result. I now need to finish cleaning up the rest of the wall and seal it all with a clear stone sealant.
