Week 36-38 - New Residential Entrance

I've been waiting for Sophie's legs to grow an extra 2 meters, but no matter how hard I pull, its just not happening. Plus I'm getting a little tired of being constantly asked "why there is a random square half way up the wall", so its time to crack on with the new stairs up to the front door of the residential area. (Which FYI - is obviously what the 'random square' is!)

So this is what we started with - you can see the line of lead already in the render on the wall to seal the new stair roof into the building, but that is about it.
Not on the original plans, but since the floods last year with have decided to keep anything timber or porous well off the ground, so I am making the bottom 3 steps out of reclaimed stone from the building and then start the timber structure from there.

This is now my second go at stone walling and although my technique doesn't seem to of improved much, i was at least a little quicker.
Now I fully admit this has more of a ramshackle, found half way up the fells look about it than a freshly built, crisp stone wall. My only real response to this is that this is 100% the look i was going for - and you cant prove otherwise! (so there). I like to think it has the look the 'cool kids' refer to as vintage... and im nothing if not 'down with the kids'

Timber structure then does on top of the stone base and attaches to the wall at the top. Please note (or at least pretend to me you noted) the unsupported double cranked stringer on the side closer to us in the picture. This has some quite complex custom steel brackets uncased in the timber to give enough strength that we do not need any posts coming down to the ground underneath the stairs. It took a bit more work but it means we dont have any pillars blocking the front door.

Timber framework and outer skin goes up and then the roof (corrugated steel to match the rest of the road side) does on.

Another (and thankfully final) staircase made and glued up in the workshop.

Finally the outer skin is battened and bitumen painted. This will then be timber clad along with the front (blue section) at a later date.

Week 33-35 - Road Side Ground Works

There has been getting on for a 2 month break on site while I caught up on some other work, but now it is time to crack on....

We are now doing all the digging up for drains and other landscaping works to the road side of the building - you know, while its the, erm... nice dry summer weather.
My over optimism is this was tested instantly, made worse by the fact that unless you are in the habit of completely wasting your time, you should be digging you new drains exactly where the rain water likes to head to once it has hit the ground. So it gets quite wet.
Having said that it does give you a live/real time test that you are digging in the right place - you've got to find that silver lining.

 New front wall to 2nd ground floor workshop. New window frame and entrance door to the right clad in slate we reclaimed from inside the building where we had to adjust the old roof line at the river side. Have also build a bin store in front - its top/roof still needed to be finished in slate roof tiles and all the brick and block work you see will be rendered and painted the same as the rest the road side of the building.

Finished new threshold to the main front door to the building (Further away in picture) and separate entrance to 2nd ground floor workshop. These 3 brick pillars still need to have there flood gate channels added and then rendered and painted.....
...and then obviously some doors would help too!

 First we are putting a slot drain right across the the front of the property. This will stop any water working its way underneath the large by-fold workshop door at the front and the bulk of any water running off the street onto the parking area and to the main front door - as these areas all slop down away from the road.

Second we are digging a new front door threshold around the main entrance to the building. The internal floor height is actually lower than the ground outside the door. Before you stepped down a single step as you went through the door. This was awkward and very unhelpful for trying to keep rain water out. So i have decided to dig a 1.5m square area out in front of the doors to the internal floor height and surround this area with slot drains.
Now this is all finished and concreted back in with the drains in place it is only about a 250mm step down. Unfortunately to get enough depth for the pipework and a 100mm concrete depth on top I actually had to dig out about 2 ton of mud and stone, which I failed to really think through and appreciate before starting the task - ignorance WAS bliss.

 (Above) Pipes and drains laid out and connected ready for concrete to be poured over.

(Right) Bottom concrete set with shuttering ready for second pour on top to create the side walls of the area

Old windows and structure removed and the new inner skin of block work gone in to create the new window frame with doors to the left. I am increasing the height of this wall so it can be tanked to the same height as the rest of the ground floor. There would have been no point water proofing the whole perimeter of the ground level to 5 ft high only to have all the water pour in at the front window during a flood.