Week 51-52 - Pouring New Concrete Slab

We are pouring a new concrete slab over the entire split bottom floor of the building. These areas do already have a concrete floor but it is no more than I thin skin over the hard-core foundations at points, extremely uneven, cracked and in multiple sections. All in all no good and more importantly we need the floor to be water proof for our new flood defense plans, so we are pouring a new waterproof concrete slab at a minimum of 10 cm thick over the whole floor. Unfortunately the old floor is so un-level, to get our 10cm thickness in the highest corner we are actually pouring 28cm in the lowest. All in all we have poured 24m3 which is well over 50 tonnes of new concrete. Now this stuff doesn’t grow on trees (I assume mainly for gravitational reasons) and this has been quite depressingly expensive… ‘yay new concrete floor!’ doesn’t quite have the same ring as ‘yay new motorbike!’ does it.

Having said that…… look how smooooth it is…

We poured the two different levels of the floor on two separate days, the first being the lower river side. It was just Graeme and I there to do the leveling, solely and completely due to this comment made by the concrete sales rep:

“This is self-leveling, free-flow concrete, we’ll pour it in through the window gap at the far end and it will pretty much spread itself out on its own: you’ll barely have to do anything.”

This was the biggest lie I have heard since this blond toff drove round in a bus telling us that leaving the EU would save £3 million a week. While it may have been ’more’ free flowing than your average concrete, it is in no way self-leveling over that distance. It quickly turned into one hardest days’ work of my life.

Concrete being pouring through window reveal

Trying to spread out and level the never ending supply of concrete pouring through the window. Five of the big spinning/wurly lorries we had in total. (and yes my inner 5 year old still thought they were super cool!)

Power floating the drying concrete...

The second pour on the higher ground floor area required a far bit more prep than the lower, as we had to build some fairly robust shuttering to hold the concrete where we wanted it while it set. This also involved creating a small ramp across the front doors of the building to the new floor height and a much larger ramp between the two floors.

The two old steps between the two levels before we started...

Steps taken out and floor above taken backwards to allow for a shallow ramp

Starting the ramp shuttering. Also you can see the re-bar been added to the stone wall to strengthen the new concrete retaining wall.

Finished shuttering from lower and upper level

Shuttering was then loaded with lots of ballast to help it stand up to the weight of the concrete 

I wasn’t going to be fooled by the reps marketing talk this time – I needed more man power for this pour. So once again I found myself, NOT stuck up a fell with a broken ankle – but I called Keswick mountain rescue anyway!

A huge thank you to Richard, Grahame and Big Chris for their help, especially as (and im being honest here – I could easily of left this part of the saga out!) my shuttering sprung a leak! I’ll use the saying ‘all’s well that ends well’, as this did end well. But I could have easily turned into a major disaster with all the wet concrete above pouring down over the new set concrete of the lower slab. We managed to find where it was getting through (at the bottom of the ramp shuttering) block it up and get all the escaped cement back up to the higher slab before it started to go off, or worse still give way completely.

The aftermath of the leak around the ramp

Finished ramp and retaining wall between the two levels

 Graeme trying to 'kick' the wet concrete out across the space! I mocked, but actually turned out to be a effective method.

Week 45-50 - River Roof, Wall and Externals

Bulk of the work is now done on the river wall so its time to see a before and after picture to boost our motivation now the summers (relative) warmth is long gone...

We had about a two week delay waiting to crack on with the roof while it rained, but finally my anti-rain dance worked and we got started (my version of this involved dancing in underwear in the spare room while the cat gives you a judgmental look) and just to prove how effective my dancing skills are we were then blessed with 2 dry weeks.

First off we needed a way to have access to actually do the work, and once again, someone has put a river right in my way.
In theory at least we could have put up standard scaffolding down into the river. However then the environment agency wanted to get involved and insist on all sorts of impact reports and restrictions etc etc. Which to be honest we don't have the time, money or (most importantly) patience for. So instead I decided to cantilever a wooden platform out the upstairs windows.

The bulk of the support for this platform was built of the new steel work for the balcony. Unfortunately this doesnt go the full length of the building, and we needed the platform too, so to support the platform further out we build these two supports at each end, bolted them down the the floor, and then stuck them through the windows.

All the temporary old steel sheets removed to reveal the new roof structure.

First as mentioned in the last blog entry we fitted all the glass and them felted and battened out between for the slate.

After much deliberation and discussion with the the planning department we have used reclaimed welsh slate. We were keen to go for  reclaimed as it will blend in with everything around it instantly and also for cost. Unfortunately you can only get  2nd hand Cumbrian slate in random length tiles. This isn't really a problem when you are doing a large single pitch roof as you just do multiple rows of ever decreasing length slates. However here we only actually have 5 sections of slate about 1.5 m2 each. I am of the very strong opinion it would have just looked a mess, and it turns out the national park planning authority agreed with me! - who knew that would happen.

Sophie decided she thought slating a roof looked like fun and wanted a go - I think maybe because it is, and I told her so every night when I got home. Unfortunately she only decided this once the roof was finished and point blank refused to go out on our 'totally rock solid' (or at least yet to be proved otherwise) temporary scaffold platform. So we improvised and tiled the ground level roof of the new bin shed instead, although she did still need a beer crate to stand on. As you can see, she did a grand job.

Note Sophs tool belt, I got serious brownie points for giving her this to wear! - she's so easily pleased

Week 42-44 - Making and Installing River Windows

Its finally time for some river side windows! My inpatients for this has been quietly growing for a few months now, as they are (in my mind at least) one of the best new features we are adding to the building. 

As you saw in the last post where the river wall was prepped for their install, the two middle windows on the gallery floor have been changed to doors and all four now wrap around into the roof.

Unfortunately I cannot claim these windows were a low cost option and to be honest were a pain to make - so they did need to look the part to make it worthwhile.

I think they do, even if i do say so myself, and most the dog walkers in the park seem to agree.

When you walk up the stairs to this floor instead of (as before) being vaguely aware that the river and park are out there (although I admit this wasn't helped by the 30 years of dirt on the old windows). You are now confronted with the full range (bottom to top) of river/park/tree canopy/mountain top/sky, its great, and we never seem to need the lights on anymore - so eventually they'll pay for themselves! Assuming the price of electric goes insane anyway.

Downstairs windows to match all the rest, the most posh workshop windows I imagine I will ever have. Id like to thank my merry band of muscle men for the help fitting these windows. I did have to get the missionary chisel out a few times to tweek them into the reveals and we were all overly paranoid about dropping them into the river, but 'alls well that ends well'.

 I wont bore you again with how to make windows as I did go into this when we made the road side glazing. (above) Gluing up some of the lower level workshop windows, (below) dry testing the aluminium glazing system for the roof windows. This system did take a day of prep and working out in the workshop but once on site and fitting it was extremely straight forward and I am impressed with it. We also went for self cleaning glass for the roof, it is a little more expensive but will not be easy to get to these to clean them, so seemed worth it - and you know... laziness!

All 4 window frames fitted into a non existent roof. We now board up roof sections between windows and get some glass in.

Each panel is passed out through the opening from the inside and clips into a grove that holds it in place while you attach the glazing bars to permanently secure and make it water tight - good system.

All three panels of glass in one window with top glazing bars attached

All roof glass installed and roof boarded out between, doors and window sashes to go

Week 39-41 - Structural Work to River Wall

Until now, nearly a year into the project, we have yet to do any real work to the river wall of the building. If anything we have made it look a little worse - I think it’s time to rectify this.

But first on a vaguely related note... We made friends with an otter!

When the river is low there is about a meter wide bank on our side of the river that you can stand on. Graeme and I were down there cutting down the bushes etc while we had the chance when suddenly the little guy hops up on the bank with us to inspect our handy work, gave me a fairly emotionless look (otters dont have eyebrows) and then jumped back in the river for a swim. It. Was. Wicked.

I thought about leaving all the cut down branches on the bank to make him a new home, but i released it would be wrong of be to deny him the pride and reward of building his own house - he could call it the 'Otter's Mill' and sell miniature ottoman chairs and...... (i cant think of another otter pun).

[O wait - 'Im all otter puns!' BOOM]

(anyway) As we plan to tank (water proof) the whole bottom floor of the building we have to reinforce the wall with steel so the flood water doesn’t push it over/in - which would obviously be less than ideal (DAM! - literally)

You can see in the picture above the bottom half meter or so down to the river foundations of the wall are actually the original old stone walls (thankfully all previously concrete underpinned at the river bed. First we need to notch out this wall at each steel possession and then cast a complete concrete ring beam for the steel work to sit on. I know it doesn’t look much but this actually took well over a ton of concrete to fill.

We are now ready to fit the steel work to the wall. These steels not only strengthen the wall against flood water but they also counter leaver the balcony over the river. So I need to make holes in the walls for these new balcony steels to protrude through. There are 6 upright steels across the back wall with the middle four having horizontal protruding steels to support the balcony.

View from park of the balcony steels, currently with timber used as spacers between the each horizontal until we are ready to fit the rest of the steel structure.

Next stage is to build the new inner blockwork skin of the wall, which encases the steel inside. This inner face will be the surface to be waterproofed. Big thank you to Mr Paul Weller for coming to help me do this brick work, pulling yet another skill from his back pocket. I will henceforth be referring to him solely as ‘the block father’.

First we needed to block up the 2 existing doors as they are turning into windows instead, and add an extraordinary number of extra stiff wall ties to hold the two skins of the wall together.

After bricking up 2 doors down stairs into windows I now need to make two of the upstairs windows into doors (joy). Below you can see my head laborer Graeme (!) removing the old windows while I lengthen the window gaps to full length (just staring on the second in this picture). This turned out to be a lot harder work than I was expecting as the old wall is very strong. Now its done and my solders no longer ache I am very pleased about this fact – on the day of demolition, not so much.

View from the park with all old windows removed and all new window and door apertures made.

The last major job in this phase on the river wall was to finish fitting the rest of the steel to the balcony structure. Frustratingly someone has put a river right where we need to be to do this work (idiots). The obvious solution is a rather large crane from the road side or some sort of JCB etc in the river. Unfortunately with these two options there is large bills and large bureaucrats involved, and these are both things I want to avoid. Instead we went old school and called in Keswick Mountain rescue! A huge thank you to ‘Big Chris’ and Graeme Wilson (now onto his 3^rd job title of the project – head laborer, waste/recycling officer [self-appointed!] and now rope rigger) for setting up a beautifully simple yet elaborate array of ropes and pulleys that Heath Robinson would have been proud of, so we could get the steels into place. Sorry for the complete lack of photos of any of this – I was too busy having fun swinging on ropes and ladders over the river to take any. My bad.

No deck or anything yet but all the structure is now in for the balcony, It may only be 120cm deep but it is long (7-8 meters), I recon we can have at least 15 of us lined up with beer and cocktails of a summers evening. Bring a fishing rod and we can catch our own dinner…

We have also replaced all the slate external windowsills for tall the river windows

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.