Roof beams modification and such!

Another picture dump coming..

Let's get it started then..

Continued with odd jobs waiting for wood for roof to arrive, so insulated arons kennel...

 Different view..

 Also put some regular EPS on the floor of it to keep it cost..

 Now with laminate flooring (wipe clean.. :) )

 And the inside cladded.. all it needs now is a roof...

 Levelled out the floor in the living room to be..

 Different view of same.

 Added some gravel/sand to level it out the low spots and create a seperating layer for later.

 Same, different view..

 Decided to continue in the lounge to be..  remove the last of the panneling..

 Panelling removed, a huge chunk of render decided to come down with the panelling above the window and smashed the window sil .. (That's happened before somewhere else.. stupid PVC rubbish..)

Looking above the big window in the lounge, it appears that they just sandwiched the new window in place and then used expanding foam with a plank above the window... and then used polystyrene to fill the hole up and rendered over that, made a right mess cutting it back in to expose the ring beam that the roof rests on for inspection and to see what exactly was there..

 Pic of render randomly falling off when kicked..

 Cut all the little planks above the window right back into the wall so they no longer stick out..

 Removed render from wall, up to 20cm thick in some places, exposing the old columns that held up the roof in the past. It used to be a veranda with just columns, no windows or walls between them.

 Broke open the floor to reveal the foundation, glad its there, although the first course of brick seems to be hovering in mid air not supported, guess it will need to come out..

Im planning on using the 50mm ytong blockwork to create a nice new straight wall, at the moment the top and the bottom of this wall are 14 cm out.. its tapered outwards for some reason..

Meanwhile the wood arrived at some point..

Moved all the insulation from the garage upstairs to make some space to store stuff... that's 18 bales of XPS insulation in 100mm and 80mm...  A nice parcel of 2.4M x 1.8M X 1.2M heigh

 Cut all the floorboards upstairs to size so they wouldn't be an issue.

 And work started.. first braces to stop the roof from going wonky..  100x50mm with M10 bolts holding it together.

 First big beam (150x200mm) bolting the five roofbeams together to stop them moving up, down or sideways.

 Notches cut into the beam above grannies wall which will be tied back into.

 Picture of a joint already cut out waiting to be seperated..

 And showing joints with one already removed.

 Ran into a slight issue, the 4th beam was supposed to be used as extra "insurance" to tie the beams together just like the wall side, then removed later. However when test loading the beam above the bedroom it started to deflect, and the guy reconned the extra load would probably make it sag so badly it would collapse within 1 or 2 years, so the 4th beam was relocated next to the existing old beam, placed on the wall on both sides, and used instead, it also made locating the joints a LOT easier.

 Other side resting on wall, trimmed back under the 1st tying beam.

 Joints all ready to go, beams removed, and a picture of the new beam alongside the old one.

 Other side ready to go.

 This next bit frustrates me immensly.. The man helping said he had sleepless nights over the corner of the roof and how it was resting...  If we go back to the drawings in the previous post you will see that 4 beams come together, canti-levered out over the wall to support it, its absolutely fine, and there's no way its going to give up.

We cut one of the four canti-lever beams, but when cutting the beam the beam actually dropped slightly once free, which meant it would have levered the roof UPWARDS not downwards...  obviously that wouldn't happen so it meant the other three beams were working fine, we even added a acro-prop as an extra precaution, but when testing it it turned out not to have any load on it. the roof was supported fine by the three beams + 1 cut beam which would be re-joined into a cross member later.

 Anyhow, the guy started making a scene infront of granny about how the whole roof was resting on one point and what if it came down, to which I said its absolute bull$4!7 ! and that from a static point of view nothing had changed or will change once the plans are complete.. But anyhow, the new half beam which was meant to go next to the fireplace for the chimney got used here..  It rests on the wall and then its bolted to the two outer beams taking up strain... so now the point of the roof is effectively held up by 5 beams acting as 6 beams... (Enough to go insane..)

 View from above of the wasted beam + time + aggro.. Not to mention the extra work involved in having to cut all the floorboards upstairs to fit next to the beam, and at some point I will need to add a beam between this beam to take up the floarboards as they no longer have anything to rest on...

 Anyhow, onwards!  The tying beam and cross beam next to the wall in place and tacked in place.

 And the other side, minus chimney beam as it was easier to locate it into place without it.

 The gap left for the chimney beam..

 And the chimney beam cut short and a new cross member next to the wall instead of hanging out above where the chimney will go on the other side.

 All the floorboards back in place and everything tidied up and away..

 This is above where the kitchen will be.

 The braces, tying beam and cross beam in place..

 And the new space above the chimney..

Here is the pic from the last post about what was imagined.. only the braces are different and the 4th beam as extra insurance has been used elsewhere..  The rest seems to fit!

And started removing some more of the floor in the lounge exposing an old concrete slab beneath the concrete as well as a old foundation from where the porch used to be before it was extended outwards... this wall is also hovering in mid air off the foundations... need to investigate tomorrow to see what exactly it is or is not..

And just on a closing note, this is the last time I am willing or wanting to work together with "friends" which are appointed by someone else... the job of the roof beams took FOUR DAYS... most of which was spent standing around doing nothing whilst the old joiner refused to use power tools and wanted to chisel and cut all the joints by hand..

To top that off he asked about double the amount of money for his work that we were expecting.. Whilst being extremely slow or having any tools of his own that were usefull.

Effectively me and the other person we had helping did all the work whilst he pointed and complained we were doing it wrong or rushing things..
The other person got paid 30% of what the old man got paid... not exactly fair..

I could have done the job myself, with help of the other person, I've seen people do this kind of work before, but I've never done it myself. Neither did I have any tools to do it.. That was the whole reason we wanted someone to come and help with experience and tools so it could be done quickly and effectively. Not faffing around for 4 days having to pay a labourer to sit still for 30 min then work 5 min when the old man needed it..

Anyhow, rant over... its done now and has cost a lot more than was anticipated.
It would have been cheaper to buy the required tools ourselves..

We seem to have a wall!

Its funny how building things up takes a lot less time than demolishing old stuff.

Anyhow, we seem to have acquired a new wall! :)

So, the concrete had about a week to set properly in the supporting columns, time to move onwards.

Added the two minor lintels above the bookshelf and also the half blocks above it.
Sadly I never took any pictures of them being fitted.
Here's the plan which was originally intended, but its been modified slightly as there wasn't space for the second course above the lintels, and also where it ties into the existing wall is slightly different.
But anyhow, you can see what was intended.

First question is, how do you get 141KG's of lintel to where you want it to go!

Simple, I can swing one end at a time, so dragged it onto some old metal pipes and attached a rope and dragged/rolled it towards the door. 

Next step was to get a roller at the rear end, and drag it ontop the door step, then lift the other end up and chock it up, then add a roller on a plank to the middle and simply drag the whole thing inside.

5 minutes work! :)

 Next, found the center of balance and winched it up as high as it would go next to the existing new wall so it wouldn't snag, and tipped one end down and swung the other end onto its resting place.

 Then after that, chain the whole lot up at both sides tight and slacken off the hoist, and hoist the side that is still down upwards (no pics of this) and swing it inwards.

Then back to the center of balance and try to position it equally above the two load bearing pillars. (no pics either)

Then simply one side up at a time, lots of glue/mortar stuff under it and back down.

The chains simply allow that added freedom and safety to reposition the winch, shorten the pull etc and move points of leverage.

And the final resting place!

 Tada...

 Next courses built up and padstones added under roof beams and roof lowered back onto wall.

 the new lintel holding up the roof! :)

 And the other side where fireplace will be.

 I tried to level these beams out by removing all dependencies and simply lowering one acro-prop at a time but it simply doesn't want to go down, I guess the beams are simply "locked" in position.

So the little padstones needed to be individually cut and tapered to fit the gap.

 The new and final section of wall with the integrated bookshelf.

 And where the fireplace will be.

 Looking from where the kitchen will be.

And looking from the bedroom doorway into livingroom.

The "lounge" area looks huge now its been tidied up and with the large opening..

Hopefully wood should arrive tomorrow to start altering the roof beams for the boiler platform..