Tag: roof

Phase I: Mould Begone (part ii)

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The most enjoyable part of the works was the removal of the old mouldy utilty room.

Who knew there was a brick wall under that mouldy wall in the back? I have no idea what all of the differnet colours mean. And seeing the concrete roof/ceiling allowed us to better understand why the water kept seeping in. Surprise-surprise, half-arsed jobs and patches that never resolved the root cause were to blame. At least there were no huge surprises underneath it all!

Build it up, tear it down

One big change is the removal of the big frech sliding doors on the side of the utility room, and the creation of a door at the back. I’m sure it was fun having to drill a hole every few centimeters around where the new door needed to be. It created a very open plan look.

This new layout meant there was a lot more light, so the old toilet looked a lot less dingy, although all of these holes were soon boarded over, and temporary doors were put in.

But there wasn’t much time to enjoy that, because before we knew it, the walls were being torn down and the old toilet was no more, leaving some interesting pipework.

Stomzy

We also had a few storms to deal with. I think it was Storm Arwen that ripped off parts of the flat roof. Although this was the old roof and so had to come off anyway.

But slowly the walls went up, and some more of the weird and wonderful oddities were uncovered.

But things began to come together, with interal walls and insulation going up.

And very helpfully, a wonderful new (and importantly water-tight) roof was added, complete with yet more cat paw prints. Whilst it isn’t a sexy part of your house, or even a part that you think about very often, it is an amazing feeling to not have to worry about leaks and more mould every time it rains.

The Roof, the Roof, the Roof is on Fire

Wet, Wet, Wet

Plumbing was fun, with lots of new pipes being installed. And some rather horrible discoveries under the kitchen cupboards, of stuff that the pervious owner (or at least one of them) left behind.

But the progress didn’t stop. More walls, more insulation, even new doors, and a quick inspection from the cat, and we were on our way. Some of the old brick work was exposed now, and whilst it looked pretty cool, it caused problems, breaking the builders tools, and making the plastering difficult.

We even got as far as getting plaster on the walls (inside and out). Although this was a unexpected challenge, becasue depite now having a utility room that was water tight, getting rid of the moisture in the plaster proved tricky. After a few weeks, even with an industrial dehumidifier, there were still a few patches that wouldn’t go, but we had to press on.

Then we had to take a bit of a pause.

Whilst we had found the tiles that we liked, we managed to pick the specific ones that weren’t availble for 6 weeks. And then got delayed for even longer. So for a long time, we couldn’t do anything.

See part 3 for the final stage.

Bee Positive

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So as some of you may be aware, Kate has wanted bees for a long, long time and constantly goes on about it. We have many bee books on the shelves, a beehive shaped composter, bee jewellery, and the list goes on. However, I have not been a strong advocate, as I think we’re probably a little too busy at the moment and whilst making our own honey sounds like a nice idea, I suspect that it would be a lot more work that it seems and it would probably annoy a lot of our neighbours too.

In the meantime, we always try and plant lots of bee (and butterfly) friendly plants that will hopefully help them prosper and attract them to the area. And we’ve put up a little bee house, to help them out (as mentioned in some earlier posts, 1, 2)

Well it looks as if our efforts have started to really pay off, becasue we noticed today that we now have have our own colony of bees!

The dance

I was looking out of our kitchen window after breakfast and noticed the shadow of something swarming around. I assumed it was going to be flies or mosquitoes or something, but didn’t think they would be big enough to really make a shadow. So I thought I better go and see what it was and what they were attraced to. Turns out, we had a load of bees (or at that time, I thought possibly wasps) attracted to our stack vent!

Bee butt

As it turns out, the tiling around the pipe hasn’t been fixed properly and the tiles have slipped down, leaving a gap around the pipe, which the bees have decided is the best place in town to stay for the summer.

Excuse the mess

So this is going to be something we’ll have to add on the the list of jobs that need doing. It probably explains why the bathroom ceiling has mould around that area. The roof tiles have a few missing bits and pieces, so it might be worth doing a proper job on it all.

Anyway, I tried getting a few close up shots (easier said than done), and I am fairly sure that they are Tree Bumblebees (Bombus hypnorum) which are a relatively new species to the UK.

Photoshopped

Importantly, they tend to only stay for the summer before moving on and don’t cause any damage. So we are going to try and see if we can cohabit with them for a little while and see how things go.

Whilst I was clambering on the utility room roof, I also noticed that the bird box I mounted last year actually fell off.

What a mess

I will see if I can find some replacement slate and fix it up, as apparently this is the type of place that Tree Bumblebees actually like to nest, even if the birds continue to ignore it.

If there are any updates, we’ll keep you posted here.

The Flat Roof Society

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It might be boring (and that’s why Paul is writing this blog entry), but we did have the flat roof over the utility room re-felted.

I hate flat roofs. They are so much trouble. I don’t know of a single flat roof that anyone has had that hasn’t caused some trouble at some time. I suspect the only reason anyone gets them is becaue it’s cheaper. Which like most cheap solutions, is only designed to last for the shortest amount of time. Anyone out there thinking that a flat roof might be the option, just don’t.

The utility room is on the side of the house, and that’s the only part of the house that has a flat roof. We’ve always known it was a bit dodgy as the utility room looks to have suffered from damp and leaks in the past.

The utility room on moving day

And in the winter of 16/17 we noticed it getting slightly worse in one particular area.

This prompted us to get the local building compnay to have a look at it.

Originally, it looked like we were going to have to have the whole roof felt replaced, which was going to be expensive, but we at least knew that we would have a properly sealed roof that wouldn’t leak. But after an expert had a full look, he thought that he would be able to patch up the area that was causing a problem, and there were quite a few of them.

Holes

That obviously made things considerably cheaper and easier. Although it will probably only last a few years, but hopefully by then, we will be in a position to look at the extension.

Plumbum

Whilst on the roof, they did replace all of the lead work,  and we noticed that the pointing in the next door neighbours utility room was looking a bit dodgy too. But that can be a problem for tomorrow.

So far, the roof has held up pretty well. We did see a little bit of water ingress when we had the snow, but there was quite a lot of snow on the roof at that time, so I think that’s to be expected.