Renovating an old farmhouse and living on the Pennines
Discussion
hidetheelephants said:
Evoluzione said:
Two of the downsides of using horses are:
1. It contains 'live' grass seeds.
2. It doesn't contain urine like bird poo does thus has less nitrogen.
Pissing on compost heaps is supposed to be a thing. A bit like a dog marking its territory.1. It contains 'live' grass seeds.
2. It doesn't contain urine like bird poo does thus has less nitrogen.
For the midges:-
I'm sure I've read that midges don't travel far so a technique is to use a cardboard box sprayed with carpet adhesive. You place a torch in the box at night and they all flock to the light and get stuck. You can wipe them out in your area.
Not sure how much truth there is to it though!!
I'm sure I've read that midges don't travel far so a technique is to use a cardboard box sprayed with carpet adhesive. You place a torch in the box at night and they all flock to the light and get stuck. You can wipe them out in your area.
Not sure how much truth there is to it though!!
NorthDave said:
For the midges:-
I'm sure I've read that midges don't travel far so a technique is to use a cardboard box sprayed with carpet adhesive. You place a torch in the box at night and they all flock to the light and get stuck. You can wipe them out in your area.
Not sure how much truth there is to it though!!
That works well with bears too.I'm sure I've read that midges don't travel far so a technique is to use a cardboard box sprayed with carpet adhesive. You place a torch in the box at night and they all flock to the light and get stuck. You can wipe them out in your area.
Not sure how much truth there is to it though!!
NorthDave said:
For the midges:-
I'm sure I've read that midges don't travel far so a technique is to use a cardboard box sprayed with carpet adhesive. You place a torch in the box at night and they all flock to the light and get stuck. You can wipe them out in your area.
Not sure how much truth there is to it though!!
Well it's cheap and easily made. The problem is every other insect will stick to it too, so we'll wipe out moths at night and butterflies during the day.I'm sure I've read that midges don't travel far so a technique is to use a cardboard box sprayed with carpet adhesive. You place a torch in the box at night and they all flock to the light and get stuck. You can wipe them out in your area.
Not sure how much truth there is to it though!!
Apparently they are attracted to carbon dioxide, so that maybe that's the key element.
In other news the temp of the heap is dropping a few degrees, I wonder if it peaked at 65.
Evanivitch said:
I stick old carpet over my compost heap which is in a builders bulk bag.
Even a tarp would keep the temperature in a bit. Beware it becoming a home for others...
It has a horse blanket over it. Mk2 will be lined and capped with some 100mm Kingspan and a length of aerating tube in the bottom.Even a tarp would keep the temperature in a bit. Beware it becoming a home for others...
LooneyTunes said:
Interesting thread!
For constant rapid composting, 3 bins gives even more flexibility. Just finishing off a fairly large setup that will hopefully convert pretty much all of our horse and garden waste into compost. Wood is best chipped down before going on, and it’s Important not to forget the worms (so don’t start completely from fresh with each new batch).
OP, out of interest, are you doing anything to improve thermal performance? Undertaking a similar project very soon and given I need to redo the walls and electrics am considering the merits of internal insulation.
You can't have worms in hot composting. Well, not until it's finished that bit then no doubt they'll work their way in.For constant rapid composting, 3 bins gives even more flexibility. Just finishing off a fairly large setup that will hopefully convert pretty much all of our horse and garden waste into compost. Wood is best chipped down before going on, and it’s Important not to forget the worms (so don’t start completely from fresh with each new batch).
OP, out of interest, are you doing anything to improve thermal performance? Undertaking a similar project very soon and given I need to redo the walls and electrics am considering the merits of internal insulation.
I wooden be putting wood in there, read back for why not.
Insulation will be addressed eventually, but not just yet and I haven't given it much thought. I have to stop the damp from coming in, fix the roofs and dry the building out first before tackling the interior, that on it's own will take well over a year.
Evoluzione said:
You can't have worms in hot composting. Well, not until it's finished that bit then no doubt they'll work their way in.
I wooden be putting wood in there, read back for why not.
Insulation will be addressed eventually, but not just yet and I haven't given it much thought. I have to stop the damp from coming in, fix the roofs and dry the building out first before tackling the interior, that on it's own will take well over a year.
What's on the internal side of the external stone walls?I wooden be putting wood in there, read back for why not.
Insulation will be addressed eventually, but not just yet and I haven't given it much thought. I have to stop the damp from coming in, fix the roofs and dry the building out first before tackling the interior, that on it's own will take well over a year.
You may get wicking from render and plaster etc,even if it's lime work.
If the internal walls are exposed stone then all should be well if lime pointed.
It seems to be good to have just stone that gets heated in winter and stores heat or some kind of stud work like metal rails etc set off from the stone walls leaving an empty cavity,stud work insulated and across the studs before boarding etc.Vented top and bottom with no materials touching the stone.
I suppose it depends on what amount of space you can afford to lose.
Magooagain said:
Evoluzione said:
You can't have worms in hot composting. Well, not until it's finished that bit then no doubt they'll work their way in.
I wooden be putting wood in there, read back for why not.
Insulation will be addressed eventually, but not just yet and I haven't given it much thought. I have to stop the damp from coming in, fix the roofs and dry the building out first before tackling the interior, that on it's own will take well over a year.
What's on the internal side of the external stone walls?I wooden be putting wood in there, read back for why not.
Insulation will be addressed eventually, but not just yet and I haven't given it much thought. I have to stop the damp from coming in, fix the roofs and dry the building out first before tackling the interior, that on it's own will take well over a year.
You may get wicking from render and plaster etc,even if it's lime work.
If the internal walls are exposed stone then all should be well if lime pointed.
It seems to be good to have just stone that gets heated in winter and stores heat or some kind of stud work like metal rails etc set off from the stone walls leaving an empty cavity,stud work insulated and across the studs before boarding etc.Vented top and bottom with no materials touching the stone.
I suppose it depends on what amount of space you can afford to lose.
I haven't shown the interior yet as it's a bit embarrassing and this is all you're going to get for now! When I tackle it i'll post up some 'before, during and now' pics and talk about it some more. Magooagain makes some valid points about damp internal walls etc.
The ground floor is actually reasonably well laid out. The front extension contains a small bathroom and porch which goes into a sizeable kitchen with central island. To the rear is staircase and the utility (in another extension).
Double doors take you through to the dining room which shares a stove with the living room which is on yet another extension.
There you go Escort3500, this is what I have to look at on an evening in the lounge:
That bloody awful strap pointing! Ffs if you ever have a building repointed steer clear of this horrible stuff if you can.
I think that at one time in history (after OPC was invented) builders had to find something to do so they invented this to get work. There is just no need for it, it looks horrible on any wall and applied to many older walls it actually damages them.
Also in the pic you can see the floorboards have lifted, it's the same behind me too and other areas of the house, but less severe. It's because the house was left empty and unheated over Winter and Spring whilst leaking. The flooring got cold and damp, swelled and had no-where to go horizontally so it went vertically instead. It's shattered the kitchen tiles where they meet on the threshold. Even the solid oak kitchen cupboard doors have visibly swollen, many not shutting properly they are now so big.
Water has dripped down the chimney and into the cheap Chinese double sided wood burner. It wasn't great before, but totally ruined now, I can't even get the doors open on one side and the other had to be levered open. I think he's been burning something in there which he shouldn't, I remember seeing some empty bags of some kind of solid fuel and it wasn't coal. There is a burned out solid mass in the bottom and the glass is cracked, no signs of any firewood outside the house. It'll go on FB marketplace, i'll remove it after I've swept the chimney from above downwards. I think/hope my mum still has a set of chimney sweeping brushes my dad had stored in the shed.
We've brought my Stovax over, it's single sided, but will do for now.
The reason i'm not putting a new stove in is because we may have one with a back boiler in which heats radiators too, well that and there is no point in putting anything decent in here just yet.
I've always found investigating old buildings quite interesting, much like car engines. Why did they do that? Why did it fail? Then go on to do it better.
Shot of our lovely dining room/living room door along with some more of that amazing pointing:
Which surprisingly gives us a fair bit to talk about.
The first point; why is there a door there anyhow?! There's a bloody great hole straight through the wall next to it with a stove in it and the house also has central heating. The answer to that is just tradition and lack of thought.
You may notice it's about 6 - 7" smaller in height than it used to be when it was made. Why would someone make a door hole that was so small when they didn't have to? It's normal to have to cut an inch from a door for the flooring because some joiners don't think ahead, but not that much. If you look closely you'll see it steps up.
I think the answer will be that the floor levels are now a lot higher than they were, mainly in the original house. At a guess i'd say there is a damp solid floor under there with polythene over it, battens and one or two layers of floor board over the top.
One day we'll find out for sure.
The ground floor is actually reasonably well laid out. The front extension contains a small bathroom and porch which goes into a sizeable kitchen with central island. To the rear is staircase and the utility (in another extension).
Double doors take you through to the dining room which shares a stove with the living room which is on yet another extension.
There you go Escort3500, this is what I have to look at on an evening in the lounge:
That bloody awful strap pointing! Ffs if you ever have a building repointed steer clear of this horrible stuff if you can.
I think that at one time in history (after OPC was invented) builders had to find something to do so they invented this to get work. There is just no need for it, it looks horrible on any wall and applied to many older walls it actually damages them.
Also in the pic you can see the floorboards have lifted, it's the same behind me too and other areas of the house, but less severe. It's because the house was left empty and unheated over Winter and Spring whilst leaking. The flooring got cold and damp, swelled and had no-where to go horizontally so it went vertically instead. It's shattered the kitchen tiles where they meet on the threshold. Even the solid oak kitchen cupboard doors have visibly swollen, many not shutting properly they are now so big.
Water has dripped down the chimney and into the cheap Chinese double sided wood burner. It wasn't great before, but totally ruined now, I can't even get the doors open on one side and the other had to be levered open. I think he's been burning something in there which he shouldn't, I remember seeing some empty bags of some kind of solid fuel and it wasn't coal. There is a burned out solid mass in the bottom and the glass is cracked, no signs of any firewood outside the house. It'll go on FB marketplace, i'll remove it after I've swept the chimney from above downwards. I think/hope my mum still has a set of chimney sweeping brushes my dad had stored in the shed.
We've brought my Stovax over, it's single sided, but will do for now.
The reason i'm not putting a new stove in is because we may have one with a back boiler in which heats radiators too, well that and there is no point in putting anything decent in here just yet.
I've always found investigating old buildings quite interesting, much like car engines. Why did they do that? Why did it fail? Then go on to do it better.
Shot of our lovely dining room/living room door along with some more of that amazing pointing:
Which surprisingly gives us a fair bit to talk about.
The first point; why is there a door there anyhow?! There's a bloody great hole straight through the wall next to it with a stove in it and the house also has central heating. The answer to that is just tradition and lack of thought.
You may notice it's about 6 - 7" smaller in height than it used to be when it was made. Why would someone make a door hole that was so small when they didn't have to? It's normal to have to cut an inch from a door for the flooring because some joiners don't think ahead, but not that much. If you look closely you'll see it steps up.
I think the answer will be that the floor levels are now a lot higher than they were, mainly in the original house. At a guess i'd say there is a damp solid floor under there with polythene over it, battens and one or two layers of floor board over the top.
One day we'll find out for sure.
Chebble said:
Mr Scruff said:
I’ve got nothing useful to add, other than to say I’m hugely enjoying reading this and thanks for sharing
Have to agree. It’s fascinating and I’m in for the long haul! The compost is a load of s
t though. You don't have to post up useful things, questions are ok too
Evoluzione said:
Chebble said:
Mr Scruff said:
I’ve got nothing useful to add, other than to say I’m hugely enjoying reading this and thanks for sharing
Have to agree. It’s fascinating and I’m in for the long haul! The compost is a load of s
t though. You don't have to post up useful things, questions are ok too
t Admittedly a poor joke.
That pointing is like ours, Evoluzione. Bloody horrendous to look at and a ball-ache of a job to hack out. In our case, the limestone is quite soft, which makes the removal of the pointing even more frustrating as it tends to take pieces of stone with it too.
Still, getting rid of it will give you something to do in the long, dark winter months when you can’t do much outside
Still, getting rid of it will give you something to do in the long, dark winter months when you can’t do much outside
Yes I totally agree.
Someone unwittingly did a good job at the front here, 'good' in that it was very well done, just with the wrong material. It's a very strong mix and has bonded well to the millstone grit, it's going to take a lot of time, hacking and patience to get it off. Oh and then squish a small amount of lime in.
I will try washing the old lime out a bit deeper with the powerwasher to see how that goes. You need to go deep so the new stuff keys. I've purposely left the old lime in for now over Winter.
I've hacked of a couple of Sqm by hand to the front, it's revealed some very tight (circa 3mm) joints between the stones. I think back in the day a high quality job was defined by how tight they got the joints. It's classic older building style with a high quality frontal façade and a much lesser sides and rear. Old experienced stone mason at the front, apprentices to the rest.
Front pictured here, note the bit of slate wedged in there to hold the quoins level when they were walling up, there is quite a bit of it in the front wall:
Round the corner on the gable it looks like this:
Shale.
As you can see i've been hacking out the gable end today. Whoever did the pointing here has done a crap job, the pointing is quite easily dislodged, the quality of stone and laying totally different.
I got to within 1sqm of finishing before the light started to fail. Trying to get a job finished when you're tired and at the top of a triple ladder is never a good idea so sensibly I went in to admire the internal pointing instead.
'Going inside' time is also marked by some really strange wailing and screeching noises, they're so loud and repetitive I thought it was someone taking the piss, but now I think it's an owl setting off out for the night. I've just been listening to some owl noises ont'net and the only one close is a little owl and that doesn't sound exactly right either. I have seen them, but can only describe them as big and tweedy brown which is of no use. Maybe i'll have to sit out on the top of the hill one night to see.
These are the tools I use for hacking out:
Lump hammer needs no introduction, the others are a seaming chisel and scutch.
A tip for you there if you have a hammer like that and the head is a bit loose, leave it in 3" of water overnight and it'll tighten up nicely.
I've also made a breakthrough in how to cut stone slate (Note: not blue slate) properly so will discuss that later. It's taken me ages to find out how they did it.
Someone unwittingly did a good job at the front here, 'good' in that it was very well done, just with the wrong material. It's a very strong mix and has bonded well to the millstone grit, it's going to take a lot of time, hacking and patience to get it off. Oh and then squish a small amount of lime in.
I will try washing the old lime out a bit deeper with the powerwasher to see how that goes. You need to go deep so the new stuff keys. I've purposely left the old lime in for now over Winter.
I've hacked of a couple of Sqm by hand to the front, it's revealed some very tight (circa 3mm) joints between the stones. I think back in the day a high quality job was defined by how tight they got the joints. It's classic older building style with a high quality frontal façade and a much lesser sides and rear. Old experienced stone mason at the front, apprentices to the rest.
Front pictured here, note the bit of slate wedged in there to hold the quoins level when they were walling up, there is quite a bit of it in the front wall:
Round the corner on the gable it looks like this:
Shale.
As you can see i've been hacking out the gable end today. Whoever did the pointing here has done a crap job, the pointing is quite easily dislodged, the quality of stone and laying totally different.
I got to within 1sqm of finishing before the light started to fail. Trying to get a job finished when you're tired and at the top of a triple ladder is never a good idea so sensibly I went in to admire the internal pointing instead.
'Going inside' time is also marked by some really strange wailing and screeching noises, they're so loud and repetitive I thought it was someone taking the piss, but now I think it's an owl setting off out for the night. I've just been listening to some owl noises ont'net and the only one close is a little owl and that doesn't sound exactly right either. I have seen them, but can only describe them as big and tweedy brown which is of no use. Maybe i'll have to sit out on the top of the hill one night to see.
These are the tools I use for hacking out:
Lump hammer needs no introduction, the others are a seaming chisel and scutch.
A tip for you there if you have a hammer like that and the head is a bit loose, leave it in 3" of water overnight and it'll tighten up nicely.
I've also made a breakthrough in how to cut stone slate (Note: not blue slate) properly so will discuss that later. It's taken me ages to find out how they did it.
Edited by Evoluzione on Saturday 4th September 08:58
Edited by Evoluzione on Wednesday 20th October 21:42
Gassing Station | Homes, Gardens and DIY | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff