Renovating an old farmhouse and living on the Pennines

[OzzyR1]

Just seen this thread, a great read OP and best of luck with it all. Looks a beautiful part of the world.

[Swift93]

Fascinating thread. Thanks for taking the time to post.

[lrdisco]

We always call the orange chisel a Plugging chisel. Joiners used them for chopping masonry to insert fixing timber wedges for fixing door casings, skirtings etc.

May be just an East Yorkshire thing.
33 years in building in one role or another but started off as my dads apprentice. Not the good old days.

[PorkInsider]

Very interesting and enjoyable thread.

You've certainly got some work on your hands.

[Some Gump]

Haha that internal pointing, who thought of that? It's all kids of horrible yet looks like it took skill to do...

Interesting that you see such a difference in workmanship on the external walls, they all look lovely to me, but my house is just made of brick

[paulrockliffe]

lrdisco said:

We always call the orange chisel a Plugging chisel. Joiners used them for chopping masonry to insert fixing timber wedges for fixing door casings, skirtings etc.

May be just an East Yorkshire thing.
33 years in building in one role or another but started off as my dads apprentice. Not the good old days.

There's Fred Dibnah video on youtube of him putting plugs in a chimney so he can rig the ladders up it, he's using one of those chisels. I think the name is derived from the usage, so the same tool ends up with different names.

I would have guessed the first one was the scutch though, it's the same design as a scutch comb SDS drill attachment.

[Magooagain]

Yes scutch hammers exist also. Double headed with replaceable combs.
Handy for keying into old render or plaster and for hacking off.
I imagine that you could use it for cutting away soft stone before using a finer tool.

[skeeterm5]

Evoluzione said:

Wow - I though that was wallpaper....

[Evoluzione]

skeeterm5 said:

Evoluzione said:

Wow - I though that was wallpaper....

I wish it was

[Fermit]

Evoluzione said:

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.



Shot of our lovely dining room/living room door along with some more of that amazing pointing:

That pointing really is rather unsympathetic, to put it mildly. In our front room (1875 terrace house) we took the previously blocked up fireplace back to bare brick, and were deliberately 'slap dash' with how we re-pointed it, not wanting it to look too perfect. Is there scope to grind or chisel it out and re-do accordingly?

[Evoluzione]

Fermit said:

That pointing really is rather unsympathetic, to put it mildly. In our front room (1875 terrace house) we took the previously blocked up fireplace back to bare brick, and were deliberately 'slap dash' with how we re-pointed it, not wanting it to look too perfect. Is there scope to grind or chisel it out and re-do accordingly?

I had an exposed chimney breast like that in my last house, the old bricks were made locally just down the road from where it was.

If we took this pointing off there would be a cement stain on the stone, plus the doorway and the fireplace were never there originally. This means there will be some disturbance beneath that hefty stuff with various thickness of joints and no doubt other damage. Also i'm thinking we have enough exposed stone now, we don't need anymore!
Maybe a stone fire surround with a (maybe lime) plastered wall would look ok.

[bristoltype603]

Evoluzione said:

I had an exposed chimney breast like that in my last house, the old bricks were made locally just down the road from where it was.

If we took this pointing off there would be a cement stain on the stone, plus the doorway and the fireplace were never there originally. This means there will be some disturbance beneath that hefty stuff with various thickness of joints and no doubt other damage. Also i'm thinking we have enough exposed stone now, we don't need anymore!
Maybe a stone fire surround with a (maybe lime) plastered wall would look ok.

Sounds like a sensible plan. With all things related to renovation/conservation you've got to know when to stop.

[Evoluzione]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

It's all in the thread

Threads are like lawns. You have to be there at the start and keep up to it regularly. If you don't and come back after it's been left to its own devices for too long it's a tiresome job to catch up.

[Celtic Dragon]

From your description Evoluzione, I would say your owl is a Tawny owl, also known as Brown owl or screech owls because of the noise they can make.

[Evoluzione]

Celtic Dragon said:

From your description Evoluzione, I would say your owl is a Tawny owl, also known as Brown owl or screech owls because of the noise they can make.

Mid afternoon this time, but that weird noise again, definitely owl. There they were high up in a tree, what do you think?

[Mark Benson]

Definitely Tawny owls.

[Evoluzione]

Thank you for the ID, i've just spent some enjoyable minutes reading up on them. I think in the pic the female is the one on the left as she's a bit bigger, apparently they mate for life. They have their own regular hunting patches, any offspring has to go off and find it's own area, if they can't find anywhere then sadly they die.

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I think that just about sums it up, it's a very strange and loud noise to hear at 3pm too!

We have lots of wildlife here, but I haven't posted up about it yet as I haven't managed to get one picture of anything interesting until now. It's either too far away or flying/running away. We have:

Cuckoo
Barn owls
Tawny owls
Frogs
Lizards
Stoats
Rabbits (seemingly hundreds!)
Lots of Kestrels
Pheasants
Grouse (various)
Jackdaws
Mapies (doesn't everyone?)
Buzzards (we need more to eat the rabbits)
European green woodpeckers
Tits
Thrushes
Blackbirds
Goldfinches
Oystercatchers

[Some Gump]

Evoluzione said:

Mid afternoon this time, but that weird noise again, definitely owl. There they were high up in a tree, what do you think?

Nice pair of hooters you have there.

[Boosted LS1]

She says 'to whit' and he says 'to who'? Noisey anytime soon as they set out their winter territories.

Just like the Robins which have now started 'chitting' instead of singing.

Good thread OP but crikey, what a lot of work. Those views are something else and come winter will look amazing all over again!

Edited by Boosted LS1 on Monday 6th September 20:46

[Evoluzione]

I mentioned before that the big Sycamore was probably drawing part of the house towards it in times of drought, it wasn't far off touching the house in some parts.



It was also shading that gable end from the sun and wind, preventing it from drying out.




I didn't want to chop it down though, that earlier pic of the owls was taken in its branches.

The best compromise was to give it a bit of a trim. Change the proportions a bit, open up that end of the house which in turn will lessen the amount of water it uses a little.
When did it crack the house? Who knows, might have been many years ago. Will we have a prolonged dry spell like that again? Well Global Warming predications say so. My thoughts are that we repair the walls and monitor it, if it does it again then we'll have to think (quickly) about chopping it down.

So I got the ladders and chainsaw out and started lopping.



I chained the fallen branches to Terry and dragged them off to the edge a field to dry out for a bit. When I have time i'll chop them up for firewood.