Georgian House Renovation Up North - 5 Years and Counting
Discussion
It’s fair to say digging the trench uncovered a few issues...
We not only had a load of water pipes, we found a monster lead pipe and much head scratching occurred over whether it was an old gas main or water or god knows what...
In tracing the iron pipes, we uncovered a meter and another jumble of pipes.
Yorkshire Water were on site and after a bit more tracing backwards, we uncovered an old cast iron tap pot and a working stop tap under it so we were able to isolate the pipes and chop a few of them out with an angle grinder.
All well and good or so we thought, then we stumbled across this big lump of decidedly ropey looking old electrical crap in the ground right where the water meter connection was...
This necessitated the need for not just Yorkshire Water on site but my electricity DNO too.
The junction box wasn’t even showing on his plans and he had to phone the office to trawl some old records to find anything at all.
The best they could come up with was it was classed as out of service and as his volt stick was reading nothing, he left and the armoured cables were all cut through and the giant lump removed.
The mystery of the mahoosive lead pipe resolved itself as it dropped under its own weight and revealed itself to be disconnected.
A few minutes with the angle grinder and some chucking of metal in the car netted me £87 worth of lead and £17 of iron at the scrappers so it pays for half of a skip
There is just one pipe remaining now but as YW have been and the DNO too, I think we’re down to just it being an old gas pipe with nothing feeding it...
Having got away with the water without flooding the house and also got away with the electrical box without being resuced to a pair of smouldering welly boots, I’m loathe to test my luck a third time on this pipe.
The wife is slightly perturbed that all of this is necessary to build a wall but such is life
She decided to divert herself by painting up the wheelbarrow planter I made for her out of offcuts back when we got married.
Aw, pretty.
We not only had a load of water pipes, we found a monster lead pipe and much head scratching occurred over whether it was an old gas main or water or god knows what...
In tracing the iron pipes, we uncovered a meter and another jumble of pipes.
Yorkshire Water were on site and after a bit more tracing backwards, we uncovered an old cast iron tap pot and a working stop tap under it so we were able to isolate the pipes and chop a few of them out with an angle grinder.
All well and good or so we thought, then we stumbled across this big lump of decidedly ropey looking old electrical crap in the ground right where the water meter connection was...
This necessitated the need for not just Yorkshire Water on site but my electricity DNO too.
The junction box wasn’t even showing on his plans and he had to phone the office to trawl some old records to find anything at all.
The best they could come up with was it was classed as out of service and as his volt stick was reading nothing, he left and the armoured cables were all cut through and the giant lump removed.
The mystery of the mahoosive lead pipe resolved itself as it dropped under its own weight and revealed itself to be disconnected.
A few minutes with the angle grinder and some chucking of metal in the car netted me £87 worth of lead and £17 of iron at the scrappers so it pays for half of a skip
There is just one pipe remaining now but as YW have been and the DNO too, I think we’re down to just it being an old gas pipe with nothing feeding it...
Having got away with the water without flooding the house and also got away with the electrical box without being resuced to a pair of smouldering welly boots, I’m loathe to test my luck a third time on this pipe.
The wife is slightly perturbed that all of this is necessary to build a wall but such is life
She decided to divert herself by painting up the wheelbarrow planter I made for her out of offcuts back when we got married.
Aw, pretty.
Things are progressin of sorts on the wall.
I still haven’t had time to nip to Toolstation and buy a hacksaw to attach the last pipe and see what, if anything flows out of it. The hacksaw is required as I imagine sparks from the angle grinder would be most inadvisable were it to be a gas pipe.
The new water pipe is laid and another skipnis coming tomorrow, I’ve also been in discussion with conservation regarding the front, as I want to get on repairing that asap but changing the front door (to not make the house look like a 1980’s corner shop) requires listed building consent - Likely to be a formality, I hope.
One of these is a before door, the other is proposed - I was short on time so did the photoshopping in MS paint and the best google could offer was a composite black door - Rest assured, conservation know I’ll be requesting a solid wood door.
I still haven’t had time to nip to Toolstation and buy a hacksaw to attach the last pipe and see what, if anything flows out of it. The hacksaw is required as I imagine sparks from the angle grinder would be most inadvisable were it to be a gas pipe.
The new water pipe is laid and another skipnis coming tomorrow, I’ve also been in discussion with conservation regarding the front, as I want to get on repairing that asap but changing the front door (to not make the house look like a 1980’s corner shop) requires listed building consent - Likely to be a formality, I hope.
One of these is a before door, the other is proposed - I was short on time so did the photoshopping in MS paint and the best google could offer was a composite black door - Rest assured, conservation know I’ll be requesting a solid wood door.
Edited by stewjohnst on Thursday 19th April 22:41
Pheo said:
Was the door originally on the left? Looks like someone has hacked the current door space about quite a bit!
Quite a lot of shenanigans have gone on with the doorway... and naturally there is an extended anecdote to follow The bricked up door on the left was probably the original front door and that will have gone directly into a room.
At some point later, an extra room was added to the rear of the house (what we now use as the living room).
This must have necessitated the need for a way to get about the house without walking through the main rooms so the door appears to have been moved across and a corridor created.
This shot is looking down through the house at the front door, it’s possible this was actually where the stairs were organically, as they now go up the back of the old house.
The big step up you can see before the hallway is you pyshically stepping ‘into’ the old house footprint.
I hadn’t been able to find when the door was moved, I had a photo from 1935 showing a glasshouse to the front and f you look closely, you can see the door is already moved by then. I know the date because I found the actual wedding certificate when searching historical archives.
Closer inspection revealed there to be a slate layer in the brickwork of the ‘new’ door, which started being used in the late 1800’s as a first version of we recognise as a damp proof course.
This meant I was able to narrow the change to sometime between the late 1800’s and before 1935...
Obviously at some point theglass house was removed and left that rather horrific mess around the door.
As a result, it was rendered over around about 1987. This I know because promptly after spotting he’d rendered the front and the side and asked if he could do the whole house, the council arrived and planted listed status on the building. Thankfully saving all that beautiful brickwork (we’ll gloss over the door for now) from being hidden.
Fast forward to two years ago and the pointing of the house was i such a shocking state we were getting penetrating damp through the mortar and so we committed to getting the house repainted top to tail in lime.
I’ll post those photos later, suffice to say it took forever and made a huge difference to the appearance. However, the wife didn’t want the render removed as it would create ‘yet another job’ and we’d had our first child by then and the sheer s
tloads of dust caused by removing and mortaring bricks is horrifying.
Exhibit A - Our then Skoda Fabia after the wind changed on site during pointing removal (I imagine there some swirls for the lease co to polish out on return)
Here’s some of the pointing in progress.
Then one night I arrived home to find the wife had done this...
The presence of brick behind there piqued our interest and as the pointing progressed, the remainder of the render came off too.
As a result, it was rendered over around about 1987. This I know because promptly after spotting he’d rendered the front and the side and asked if he could do the whole house, the council arrived and planted listed status on the building. Thankfully saving all that beautiful brickwork (we’ll gloss over the door for now) from being hidden.
Fast forward to two years ago and the pointing of the house was i such a shocking state we were getting penetrating damp through the mortar and so we committed to getting the house repainted top to tail in lime.
I’ll post those photos later, suffice to say it took forever and made a huge difference to the appearance. However, the wife didn’t want the render removed as it would create ‘yet another job’ and we’d had our first child by then and the sheer s
tloads of dust caused by removing and mortaring bricks is horrifying.Exhibit A - Our then Skoda Fabia after the wind changed on site during pointing removal (I imagine there some swirls for the lease co to polish out on return)
Here’s some of the pointing in progress.
Then one night I arrived home to find the wife had done this...
The presence of brick behind there piqued our interest and as the pointing progressed, the remainder of the render came off too.
With the render removed, we were left with the very scabby brick you see today, and in places, the doorway had bricks missing altogether.
Peering into the gap, I could see there were bits of something wedged in as filler...
Yes, folks that is old newspaper - a common filler for old gaps when fitting things...
Carefully I pulled it out to reveal this.
Then, even more carefully, I was able to open it to read the articles and find a date
4th February 1897!
Now that is quite the find and allowed me to date the doorway alteration to most likely be 1897.
However, what is even more peculiar is that my birthday is the 4th February
Naturally, I preserved the newspaper and using the Briotish Newspaper Archives was able to track down and archive copy of the newspaper in question and now have the following mounted in the hallway.
Original ‘cutting’ and a recent printed copy from the archives for people to read.
I do love this old heap of bricks,
Peering into the gap, I could see there were bits of something wedged in as filler...
Yes, folks that is old newspaper - a common filler for old gaps when fitting things...
Carefully I pulled it out to reveal this.
Then, even more carefully, I was able to open it to read the articles and find a date
4th February 1897!
Now that is quite the find and allowed me to date the doorway alteration to most likely be 1897.
However, what is even more peculiar is that my birthday is the 4th February
Naturally, I preserved the newspaper and using the Briotish Newspaper Archives was able to track down and archive copy of the newspaper in question and now have the following mounted in the hallway.
Original ‘cutting’ and a recent printed copy from the archives for people to read.
I do love this old heap of bricks,
How do you tie the square marking around the door way up to the earlier glass entrance? It really looks like there was something else there before or after?
Also, whoever bought that glass frontage must have been properly minted given the cost of sheets of glass that size back then? It would have been a bit of a local showcase? The Victorian equivalent of a white Audi left parked outside the garage?
In South London where there are a large number of very similar designed, red brick, Victorian worker’s cottages/terraces its not uncommon for their to be a rendered surround to the front door. Whether these were original features or added to mask damage when doors were moved etc I don’t know but they look perfectly nice alongside white window sills and sash windows.
Also, whoever bought that glass frontage must have been properly minted given the cost of sheets of glass that size back then? It would have been a bit of a local showcase? The Victorian equivalent of a white Audi left parked outside the garage?
In South London where there are a large number of very similar designed, red brick, Victorian worker’s cottages/terraces its not uncommon for their to be a rendered surround to the front door. Whether these were original features or added to mask damage when doors were moved etc I don’t know but they look perfectly nice alongside white window sills and sash windows.
DonkeyApple said:
How do you tie the square marking around the door way up to the earlier glass entrance? It really looks like there was something else there before or after?
The square damage or difference in ageing around the door was most likely caused by the big block of render. 1987 doesn't seem like a long time ago but it means the rest of the front has been exposed to the elements for 30 years longer than the rest of the house.If you look at the photos of the exposed brickwork where the door arch is, you can see there's a definite line of damage where they've carved through the bricks to tie the glass house in to the brick work - Cowboy builders are not a new phenomenon, I dare say.
DonkeyApple said:
Also, whoever bought that glass frontage must have been properly minted given the cost of sheets of glass that size back then? It would have been a bit of a local showcase? The Victorian equivalent of a white Audi left parked outside the garage?
The gentleman in question was the Chief Cashier for the mining company at the time, probably today's equivalent of a CFO, so yes - he had a bob or two, I don't doubt. DonkeyApple said:
In South London where there are a large number of very similar designed, red brick, Victorian worker’s cottages/terraces its not uncommon for their to be a rendered surround to the front door. Whether these were original features or added to mask damage when doors were moved etc I don’t know but they look perfectly nice alongside white window sills and sash windows.
This is what it had around it before the wife *ahem* investigated. On a symetrical house it probably looks fine, on ours it just kind of looked lop-sided and as the original brick is there and we have found a ton of original brick in the foundation of the collapsed wall, it seems churlish not to restore it.Ah, I remember purchase day...
As she stands today (at least before the front was filled up once again with skips and building materials for the wall...
dhutch said:
Always ready interesting to read.
If you want an all wood door, depending on the condition of the current one, could you instead get a good chippy to panel the upper half to match the lower section?
Daniel
We had the door stripped a few years back there was nowt 'original' about it turned out to be a cheapo Wickes/B&Q generic door that had been fitted, probably about the time they rendered the front.If you want an all wood door, depending on the condition of the current one, could you instead get a good chippy to panel the upper half to match the lower section?
Daniel
Plus the frame and door need remaking - it isn't what you'd call square.
The frosting on the glass is actually a vinyl style sheet from a company called Purlfrost, without it, the glass was just clear and the world and his wife could see in down and through the hallway.
Edited by stewjohnst on Friday 20th April 12:18
From what I've read this looks like a fascinating and challenging building! Well done for your perseverance!
Is it at all possible that this was actually two houses at one time? For a Georgian property it has a very strange front elevation with a large expanse of only brickwork in the centre. If there had been one staircase then surely it would have been naturally lit in some way. Of course, I may have missed plans early in the thread which would help unfold it for me. Apologies for laziness on my part! As a building surveyor I am interested in this stuff but lunchtimes can be pretty short!
JM
Is it at all possible that this was actually two houses at one time? For a Georgian property it has a very strange front elevation with a large expanse of only brickwork in the centre. If there had been one staircase then surely it would have been naturally lit in some way. Of course, I may have missed plans early in the thread which would help unfold it for me. Apologies for laziness on my part! As a building surveyor I am interested in this stuff but lunchtimes can be pretty short!
JM
I'm loving this thread!
That newspaper reminds me of something I found in my place shortly after moving in. It's a Victorian school building, built in 1840 and converted to houses in the 1980s... which involved cutting about some of the roof timbers. I found a loose wooden plug in what was originally open roof space and, being a serial fiddler of loose things, managed to extract it. Underneath lurked a tiny bundle of crumpled up paper, which turned out to be...
I can only assume that these signatures belong to three Victorian roofers, as the timbers are original and I doubt whether they've been disturbed since
That newspaper reminds me of something I found in my place shortly after moving in. It's a Victorian school building, built in 1840 and converted to houses in the 1980s... which involved cutting about some of the roof timbers. I found a loose wooden plug in what was originally open roof space and, being a serial fiddler of loose things, managed to extract it. Underneath lurked a tiny bundle of crumpled up paper, which turned out to be...
I can only assume that these signatures belong to three Victorian roofers, as the timbers are original and I doubt whether they've been disturbed since
A day of few photos and lots of activity.
I did get time to procure a hacksaw today and duly began cutting through the last remaining pipe...I was pretty sure (i.e. hoping) it wasn’t gas and was also fairly sure I’d get a face full of water but water or gas, it seemed a more sensible approach to use a manual hacksaw than the explodey/electrocutey grinder.
To my amazement, the pipe is actually totally dead so may have been an old gas feed but either way it can be ripped out and the only remaining pipe will be the new water feed to the house.
Quite a result, although when I explained the above theory to my wife, she seemed a little less pleased - which is precisely why I explained it after I’d cut through the pipe
(I did also check plans with Northern Gas Networks who didn’t think they had anything but couldn’t say for definite on private land before chopping but it is amusing to me for my wife to consider me a madman from time to time).
I won’t bore folks with a photo but also had a load of A142 mesh for the concrete slab delivered today and yet another skip too.
Builders had certainly got value for money from the last one, always pleasing to see a skip wagon pulling a wheelie trying to lift a load on.
I popped down for lunch to find the wife trying to empty a bulk bag of wood chip to mulch the borders, it was taking her forever so I borrowed the builders wheelbarrow, took over the shovelling and loaded one while she dumped the other.
Took all of about 15 minutes like that, poor lass would have been there days.
Unfortunately just like when she’s doing the online shopping, there’s always something either absurdly small or comically massive like a 5kg jar of mayo, she is way off on the appropriate amount.
Hence another 2 tonnes bags of bark have been ordered. I think we need another 4 but I have kept schtum, this way I get a break or she’d have me emptying all four in one sitting.
I did get time to procure a hacksaw today and duly began cutting through the last remaining pipe...I was pretty sure (i.e. hoping) it wasn’t gas and was also fairly sure I’d get a face full of water but water or gas, it seemed a more sensible approach to use a manual hacksaw than the explodey/electrocutey grinder.
To my amazement, the pipe is actually totally dead so may have been an old gas feed but either way it can be ripped out and the only remaining pipe will be the new water feed to the house.
Quite a result, although when I explained the above theory to my wife, she seemed a little less pleased - which is precisely why I explained it after I’d cut through the pipe
(I did also check plans with Northern Gas Networks who didn’t think they had anything but couldn’t say for definite on private land before chopping but it is amusing to me for my wife to consider me a madman from time to time).
I won’t bore folks with a photo but also had a load of A142 mesh for the concrete slab delivered today and yet another skip too.
Builders had certainly got value for money from the last one, always pleasing to see a skip wagon pulling a wheelie trying to lift a load on.
I popped down for lunch to find the wife trying to empty a bulk bag of wood chip to mulch the borders, it was taking her forever so I borrowed the builders wheelbarrow, took over the shovelling and loaded one while she dumped the other.
Took all of about 15 minutes like that, poor lass would have been there days.
Unfortunately just like when she’s doing the online shopping, there’s always something either absurdly small or comically massive like a 5kg jar of mayo, she is way off on the appropriate amount.
Hence another 2 tonnes bags of bark have been ordered. I think we need another 4 but I have kept schtum, this way I get a break or she’d have me emptying all four in one sitting.
Aside from the bark, there was a small amount of turf to be removed from the garden to finish the borders, I’ll post these later as I want to do the amount of work we’ve done to the garden since the wedding justice.
I was left in charge of the offspring and in order to get the turf lifted quickly, I left them to their own devices elsewhere in the garden.
When I say garden, more specifically, they headed for the veg beds...
...After bath time I also rattled off a couple of quick tasks in the house.
The final catalyst for the kitchen plans going in was when I yanked the sink door open and the hinge came off the frame, I actually remembered to buy a repair plate today for the sake of a couple of quid and now the cupboard can be accessed without the door flapping around all over.
In the mood for ‘temporary’ fixes, I came up with a solution for the bust hinge on the cellar door.
I’d tried to take it off to replace the hinge properly but the screws in the door would not budge
With it being a wooden door, heat wasn’t an option and after I’d sprayed enough WD40 at it to fist a gnats ahole and it still wouldn’t move, I’d given up.
But I keep my tools in the cellar so every day it drops off the hinge and every day I end up effing and jeffing at it then I realised the old hinges are very thick metal.
I therefore bought a wafer thin cheap as chips hinge - it was so cheap the paint was flaking off it just taking it out of the plastic and fitted it just below the original hinge.
It isn’t very elegant but as only I use the cellar, it can be my dirty little secret
I was left in charge of the offspring and in order to get the turf lifted quickly, I left them to their own devices elsewhere in the garden.
When I say garden, more specifically, they headed for the veg beds...
...After bath time I also rattled off a couple of quick tasks in the house.
The final catalyst for the kitchen plans going in was when I yanked the sink door open and the hinge came off the frame, I actually remembered to buy a repair plate today for the sake of a couple of quid and now the cupboard can be accessed without the door flapping around all over.
In the mood for ‘temporary’ fixes, I came up with a solution for the bust hinge on the cellar door.
I’d tried to take it off to replace the hinge properly but the screws in the door would not budge
With it being a wooden door, heat wasn’t an option and after I’d sprayed enough WD40 at it to fist a gnats a
hole and it still wouldn’t move, I’d given up.But I keep my tools in the cellar so every day it drops off the hinge and every day I end up effing and jeffing at it then I realised the old hinges are very thick metal.
I therefore bought a wafer thin cheap as chips hinge - it was so cheap the paint was flaking off it just taking it out of the plastic and fitted it just below the original hinge.
It isn’t very elegant but as only I use the cellar, it can be my dirty little secret
Edited by stewjohnst on Friday 20th April 22:51
Thanks for all the history! I’d be tempted to recreate the glass porch!
I was recently lent the deeds to next doors house by my neighbour (very kindly) which are original (unfortunately ours are missing!). On it reveals the original sale to a relative of the original builder, and also reveals that our house originally had a name (Lyme Regis - slightly odd given we are in Sussex!). I was super excited to have more information on the house (and it was “only” built in the early 1930s)!
I was recently lent the deeds to next doors house by my neighbour (very kindly) which are original (unfortunately ours are missing!). On it reveals the original sale to a relative of the original builder, and also reveals that our house originally had a name (Lyme Regis - slightly odd given we are in Sussex!). I was super excited to have more information on the house (and it was “only” built in the early 1930s)!
Get yourself online and check the census for the area of your house and work backwards.
I found a lot of my houses history by finding the occupiers from the census and then searching for the names of the occupiers around that time in the newspapers and other directories like Kellys directories, etc.
Check out britishnewspaperarchive and be prepared to put your hand in your pocket for the trials, etc but watch out for them turning into a full blown subscription.
Fascinating, rewarding and dangerously time consuming
I found a lot of my houses history by finding the occupiers from the census and then searching for the names of the occupiers around that time in the newspapers and other directories like Kellys directories, etc.
Check out britishnewspaperarchive and be prepared to put your hand in your pocket for the trials, etc but watch out for them turning into a full blown subscription.
Fascinating, rewarding and dangerously time consuming
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