Renovating an old farmhouse and living on the Pennines
Discussion
Evoluzione said:
Pit Pony said:
netherfield said:
As long as you're on the right side of the pennines it's OK.
You can Still be in Yorkshire on the East Side of the Pennines you know. 'Appen I'll set to later and make a start on a bit a summat
te is it? Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin
The first bit is a brief preface, sorry if it's slightly dull, but it sets the scene and explains a few things which you may wonder about later.
I started off my career in the late 80s as an apprentice trained joiner. Over the many years I did just about every job within that which was related to wood (it has a lot of subsections) and a few others too. I ran my own small business doing it and other associated building jobs, but became a bit disenchanted with the whole thing. I was fed up with working away, but the money was good and the jobs often interesting. On the flipside working locally wasn't stretching my talents either. When the big recession hit the work dried up so I packed up and followed my other passion - cars, in particular engine building. I designed and made specialised parts, or had them made by people with better machinery than I and built many a good high performance engine, all of which which regularly got sent around the World.
This means I've amassed a large amount of practical knowledge.
And tools.
Oh and loads of left over materials. I don't throw much away, 'it'll come in useful for something' gets uttered a little too often perhaps, but it'll get used now!
Where I lived on the outskirts of Leeds and Bradford was a decent enough village, but it had become nothing but a huge housing estate over the years. There was no industry anymore, no units to rent for a workshop and my house was now overlooked by a housing estate. Pubs and shops closed, even the greenbelt was being built on. I needed to get away from that. I needed somewhere peaceful where I could do what I liked, when I liked. My OH would be happy with more house space and some garden. I sold off my assets, she pays the mortgage.
In Spring 2020 I found this place nestled in the Pennines, the problem was it was just as the Covid 19 outbreak had started to get into its stride and we were in lockdown. I was still driving to work and really couldn't see any issues at all with me driving to the farmhouse and having a look from the road at it and the general area so off I went.
As I neared where it was I pulled over and surveyed the scenery. It was a beautiful warm sunny Spring day, I almost shed a tear it was so fantastic, looking across the wild moors and reservoirs, the occasional bird call here and there.
I then realised I couldn't look at the place without being intrusive as it was down a small dead end track.
I drove down to the gate, parked up outside, walked across and knocked on the door, the owner opened it and I explained myself whilst keeping a safe (Covid 19 rule) distance. He welcomed me and we sat outside (at distance!) and discussed the place. Driving away I knew we had to have it, it ticked so many boxes for us!
Then began 14 months of pain trying to buy it.
It has 17 acres and is classed as a smallholding, we had problems getting finance even though we were borrowing just a fraction of what was needed. I won't bore you with all that (I already did that in the 'Anyone moving now? thread!), but we were let down badly by an incompetent mortgage broker and two banks. If you find yourself in this rare situation let me know and i'll explain more. We were led right up to the point of doing it then dropped like a stone twice, it was a very stressful time.
We could not plan anything. Hospital ops, annual leave, closing down the business, doing jobs for customers. Everything was in limbo for a over a year whilst we got dicked around by professionals who should have known better.
In the end we ended up with a specialist mortgage advisor and a very small bank called 'Vernons' They're the people you need for this kind of job. I also sold my road car to help and now just use a van. I realised an MX5 wasn't going to get used for a while and the prices were so buoyant I got what I paid for it 3yrs ago.
As you'll see the views are quite pleasant:
Weird panoramic:
Next we'll talk about the house
The first bit is a brief preface, sorry if it's slightly dull, but it sets the scene and explains a few things which you may wonder about later.
I started off my career in the late 80s as an apprentice trained joiner. Over the many years I did just about every job within that which was related to wood (it has a lot of subsections) and a few others too. I ran my own small business doing it and other associated building jobs, but became a bit disenchanted with the whole thing. I was fed up with working away, but the money was good and the jobs often interesting. On the flipside working locally wasn't stretching my talents either. When the big recession hit the work dried up so I packed up and followed my other passion - cars, in particular engine building. I designed and made specialised parts, or had them made by people with better machinery than I and built many a good high performance engine, all of which which regularly got sent around the World.
This means I've amassed a large amount of practical knowledge.
And tools.
Oh and loads of left over materials. I don't throw much away, 'it'll come in useful for something' gets uttered a little too often perhaps, but it'll get used now!
Where I lived on the outskirts of Leeds and Bradford was a decent enough village, but it had become nothing but a huge housing estate over the years. There was no industry anymore, no units to rent for a workshop and my house was now overlooked by a housing estate. Pubs and shops closed, even the greenbelt was being built on. I needed to get away from that. I needed somewhere peaceful where I could do what I liked, when I liked. My OH would be happy with more house space and some garden. I sold off my assets, she pays the mortgage.
In Spring 2020 I found this place nestled in the Pennines, the problem was it was just as the Covid 19 outbreak had started to get into its stride and we were in lockdown. I was still driving to work and really couldn't see any issues at all with me driving to the farmhouse and having a look from the road at it and the general area so off I went.
As I neared where it was I pulled over and surveyed the scenery. It was a beautiful warm sunny Spring day, I almost shed a tear it was so fantastic, looking across the wild moors and reservoirs, the occasional bird call here and there.
I then realised I couldn't look at the place without being intrusive as it was down a small dead end track.
I drove down to the gate, parked up outside, walked across and knocked on the door, the owner opened it and I explained myself whilst keeping a safe (Covid 19 rule) distance. He welcomed me and we sat outside (at distance!) and discussed the place. Driving away I knew we had to have it, it ticked so many boxes for us!
Then began 14 months of pain trying to buy it.
It has 17 acres and is classed as a smallholding, we had problems getting finance even though we were borrowing just a fraction of what was needed. I won't bore you with all that (I already did that in the 'Anyone moving now? thread!), but we were let down badly by an incompetent mortgage broker and two banks. If you find yourself in this rare situation let me know and i'll explain more. We were led right up to the point of doing it then dropped like a stone twice, it was a very stressful time.
We could not plan anything. Hospital ops, annual leave, closing down the business, doing jobs for customers. Everything was in limbo for a over a year whilst we got dicked around by professionals who should have known better.
In the end we ended up with a specialist mortgage advisor and a very small bank called 'Vernons' They're the people you need for this kind of job. I also sold my road car to help and now just use a van. I realised an MX5 wasn't going to get used for a while and the prices were so buoyant I got what I paid for it 3yrs ago.
As you'll see the views are quite pleasant:
Weird panoramic:
Next we'll talk about the house
Edited by Evoluzione on Friday 26th November 08:58
Congratulations! I tried to buy your house! Didn't quite get there, and you beat me to it. I'm a couple of miles down the road. Fantastic views and location. What're your plans with the barn? Good luck with it all. If you need any advice, I've worked on most of the buildings within 5 miles as a builder and electrician and would be happy to help.
Edited by inabox on Saturday 21st August 22:56
Edited by inabox on Saturday 21st August 22:56
Edited by inabox on Sunday 22 August 12:41
This is taken from the very steep hill above us (which we own):
The house was very damp inside and had been for many years.
The walls are 50cms (half a metre) thick and solid, no cavity, rubble filled. It remains cool inside on hot days, even cooler on cold days!
Over the years previous owners had unsuccessfully battled with the damp issue. First the walls had been pointed in the wrong kind of pointing (cement and not lime) which had created the problem. What happens is the rain gets soaked up by the stone and makes it's way down, but is then trapped in by the cement pointing. It can't get out so sits in the wall and works it's way through into the house instead. To try and correct that someone then painted the whole house in a paste of cement and water, maybe some paint thrown in with it for good measure. This is known as 'Cement wash' and forms a hard brittle coating all over the house walls. I'm thinking that failed too, so then someone had painted over the top of that as well with masonry paint.
Several times
Oh I forgot to say the last owner had been trying to sell it for about 5yrs because his wife had left him, why she ever got with him in the first place I don't know as he was a total nobhead. Maybe he came into money and she spent it on horses.
3 colours, 3 materials:
The paint came loose and water ran behind it getting trapped against the wall, still coming inside the house..... Yes it was an utter mess and there was only one way to do it properly; strip the whole lot off and start again. The easiest, cheapest way is by blasting it with compressed air and a particular type of abrasive. I found a local blasting company and got a quote. You need some good gear to get cement wash off, it's rock hard and bonded on well to the millstone grit walls. Very high pressure and a specific grit were needed (not sand).
They quoted and I accepted. Then they didn't answer the phone or any texts for weeks apart from once when they said vaguely they were coming.
Then didn't turn up for weeks. I was getting fed up with living in a damp atmosphere, the OH had developed a hacking cough. Cat was ok
I started to look at different companies and methods, one suggested was the TORC method which uses special equipment that mixes blasting media with water and fires it on.
Another company wanted more than twice as much to blast it
Then at 8pm the first guys rang me and said they would be there in the morning. Typical bloody building trade.
In their defence it's a 3 man team, the old guy, his young son and another guy. What had happened was the owner had gone into hospital for a major op leaving the 18yr old to run the business. He was struggling so I didn't give them a hard time, i'll pass on some words of wisdom on how to run a business (communication) as we get on well and I'll tip them when they're done as they're proper grafters and it's a tough job.
Lots of blasting pics:
Just starting on the lower right here:
It grows:
|https://thumbsnap.com/WaKeufoN[/url]
And grows some more:
[url]
The noise is intense, you need earplugs/muffs anywhere near outside and the media bounces off all over the place. Anywhere near and it'll sting, up to 10 - 15 metres away and it'll just get in your hair. It's a hard job, but rewarding. These guys earn their money.
Their ladders wouldn't reach to the top of the chimbly, luckily my triples did
The mess it makes is beyond belief, blasting media everywhere outside, dust everywhere inside.
But hey, look at the results, it's like getting Timeteam in! They make a huge mess of the place, but uncover lots of history.
For some reason we have two electric supplies, one dead (top one) and one live (btm right):
No idea why the upper one has never been removed, must ask the supplier why and get it cut off.
If you look carefully you'll see where the rear extension was single story at one time (note the roofline halfway down) but was extended upwards later.
Here you can see a definite change in stone below the kitchen window:
The reason is the window cill has been raised so they could get the kitchen sink and unit in behind there.
Some of the reason for the immediate change in colour is the water content of the stone. The grey dust sticks to the damp stone, it doesn't stick to the dry stone. The other is the type of stone, it isn't Millstone grit, but however on washing it off:
It looks ok.
The blasting carried on until Friday eve. I have no idea how they could leave a patch like that, but they did! Nevermind, back to finish off next week. They get a board held against the window and the more experienced chap blasts the paint off. You hit a window with this and it's buggered, end of story.
Some more pics of the process, It's so good to see decades of this st and misunderstanding wiped clean off:
Just the start of the remedial work, next we have to hack off the pointing and re-do it with lime.
I've just washed that down with the hose and had a bit of a peck at the pointing in one area to the left of the window hence the different colours here and there.
More hacking off will be done over Autumn/Winter so the building can further be able to breathe again, come Spring we'll start re-pointing.
The reason for this is lime pointing is faddy & fussy which is what lead to it's downfall and being overtaken by OP cement in the building trade.
I wouldn't risk going into Winter up here with freshly done lime, it takes ages to dry and if it freezes whilst wet it'll be ruined. The walls are soaking wet even now because they've been wrapped in cement and paint for so long and will take a while to dry out.
The problem was when ordinary Portland cement came out it was used on these old walls which ruined them as they weren't designed for it.
Old walls were built with lime and should have been repaired with it too, modern walls are ok with OP, not old ones. It's lead to a lot of damage to old buildings and walls since its introduction as no-one under stood it.
Thankyou for your comments, I will address some of them later
The house was very damp inside and had been for many years.
The walls are 50cms (half a metre) thick and solid, no cavity, rubble filled. It remains cool inside on hot days, even cooler on cold days!
Over the years previous owners had unsuccessfully battled with the damp issue. First the walls had been pointed in the wrong kind of pointing (cement and not lime) which had created the problem. What happens is the rain gets soaked up by the stone and makes it's way down, but is then trapped in by the cement pointing. It can't get out so sits in the wall and works it's way through into the house instead. To try and correct that someone then painted the whole house in a paste of cement and water, maybe some paint thrown in with it for good measure. This is known as 'Cement wash' and forms a hard brittle coating all over the house walls. I'm thinking that failed too, so then someone had painted over the top of that as well with masonry paint.
Several times
Oh I forgot to say the last owner had been trying to sell it for about 5yrs because his wife had left him, why she ever got with him in the first place I don't know as he was a total nobhead. Maybe he came into money and she spent it on horses.
3 colours, 3 materials:
The paint came loose and water ran behind it getting trapped against the wall, still coming inside the house..... Yes it was an utter mess and there was only one way to do it properly; strip the whole lot off and start again. The easiest, cheapest way is by blasting it with compressed air and a particular type of abrasive. I found a local blasting company and got a quote. You need some good gear to get cement wash off, it's rock hard and bonded on well to the millstone grit walls. Very high pressure and a specific grit were needed (not sand).
They quoted and I accepted. Then they didn't answer the phone or any texts for weeks apart from once when they said vaguely they were coming.
Then didn't turn up for weeks. I was getting fed up with living in a damp atmosphere, the OH had developed a hacking cough. Cat was ok
I started to look at different companies and methods, one suggested was the TORC method which uses special equipment that mixes blasting media with water and fires it on.
Another company wanted more than twice as much to blast it
Then at 8pm the first guys rang me and said they would be there in the morning. Typical bloody building trade.
In their defence it's a 3 man team, the old guy, his young son and another guy. What had happened was the owner had gone into hospital for a major op leaving the 18yr old to run the business. He was struggling so I didn't give them a hard time, i'll pass on some words of wisdom on how to run a business (communication) as we get on well and I'll tip them when they're done as they're proper grafters and it's a tough job.
Lots of blasting pics:
Just starting on the lower right here:
It grows:
|https://thumbsnap.com/WaKeufoN[/url]And grows some more:
[url]The noise is intense, you need earplugs/muffs anywhere near outside and the media bounces off all over the place. Anywhere near and it'll sting, up to 10 - 15 metres away and it'll just get in your hair. It's a hard job, but rewarding. These guys earn their money.
Their ladders wouldn't reach to the top of the chimbly, luckily my triples did
The mess it makes is beyond belief, blasting media everywhere outside, dust everywhere inside.
But hey, look at the results, it's like getting Timeteam in! They make a huge mess of the place, but uncover lots of history.
For some reason we have two electric supplies, one dead (top one) and one live (btm right):
No idea why the upper one has never been removed, must ask the supplier why and get it cut off.
If you look carefully you'll see where the rear extension was single story at one time (note the roofline halfway down) but was extended upwards later.
Here you can see a definite change in stone below the kitchen window:
The reason is the window cill has been raised so they could get the kitchen sink and unit in behind there.
Some of the reason for the immediate change in colour is the water content of the stone. The grey dust sticks to the damp stone, it doesn't stick to the dry stone. The other is the type of stone, it isn't Millstone grit, but however on washing it off:
It looks ok.
The blasting carried on until Friday eve. I have no idea how they could leave a patch like that, but they did! Nevermind, back to finish off next week. They get a board held against the window and the more experienced chap blasts the paint off. You hit a window with this and it's buggered, end of story.
Some more pics of the process, It's so good to see decades of this s
t and misunderstanding wiped clean off:Just the start of the remedial work, next we have to hack off the pointing and re-do it with lime.
I've just washed that down with the hose and had a bit of a peck at the pointing in one area to the left of the window hence the different colours here and there.
More hacking off will be done over Autumn/Winter so the building can further be able to breathe again, come Spring we'll start re-pointing.
The reason for this is lime pointing is faddy & fussy which is what lead to it's downfall and being overtaken by OP cement in the building trade.
I wouldn't risk going into Winter up here with freshly done lime, it takes ages to dry and if it freezes whilst wet it'll be ruined. The walls are soaking wet even now because they've been wrapped in cement and paint for so long and will take a while to dry out.
The problem was when ordinary Portland cement came out it was used on these old walls which ruined them as they weren't designed for it.
Old walls were built with lime and should have been repaired with it too, modern walls are ok with OP, not old ones. It's lead to a lot of damage to old buildings and walls since its introduction as no-one under stood it.
Thankyou for your comments, I will address some of them later
Edited by Evoluzione on Sunday 22 August 04:21
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