Renovating an old farmhouse and living on the Pennines

[JQ]

I've just found this thread and am loving it, keep the updates coming.

We're not brave enough to do something like this, but my mother-in-law renovated an isolated farmhouse in the Scottish Borders - 2 years living in a 20 year old static caravan whilst she got the building habitable. My wife and I had just started dating when she bought the house and on our first visit I was put on rock moving duties. Apparently I passed the test and pretty much every weekend visiting her 5 years thereafter resulted in 48 hours of hard labour for me.

[silentbrown]

Our old house had a stone slate roof. It was reroofed in the '80s by someone who'd never done one before, and had whittled each oak peg by hand. (You can now buy them off the shelf, I think)

When a peg inevitably failed you'd hear the slate skittering down the roof followed by the inevitable crash. Luckily nobody ever got hit by one, as the lower courses were absolutely mahoosive.

http://www.stoneroof.org.uk/historic/Historic_Roof...

[Evoluzione]

Thankyou for your comments, they are well received as ever.

BTTN, to be pedantic you aren't on the other side of the Pennines, you're further up, at the neck 'Tis the spine of England.
Your current situation sounds a little stressful, but look upon it in a positive light. You're certainly getting about which must be quite interesting and educational too. Being a Yorkshireman i'd love to hear about living in Swaledale.
I suppose there are are different reasons for not being good at something, maybe just not cut out for it or not genuinely interested, not getting the right training is another. I've already seen a dry stone walling course we'll do in the future, but we've also done candle making (as a birthday present for the OH as she likes crafty stuff) and an intro to stone carving. The cat already has her headstone finished
I'd never heard of a bank barn until now, so am better educated, I'm not sure what we'll do with ours yet.

Poor FIL gets plenty of work put his way when they visit, he likes to keep active though and so do I, if we didn't do it we'd seize up.

SB thanks for that stone link, there is a huge amount of useful info on there including a Yorkshireman going through how to put a stone slate roof on, right through to pointing up the rghidge with his trghowel.
The frost stone splitting stuff is great too, very interesting.

[Backtothenorth]

EV, Swaledale was amazing. We stayed in the village of Grinton ( a mile from Reath) during July and August.
Fantastic, picturesque village, really friendly people, great walks and remarkably quiet given what most tourist areas seem to have been like this summer !

I'll put some photos of our new farmhouse up on here although I may wait until we complete as I don't want to tempt fate !
The survey was pretty good generally. I think that in the first instance I need to address the sewage/ heating/ hot water features.
There is an old septic tank that does not comply with the new 2020 rules. I am thinking about ripping it out and replacing with a new Tricel treatment plant but I haven't done enough research yet.
The heating/hot water comes from a fairly ancient LPG system. I know very little about these other than they are clearly not going to be a long term solution for me. I am thinking about replacing with a Biomass system but again I need to do my research.

EV, sorry to derail your thread, it is a fascinating one.

[Mark Benson]

Backtothenorth said:

EV, Swaledale was amazing. We stayed in the village of Grinton ( a mile from Reath) during July and August.
Fantastic, picturesque village, really friendly people, great walks and remarkably quiet given what most tourist areas seem to have been like this summer !

Not far from me. Last time we were having Sunday Lunch at the Bridge Inn, a young lad ran into the dining room, jumped onto a table, dropped his trousers and 'helicoptered' his gentleman bits for us all to see.
When he'd been chucked out by the staff and the boss came to apologise, we heard the elderly woman on the next table say to her husband "I don't know what 'e were so proud about, 'e 'ad nowt much to get excited about".

[snowandrocks]

Backtothenorth said:

There is an old septic tank that does not comply with the new 2020 rules. I am thinking about ripping it out and replacing with a new Tricel treatment plant but I haven't done enough research yet.
EV, sorry to derail your thread, it is a fascinating one.

Not to derail the thread further but I would hesitate to replace a working septic tank if there's nothing wrong with it especially to replace it with something with moving parts and ongoing maintenance requirements.

Our ancient brick lined tank works perfectly with a largely unnecessary empty every few years. Does it discharge directly into a watercourse?

[guitarcarfanatic]

snowandrocks said:

Our ancient brick lined tank works perfectly with a largely unnecessary empty every few years. Does it discharge directly into a watercourse?

The 2020 rules didn't make direct discharge illegal, that's always been the case and the Environment Agency would always prosecute if they found that. The new legislation did put a leash on the EA though - if they find watercourse discharge, they will still push for action...but rather than a 14 day notice and then heavy fines, you now get around 6 months to sort it out.

Agreed on the old tanks to a proper soakaway being great though. My only recommendation would be cleaning out every few years to cut down on sludge. That's what kills soakaways - the effect will depend on porosity of soil though as in free draining land, a choked soakaway won't affect things much.

[Evoluzione]

Backtothenorth said:

EV, sorry to derail your thread, it is a fascinating one.

I really don't mind, crack on
Just imagine you're round a pub table, pint in hand.
Someone's willy in the other

I think i'll have to tackle our septic too one day, with a shovel

[guitarcarfanatic]

Evoluzione said:

I think i'll have to tackle our septic too one day, with a shovel

Just pull it out the ground with the Mountain Goat...I mean Nissan

[Backtothenorth]

Thanks for the responses re the Septic tank. Unfortunately we have been advised by the Surveyor that it does discharge to a water course. The current owner wants to take the cheap course of action by re-routing it into the neighbouring field (owned). I need to complete on the property first so that I am in charge.

[snowandrocks]

Backtothenorth said:

Thanks for the responses re the Septic tank. Unfortunately we have been advised by the Surveyor that it does discharge to a water course. The current owner wants to take the cheap course of action by re-routing it into the neighbouring field (owned). I need to complete on the property first so that I am in charge.

As long as the ground conditions are suitable then the cheap course of action is also probably the best one.

[tokyo_mb]

Just read the whole thread from beginning to end. Reminds me a lot of the 10 year journey we have been on with our farmhouse and land in Shropshire. We started with the house in a slightly better state - but had plenty of badly applied limewash and lime mortar to deal with.

Keep taking photos of the progress. When it gets to the point that progress feels like it is too slow, it’s great to be able to look back on where you started and see the great progress you have made. I did promise to do my own build thread once - but never quite got there. Appreciate the effort you are making keeping lots of strangers on the internet updated with your progress!

[Evoluzione]

tokyo_mb said:

Keep taking photos of the progress. When it gets to the point that progress feels like it is too slow, it’s great to be able to look back on where you started and see the great progress you have made. I did promise to do my own build thread once - but never quite got there. Appreciate the effort you are making keeping lots of strangers on the internet updated with your progress!

Thank you and I did just that - read my own thread from the start to remind me of how far we've come and the great comments and advice made by others.
I really don't mind people telling their tales either, it's all very welcome and good to read. You never know what your words might trigger for someone.

---

Having the stove on is putting some warmth into the fabric of the building, it feels less cold coming downstairs on a morning.

The combi boiler (unsurprisingly!) didn't work properly. When the heating was on it over pressurised and pushed water out of the safety valve. Pumping up the exp vessel didn't last long so I ordered a new one for about £40. Due to its location it was an easy job, all done in 20 mins, so going into Winter at least we have two sources of heat now.
And many, many tons of wood.















The old trailer has taken a real beating I had to weld it up a few weeks ago and replace two wheels, the old ones were like 50p pieces now after hitting the holes on the narrow moor roads. Once everything is moved over it'll be demoted to local duties only as it's not longer fit for purpose.




The only issue with the wood piles will be stopping the tarps from blowing off or tearing. I think I may go down to the nearest towns carpet outlet and ask to raid their skip, a big old wet carpet will stop the tarps from blowing. This is the main problem you see (anywhere), the incessant wind tugs and blows at loose coverings 24/7 until they tear or give up. If you can hold them down to stop any movement they'll last a lot longer - until I find time to build some proper log stores, but the IBC cages will do for a while.

Something is wrong with the latest hot composter, it got up to 34, but is now on the way back down and i'm really not sure why.
The differences between No.1 (at 65'c) and No.2 (at 34) are that the second one got air to the bottom, sides were insulated and the ambient temps are much lower.
I think i'll just have to stick to one use for my hoss muck for or a while and visit hot composting at a later date. I've got a book on it and they recommend wood mulch, that is bits of branches etc, torn and squashed, not so much wood chips. This aerates the stack which is covered in straw bales and they run for 6 - 12 months.

Someone in an Autogyro circles around the area now and again (probably looking for lost cats) which (in my ignorance) I thought was a home made helicopter and I could think of nothing more dangerous. However on pointing it out to the FIL he set me straight. It's some kind of cross between a plane and a 'copter, the propeller on top is turned by the wind. It sounds like black magic or a perpetual motion machine, Wiki article here if interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogyro


3 Paramotors came over quite close and one went really low:






Hmm, want one Have also pondered over a Paraglider, maybe one day. Wouldn't it be great to fly over to meet your old friends & family in 20 mins, I suspect you're a bit restricted where you can fly and land though. As part of our midlife crisis I once booked the OH in for a 'flying lesson' via one of those voucher sites. I absolutely recommend it, it was a great evening out.
If you hate your OH then you can send her up in a stunt plane.






Oops, this being PH they're inverted, I swear I didn't send her up in a stunt plane.

Here is your plane:
It does this:
Off we go:
Take the controls : (we're in a straight line now). This is York, where would you like to go? Well over our houses obvs! So he requested clearance from LBA which was surprisingly granted and off we went. I'd already primed my parents and they were waving in the garden. How cool is that for so little money?
It's all out there and doesn't cost much really, grab it and do it before you get too old.

Edited by Evoluzione on Sunday 14th November 21:52

[Evoluzione]

Weather, wildlife and exploring an old farmhouse.

It got windy for a bit in October, we woke up one morning to chairs scattered around on the patio, bin lids lifted and it took hold of my old glassless greenhouse frame, turning it right over. The forecast said it had been just 1mph lower than force 10 classification.



More proper force 10 is forecast this Saturday with a possibility of snow.



Coal and blue tits, Wrens and a Robin have been hanging around near the house since it got colder, especially when we had frost so I put some food out on the bird table for them, dried mealworms on order for the robin. This wasn't taken by me, but more on him later:



I've also noticed a big gang of Fieldfares around. I've seen them flying around before, but had to wait until they were stationary and I could get the binoculars out to ID them.
I wondered where the brown owls were roosting now the leaves have been blown off most of the trees. Our closest neighbour has an evergreen (Laurel I think) tree so I looked in there. Saw nothing, but that doesn't mean anything as they hide really well despite their size. Sure enough when I tugged on a branch off they went. I mentioned it to the neighbour and he says the tree will stay, will have to look into providing more evergreen cover for more and other birds on our land in the future though regardless. It's handy to have the space to grow a leylandii or a giant Sequoia or two - if they'll cope with the wind that is. Winter is the time to plant trees so will have to get busy with that soon.

Mice have moved into the first floor void, I have no idea how they get up there. They're in the barn too and have been gnawing on various things stored. I set a trap, but the light fingered buggers took the food a few times and didn't trigger it. I oiled the mechanism and failed again. Finally I studied the trigger a bit more carefully and realised If I filed it a bit to take off a sharp corner it would activate more easily. It worked, two destructive mice caught so far. Will have to look into preventing them getting there in the first place, but given they're somehow getting in the house I don't think i'll stand much chance with an old barn.
Out of interest many old barns have openings left in the gables, these were not just for ventilation, but also for barn owls to get in and roost. Not only did they shelter in there, but also kept the rodent population down.

I found this old farmhouse nearby in a history book:



So set off for a look and managed to find the exact spot the photographer took the shot from. It wasn't too difficult, a bit of looking and comparing and I found an old footpath up the hillside which he must have come down, just to the side was a small flat area where he stood:



Sadly it's been uninhabited for over 150 years and has been pillaged for materials. The ground floor stone flags are gone as is the roof. Look closely at the amount of wear on the remaining top and bottom step, that's a lot of foot traffic even if they were clogs or hobnailed boots.
















It's also where the barn owl lives so can get some trailcam shots. If I was patient enough, had the right equipment and knew how to use it I could sit outside and get some shots of it heading out.
Trailcam shots it is then

[Evoluzione]

I could see that where the extension roof meets the house wall it had been the site of many a battle over the years, with limited success. Various bits of different pointing, sealants and even some plastic strip had been inserted at various places.
I'd hacked off a bit of the cement pointing above the right hand end which revealed some deep holes, unsurprisingly it then pissed in when it rained (sideways as it generally does). I got the filler foam gun out, pushed it in up to the hilt and filled the holes to a certain depth. The lime zealots would have been apoplectic.
When that had gone off I filled the rest with lime mortar.
I bought some pre-mixed for a bit of a play around and test to see how it looked and acted. I've settled on a Hydraulic (NHL3.5) with some colour to tone it down. 2 is soft, 5 is hard.
It's a balance between exposure and the hardness (porosity) of the mortar and stone. The house has spent a long time with OPC on it which has caused no external damage so it'll be ok.

It isn't a great time of the year to be pointing in lime, but the one selected sets quick and i've covered it over with a bit of carpet to protect it from wind (drying it out too quick), the rain from washing it out and frost damage. Damage from cold has to be considered carefully, if it fails it's not much of an issue to rake this small bit back, but if you were doing a whole house in Winter then tread carefully. Although the walls of a building don't get as cold as it does further away so it's a touch safer than doing a garden wall etc. The lime zealots always use hessian, that's because the old builders always used it and they've never questioned it since. I'm sure they used it because it was handy and cheap, a bit like an old piece of carpet or some old curtains....



I studied some pointing trowels on display at the lime merchants and reckoned I could save a few quid. Sure enough when I got home I dug out a 3 old mastic trowels and rounded the ends of two on the grinder. I don't think they'd get any further use as mastic trowels as those days are long gone.



These are the basics needed for pointing; pointing trowels (they have various other names), bucket trowel for mixing and churning brush for finishing it off. Out of pic is either a hosepipe or water sprayer and bucket, i've been using the bucket trowel to carry the mortar to the wall for this bit, but you can also use a hawk or even the back of a float. I've just gone over the fundamentals for this thread, shout up if you need more detail.



It was supposed to be grey, but looks a bit pinky to me. Will let it dry, but I think i'll be getting something a bit more biscuit coloured like it was originally. At £15 a bag for premixed it'll cost a fortune, so i'm going to find out where to get the correct type and colours locally and mix my own. I'll do some samples over Winter then buy in bulk next year when i'm ready to do more.

I found some kind of pulley wheel high up on the hill behind the house, I wonder if it was used to lower materials down when it was being built:



Would love to know what the fixings were holding on.

[Magooagain]

I would say that's some sort of wheel and it had wood fixed to it,as in cart wheel but smaller.
Or a mine cart maybe?

[deadtom]

brilliant updates as ever EV, thank you for sharing so much of your work.

How easy do you think it is for someone with zero experience but who is reasonably practical to teach themselves basic pointing with lime mortar on stone walls?

The exterior of our house is in need of repointing in places and it definitely feels like the sort of thing I should have a go at myself.

And it looks like the wheel you found is a drive / driven wheel of some kind rather than just a pulley; it looks like there is a keyway of sorts in the flange where it would have mounted on an axle. I don't think a road wheel would have had bolts like that all around the circumference, I think they would have had wood and a steel tyre around the outside held in place by tension rather than bolts.

Could be a flywheel or something from a mill or other industrial type place?

Possibly a treadle wheel?
|https://thumbsnap.com/Apgu7a9U[/url]

Edited by deadtom on Thursday 25th November 08:57

[Evoluzione]

deadtom said:

brilliant updates as ever EV, thank you for sharing so much of your work.

How easy do you think it is for someone with zero experience but who is reasonably practical to teach themselves basic pointing with lime mortar on stone walls?

The exterior of our house is in need of repointing in places and it definitely feels like the sort of thing I should have a go at myself.

We'll get back to the wheel later, but for now:
If you're the type who will sit and research the heck out of something then yes, it's very accessible to the DIYer. Visually it's much more forgiving than OPC pointing. One tip on what you've said though is if you can avoid patch pointing and do the whole lot then it'll look a lot better, because getting a perfect match is impossible.
If you do patch and accept it'll look like a patch then there are matching services available which will get it as close as possible, you can buy bags of different coloured pre-mix with what you think will do. Or like i'm going to, make a mix from locally sourced materials. Find out if you have a local supplier because ordering online is expensive, it's bulky and very heavy so a 25kg £15 bag picked up with be £30 shipped.
What lengths you go to are totally down to you of course, there was some chat about DIYing and a book earlier on in the thread.
Do your research, go to the usual places - get a book or two, go to FB and YT, get some pics and description posted up and we can talk about it here. There is even a free online seminar you can take part in with a Q&A at the end, it seems to pop up every month or two.
It's all out there for the taking, you just need the time and enthusiasm because the tools don't cost much. If starting from scratch to chip off and repoint you could get tooled up for somewhere around £50 - £100.

[C70R]

CrutyRammers said:

AJLintern said:

Evoluzione said:

AJLintern said:

Would recommend TP Link Powerline adaptors to send ethernet and wifi around the house through the electrical circuits. I even have it working through a 40m extension lead into my garage to boost the wifi signal in there

That sounds useful, what if the upper and lower circuits are separate though?

I'm not sure, ours is plugged in upstairs and my extention lead is plugged into a downstairs socket and works ok.

Powerline ones can be rather hit and miss IME. The more modern solution is a Mesh wifi network such as BT "whole home" wifi. You basically have a series of small wifi transmitters throughout the house to give coverage where you need it. I've used it to cover the house, garage and garden. Other suppliers are available

Agreed wholeheartedly with this.

After experimenting with Powerlines in a long, narrow London house, I didn't find them stable or reliable enough to work on.

Switching over to Mesh was absolutely night and day.

A paltry contribution to an excellent thread, obviously. I have huge envy for the OP and his project!

Edited by C70R on Thursday 25th November 10:28

[Evoluzione]

Last nights hard frost is certainly bringing the birds to the table, a woodpecker and what looks like a Finch with a red breast visited this morning amongst the other regulars. Had a little white flash on either wing and the red colour went from it's beak down to it's legs. Not a Bullfinch, Chaffinch perhaps?

We've put it in the best place for viewing, but worst place for taking pics. The sun is right behind it in the morning when they visit, will sort something out and maybe put the wildlife cam near it later.
Loads of brilliant (professional) pics to come later from our Falconry event a couple of weeks back.