November, 2022 - Disaster Mansion

27/11/202228/11/2022

Filling in the Trench

At last we’ve started to fill in our trench and start to regain the path around our house. It’s been a a long slog and I think we started on this project in 2020. On Thursday we almost run out of the gravel but fortunately I was able to order another 4 sq. yards on Friday morning which pretty much kept us busy the for the rest of the long weekend.

By Saturday evening I think all the shoveling and carrying had caught up with us and we were both beat. Big thanks to the Mayor of Ponckhockie, Barry, who helped us on Saturday. Sunday it started to rain around mid-day so I didn’t get a lot done, pretty much just trimmed the top edge of the dimple board and some cleanup inside. We will cap the tops of the dimple board with these dimple and sloped caps which help to seal the top of the dimple board. Thank you Andy for your kind gift of some free sloped caps, every little helps.

We’ve probably got about 1.5 cubic yards of gravel to shift, which may not sound much, until you realise that a cubic yard of gravel can weight between 2,300 and 3,000 lbs and we’ve already shifted 14.5 cubic yards.

21/11/202221/11/2022

Pushing a Car

I know that’s an odd title for a post but I’ll get to that.

So another Gravel Day, I can’t tell you how happy I am!!! Possible I’m coming down with something but today seemed a bit of a slog, it wasn’t I just felt like it. Probably close to freezing but the sun was out and within ten minutes I needed to ditch some clothing.

I’m bucketing the in gravel but I’m only filling the buckets to halfway and taking them one at a time. Our friend Derrick suggested that we should add any unwanted stone so I’m adding the stone rubble which we took off the top of the walls, this has helped a lot. I probably added about 6″ of gravel on Saturday and today was similar. We’re probably halfway done and have added enough to prevent any trench collapse, in fact I now want the trench to collapse to save us shoveling dirt back in. If it doesn’t rain or snow over the next few weekends we’ll probably finish the project this year, though I do think we may need to order some more gravel, joy to my ears!!!

It was a bit of a slog today also so I’m not coming down with anything, it’s just the nature of the beast.

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By the way we added the thick grips to the buckets to make carrying a lot less painful. The green one on the left cannot be transferred to a new bucket, however, the rubber one on the right can be. I highly recommend them.

So, pushing a car, how does that tie in? It’s something Aimee and I witnessed a few years back when we lived in Oakland. It was evening and we were sitting on the front patio of Beer Revolution (3rd and Broadway) when we saw a chap, maybe in his 50’s/60’s pushing his car through the intersection. I thought he’d just bring his car to rest as soon as he had cleared the junction, but no, he kept on pushing it. I kept on expecting him to pull over, but no he kept on going. Feeling sorry for the chap I caught up with him and asked whether he wanted a hand, “no” he said politely, he was fine. Being inquisitive I asked him where he was going and he said Berkeley. Berkeley!!! That was a couple of miles away and there was a slight incline on the way, nothing if you’re walking or cycling, but pushing a car, crazy!!!!

On returning to our beers I mentioned this to Aimee and we decided to leave and catch up with the chap who was heading in the direction of our loft. We caught up and after some persuasion he let us help him push his car. Turns out when we first saw him he had already pushed it a few miles, I think from East Oakland or Fruitvale. I can’t remember where his final destination was in Oakland but at the time the total distance seemed to be at least 5 miles.

So whenever I have a daunting task I think of this chap, who incidentally must have had the heart of an ox, and think can this be has hard as pushing that car.

Aimee has a bit of a bad back at the moment so she spent her time raking up the leaves on our lawn and it does look great clear of leaves.

Dedicated to Aimee’s Mum who passed away today. Bye, Bye Doris you will be missed, love you. 20th April, 1929 – 20th November, 2022.

15/11/202215/11/2022

Last of the Autumn Parging

Well what a pain in the ass job that was. It’s not quite finished, but we’ve finished enough for now and got it done just as temperatures are starting to dip below freezing. The walls, which were looking pretty rough, now look fairly respectable and should keep the old girl standing for another century.

The prep took the longest, which included chipping off all the old plaster and any loose stuff (that took weeks on and off), removing the layer of rubble on top of wall, vacuuming all the walls and spraying them down etc. It doesn’t sound a lot but it took a while.

By the way we spray the walls down before we parge so the dry stonework doesn’t suck too much water out of the mortar and cause it to dry too fast. Next week we’ll spray all the parged walls daily which will help the cure – lime needs moisture and CO² to cure.

Concerning the rubble at the top of the walls we think that was done later as the mortar was of a poor quality and pretty much crumbled in your hand. It was probably added as some sort of insulation but as it wasn’t structural we removed it all and will replace it with Rockwool. It was a bit tricky to get some of the stones out as they were tightly wedged and some of them weighted at least 70 lbs, not the easiest of things to get down when on the top of a step ladder.

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Removing the rubble also exposed the beams resting on top of the wall, some of which had a fair amount of rot in them so we’ll fix these up before covering them up again. All the stone can go into our foundation drain, saving the largest pieces for a possible future rock garden.

Next job will be cleaning everything up and putting away all the cables, air hoses and tarps as we’ve made quite a mess. Incidentally the way this project will hurt us if we’re not careful is via a trip hazard, pretty much every day one of us will catch our foot on a cable, air hose or the edge of a tarp etc., so far we’ve managed not to fall.

Fortunate that we finished the project this past weekend as yesterday, Monday, temperatures were getting as low as 23°F and we need to keep the lime above 40°F for a minimum of three days. I was a bit worried today as it started snowing but when I got to the house the inside temperature was still around 45°F, phew, our two little fan heaters are making a difference.

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Aimee was pretty pleased with how the parging went as she thought we had passed a point, with the walls all fixed up and covered, DM is starting to look like somewhere where you could actually live.

08/11/202208/11/2022

Tales from the crypt

Well the basement, have to spice these posts up a bit!

On Thursday we popped down to Hudson Valley House Parts to pick up some lime binder as we only had 1 & 1/2 bags left. Unfortunately they only had the pre-mixed in stock which is an expensive way to buy the product so we left empty handed, bit of a bugger as we really needed the lime so on Thursday evening we decided to get up on Friday at 5am and drive 3 hours to LimeWorks in Telford, Pennsylvania and pick up ten bags of NHL lime. Bit of a trek but it was really nice to visit the LimeWorks HQ and meet the highly knowledgeable staff. If you have an old house, it might be worth visiting LimeWorks, especially if you’re doing some of the work yourself as they as they have a great series of educational workshops.

We started early on Saturday, but as the base of the walls had deteriorated quite a bit they required a lot of the mortar and stone, hence progress was slow and after seven hours we had maybe done a half of what we had hoped. Also our local historic preservation expert Derrick popped around and though that we should remove all of the sound plaster as he thought that it was Portland cement. You can see the plaster in the second picture. I’ve started removing it but it’s tough stuff and will probably take 3 or 4 evenings to complete.

Also of note in the second picture is the blocked up coal chute high up on the wall. The mortar had just crumbed so had to be replaced, hence why it looks new.

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Sunday was a slower day for us but we did manage a good 4 hours or so and started to removing the plaster. This week we’ll hopefully prep all the remaining walls and be ready to finish the parging next weekend. Good timing as temperatures are starting to drop.

02/11/202202/11/2022

Parging Inside Walls

Currently racing against time to get a few more jobs finished before it gets too cold. Highest on the list is to repair and parge the interior walls. We can’t do this much below 40°F (5°C) and we’re already hitting those lows outside. Getting this finished means that we can start to frame out the inside over winter and then add insulation.

Lime based walls seem to shed off their outer layers over time, not exactly sure why, possibly as the walls leach out impurities, but this is normal. This happens over many decades and this is the first time our walls have been repaired in over 100 years so they’ve stood up pretty well. Over the last few months I think we’ve been over each of these walls about three times, first pass was to remove the old plaster and the other two were to remove loose stone and mortar and I think we’ve easily removed a few hundred pounds. After having two wall collapse it has made me nervous when I have to remove maybe 4″ of wall, but if the mortar is loose or hollow sounding it’s probably not adding much structurally. Once the framing goes up these walls probably won’t see the light of day for decades so the results don’t have to be perfect, just has to be sound. Ohhh anyone want to paint something cool on our walls before we cover them up?

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It took me about 6 hours on Saturday to do a final chipping of all the walls, vacuum all the dust off them, clean up the floor and frame the windows with foam so I get a good edge when I spray on the mortar, then on Sunday another 6 hours and I managed a disappointing 10 square feet or so. Aimee’s been out west so it takes a lot longer when you have to do everything yourself, plus the walls needed quite a bit of mortar, maybe 4″ to 5″ inches in some parts. You can see in the time lapse that I did add as many stones that I could squeeze in, which helps strengthen the wall and saves on mortar.

Aimee will be back soon so this weekend we’ll try and finish all the walls. So early start on Saturday and I’ll try and have an early night.