David Linnard - Disaster Mansion

29/08/202306/09/2023

Improving front doorway

The ground floor door isn’t original, it’s pretty beat up and doesn’t align vertically with the arched door above it. When it was installed they removed 6″ – 12″ of the masonry wall to fit it in and as our new door won’t have such large side windows we needed to rebuild the wall.

You can see from the picture below that the right side of the lower door aligns with the above door, but the left side doesn’t, hence why we are fixing this. New door will be 3″ wider.

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First step was to drill the existing wall and epoxy in a bunch of fiber glass rebar to help tie in the new section. This was followed by attaching a piece 2×12″ of pressure treated wood which will form part of the new frame. Into the 2×12″ I screwed in large anchor screws so when the mortar sets the 2×12″ will be fully secured.

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This weekend Aimee was in NYC so I started mixing the lime mortar on Saturday morning. I was on my third mix when I noticed smoke coming from the electric motor on the mixer. I switched it off immediately and basically had to stop work. In the evening I started looking for a new mixer, the box stores sold the mixer I was after but it would take a week or so to get delivered and I wanted the mixer tomorrow, so my search turned to second hand mixers on Marketplace and Craigslist.

There was nothing decent locally so I extended my search, the same mixer that failed (Harbor Freight) turned up in Albany for $150 so that was a contender, then I thought, well Aimee is in NYC and she has the Beast so my search turned south and bingo, a Kushlan mixer had just turned up in Staten Island for $50. I jumped on it and contacted Aimee and by Sunday afternoon we had a great mixer and what a great deal that was, thank you Ilya. This mixer has a slightly higher HP motor and is so quiet compared to the Harbor Freight mixer that Joe has been kindly lending to us.

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I intend to fix the mixer that Joe lent us and a knowegable friend, Oli, suggested that it could have been the starter capacitor that had burnt out and and not the motor so today I ordered a new capacitor and hopefully that will fix the issue, if not it will require a new motor. We never mixed large batches and I think the biggest load we were making was less that a half a bucket full, however we were mixing for a long time. With Portland cement you can probably mix up a batch in a few minutes but lime mortar requires that you mix it for at least 15 minutes, so components probably got hotter.

As we added the shuttering we packed in as much stone as we could to help save on mortar and provide some strength.

There are some expected blemishes but those will all be cleaned up when we add a plaster coat to the walls and then it will be seamless.

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I was expecting to get more done this last weekend, especially as it was a 3 day weekend, alas as usual we didn’t get as much done as expected. I did however remove the left hand panel and pretty much ground back the wall to where it needed to be. Grinding the mortar away is easy, but stone is hard, plus it’s terribly dusting with sand and grit flying everywhere.

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The left hand side is now boarded up and this week I’ll be installing another 2×12 to match the left, with mortar etc.

07/08/202307/08/2023

Bedroom floor coating

We’re really not sure what we will do with our floors, possibly wood, tile, linoleum, but what ever we chose the priority is low, so in the meantime we thought we would seal the floors to give them a bit of protection.

Initially I wanted to do a two part epoxy over the whole of the bottom floor, but in the end I decided it wasn’t necessary in rooms that would have flooring added, plus my previous experience with two part epoxy was a bit of a disaster.

I prepped the floor by going over it with a hand held random orbit sander with a diamond pad, followed by a thorough vacuuming. Base coat was “Rust-Oleum 1-part Battleship Gray Satin, Concrete and Garage Floor Paint” followed a day later by a coat of “Rust-Oleum Satin Textured Clear Topcoat“. The topcoat had anti-slip additive so there is a bit of grip so people don’t slip if it gets wet. We’re eventually get around to painting the rest of the floors like this.

31/07/202302/08/2023

Sill Joist Finally Finished

It’s taken a while but now it’s done and it’s even had two licks of paint. Overall pretty pleased with the result especially considering the state of it before. I also epoxied and screwed some pressure treated 2×10’s to the back of the beams which will help spread the weight over the wall.

As a reminder this is what it looked like after I had removed any crumbling mortar and rotten wood (note the lack of wooden sill joist which had completely rotted away, leaving corner of house hanging for about 10′),

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and after I had repaired the wall and ground the top flat.

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My first attempt to replace the beam used pressure treated, didn’t like it so that got replaced by old growth timbers from the house.

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I didn’t dimension the old growth timber so there were minor gaps etc. but those got filled in with an epoxy paste towards the end.

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Here you can see the beams reinforced with 2×10 pressure treated. The original beams were placed on the very edge of the wall and some are even over hanging so it was good to spread the weight inwards.

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Finally the completed rim joist, with all cracks and gaps filled with West Systems Epoxy and then two coats of exterior paint. Eventually this will all be covered with the sidings. The wall will be parged again as the beam is still over hanging in parts, plus I spilt a fair amount of epoxy on it. Good for another century.

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Next project is to replace the rotten floor joists and I’ve already started to cut the joints as can be seen in the following image. I’ll epoxy and bolt everything and possibly that would be enough, but will probably sister in a 10×2 or a LVL beam just to be sure. Tricky cutting these as they are awkward to get at, one down and two to go. Using a sawzall to rough cut and then a trim router with template. Finishing off with a combination of Tenon saw, Japanese saw and hand plane, basically trying everything until I find what works best.

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30/07/202330/07/2023

A Virtuoso Performance…

Whatever …

From the Hudson Valley One

Kingston’s Wilbur and Ponckhockie neighborhoods rise out of obscurity

Kingston’s Wilbur and Ponckhockie neighborhoods have long been overlooked. Insufficient attention has been paid to how improvement and investment could enhance the architectural richness and historic heritage of these Rondout Creek communities.

No more. The City of Kingston has just released a draft architectural and archaeological sensitivity report that surveys each neighborhood’s buildings to determine their suitability for designation in historic districts or as individual landmarks.

The report’s public release in late June marked a first step in getting segments of the two neighborhoods or individual buildings on the National and New York State Registers of Historic Places. Residents have had an opportunity to learn about the initiative this month.

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The survey of 246 properties in the Ponckhockie neighborhood revealed an abundance of valuable historic structures, for possible individual listing on the National Register or as contributing properties within a potential historic district. Ponckhockie has a potential historic district of 184 contributing properties, built from circa 1856 to circa 1940. Twenty-one of the 184 may be eligible for individual listing on the National Register. The neighborhood has a high concentration of notable examples of Italianate buildings and early vernacular interpretations of the Federal style, plus a lesser number of examples of Queen Anne, Gothic Revival, and Second Empire styles.

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Potential candidates for a historic district include 1 Ponckhockie Street (c. 1870), which the survey calls “the finest and largest brick example of an Italianate house” in Ponckhockie; 9 Grove Street (c. 1880), one of the few high-style Queen Anne houses in the neighborhood and one of two executed in brick; and 54 Gill Street (c. 1869), the former home of David Gill Sr., for whom the street is named and possibly the largest wooden Italianate house in Ponckhockie. Rhoads wrote in his Kingston architectural guide that the owner of 54 Gill accomplished “a virtuoso performance with Italianate paired brackets supporting the projecting eaves ….” Its rehabilitation is being documented online at the Disaster Mansion website.

Not sure what this will mean to us and big shame that we missed the public meeting. Hopefully they will have recorded it.

Personally I think the only reason that Kingston politicians are interested in Wilbur and Ponckhockie is pure financial. These areas have been around for centuries and it seems a coincidence that now Kingston is deemed desirable that these areas are gaining interest.

If any historical branch starts telling us what to do they can shove it up their a#@s. We’re doing the best we can do to restore this grand old house and we need help not barriers or regulation.

04/07/202304/07/2023

Mistakes were Made

We decided a while back that utility room floor would remain un-tiled but we’d add a coat of epoxy for protection and to make it easier to clean. This weekend we thought we’d tackle this project so Saturday was spent prepping, I went over the whole floor with a random orbital sander with a diamond pad to scuff up the surface and to remove any dirt, then swept and vacuumed a few times.

Sunday was the application of the epoxy and it didn’t go as well as I had wished. I’m hoping it’s not a disaster, but we’ll see. Main issue is that the epoxy still hadn’t cured after 24 hours and was sticky in parts. 48 hours later it did seem a little less sticky. This epoxy should have cured in about 6 hours.

So what went wrong, well lots of things really and in order of most severe to least:

I usually weigh my resin and hardener on a gram scale^† to get the correct ratio, but this time I used the dispensing pumps which should supply the resin in the correct ratio. I’m using West Systems which has a resin to hardener ration of 5:1. One press of each pumps should deliver that ratio and to be fair the instructions do tell you to check this which I didn’t.
Didn’t tighten the screw caps on the pumps and one of them came apart, fixable but I had to guess how much resin was dispensed whilst trying to fix it.
I should have mixed the resins in larger batches, using a drill/paddle mixer. This would have helped in the color matching as I was tinting each batch.
I probably should have used some sort of primer as the porous concrete produced loads of bubbles.
I should have mixed downstairs so I didn’t have to carry everything down the ladder.
I didn’t calculate the the correct amount of resin for the job so I had to leave it incomplete. I did manage at least to cover the whole floor but half of this was a very thin coat and you can see the concrete through it.

So what’s next? I’m hoping the epoxy will cure in time and if not the un-cured portions will have to be removed. If it does cure then I’ll go over it again with my diamond pad and knock down all the air bubbles and the re-coat and this time I will mix the whole gallon of resin in one go.

† I did have my scales at hand but they only go up to 500g and I was mixing more than that until the end when the resin was running low and then I used the scales, so at least some of it cured correctly.

24/06/202326/06/2023

Be careful around all tools

This is the damage a bog standard cordless drill can do. I was drilling in an awkward spot and my glove must have touched the drill bit, got caught in it and ripped the finger clean off. I didn’t react fast enough so it was probably a second before I had the sense to take my finger off the trigger. Finger a little bruised but fine the next day.

Out of all of our power tools I wasn’t expecting this. I’ll be more careful next time.

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23/06/202328/07/2023

Getting sick of people taking liberties with our poor property

Turned up on last Friday to find this mess on our side lawn. Viburnums took a big hit as well as some of our other plants. The chimney had been leaning badly for some time so it wasn’t surprising. For the roofers it was a bit of a shock and I’m glad no one was hurt.

So what I’m upset about, ignoring the chimney, is the fact that they thought they could treat our unoccupied house like shit. If we had been living there, they would have asked our permission, put tarps down over our plants, shrubs etc. – I’ve seen them do it at our neighbours house. They did do a half decent job cleaning up but it will take another 30 minutes from one of us to pick up all the smaller bits they missed.

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To add insult to injury our good neighbour Mama Dot said they were clearing out the house contents (house is owned by the bank and has been empty for many years so we now that the bank maybe getting ready to sell it) by throwing the contents out onto our lovely lawn. They did clean up but that’s taking liberties.

Made me want to watch the film, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore which I highly recommend. One of Aimee’s friends plays the villain.

30/05/202330/05/2023

Once more unto the hedge, dear ladybirds, once more

So our woven Rose of Sharon hedge has an infestation of black aphids. We have been spraying the hedge with a mixture of neem oil, soapy liquid and water but we’re not quite sure how effective it’s been.

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The sap eating aphids target the new shoots, probably because they are the easiest to pierce so to help combat them we brought a few hundred ladybirds beetles (ladbugs in the US). They arrived today and we scattered them throughout our hedge. Hopefully they will like their new home and devour the aphids.

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Came back the following day and all but three had buggered off to pastures new, not sure why they didn’t like our shrubs and aphids but we did seem some ladybird larvae (last photo), and they eat aphids so maybe all will be well.

23/05/202323/05/2023

Still replacing the sill plate

This project is taking me much longer than I had anticipated. Reason for this is that none of the angles of the wall are square so everything needs to be measured and cut multiple times, including various shims and some additions where I measured once, cut twice. The new beam consists of six individual pieces of timber (not including shims and bodges) which I plan to epoxy and screwed together and I feel it’s almost ready to install.

Today, Saturday, I finished all the final fitting of the beams and as the wall wasn’t flat on top I added a layer of lime mortar for the beams to bed into. It was a long day, started at 9am and finishing at 8pm.

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Today, Sunday, I got up, looked at it and said no, this is all a bit crap. Didn’t really like the pressure treated, plus is wasn’t as wide as the existing beams (maybe 1/4″ to 3/8″ narrower), all the joints had shims as the angles were funky and it generally didn’t look that great. So I ripped it all out and sat down with a sketch pad and looked at the problem which was that the bottom of the two beams I was trying to reconnect had a vertical deviation of about 1.5″.

The easiest solution was to start with a level playing field so today I spent most of the day grinding down the top of the wall so it’s flat. I think I got it to with +/- 3mm which is good enough. The lime mortar is easy to remove but the rocks took some time. A big thank you to Oscar Soliz for inventing the laser level.

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With the wall flat I don’t have to deal with any weird angles and I can use some of the spare old wood from the house which are “real” 2×4’s so they match the existing beams. The first layer will get set in a bed of construction adhesive, adjusted so it’s level and then bolted down onto the wall. After that it will be like building a log cabin. It feels appropriate to use spare wood from the house for this task and I’m glad we saved it.

Sure the wood has some cracks etc. but it’s still in great shape. The clamps you see in the picture are to glue some splintered corners. The nails are only on one side and they were made when the lath and plaster were applied.

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25/04/202326/04/2023

Old Growth Lumber

Whilst Aimee was building the rock wall I was working on replacing the rotten sill beam. I was reshaping the end of the old beam to except the new beam when I removed a small section and noticed the incredible grain of the old wood. I had know our house would have been made from old growth lumber but I never really appreciated it until I saw this piece of wood.

In the following pictures we have the old wood I removed and a new 2×6 for you to compare the grain. For the last three pictures I increased the contrast so you can see the grain better and what a difference between old and new.

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Old growth wood came from a forest that had never been harvested before. In these “virgin” forests the trees aged gradually due to partial sunlight and competition from surrounding trees. The gradual growth rate leads to the formation of tightly crammed growth rings which are highly beneficial, increasing strength, stability and rot resistance.

Stability isn’t the only advantage. This slow growth also yields more heartwood. Heart wood is the longest lasting part of the tree, whereas sap wood will rot very quickly. You can see in the diagram below that the slow growth lumber is mostly heart wood, where as modern lumber is all sap wood.

Old growth versus new growth wood. Credit Hull Works architectural millwork, residential construction & historic restoration

In the picture below, the wood from 1918 is all heart wood, the wood from 2018 is all sap wood.

So what happened to old growth lumber? Well I’m not an expert so it’s easier to quote.

In America, we began seriously depleting these virgin forests during the industrial revolution, and by the 1940s, most of them were gone. Lumber prices began to spike as Americans looked for substitutions for our lumber addiction. Enter second-growth and new-growth wood.

Tree farms began to produce lumber for the growing demand and the fastest growing species like Pine were selected for this reason. The trees grew in open areas with little to no competition for sun, which caused them to grow very quickly so they could be harvested in 10-20 years as opposed to old-growth wood, which may be from trees as old as 200-300 years old before being harvested.

Credit: https://thecraftsmanblog.com

Old growth forests still exist but they are usually in protected state parks. The best source for old growth lumber nowadays is reclaimed wood from old houses, barns etc.

I’m tempted to try and find some reclaimed old growth wood to use to fix our sill beams and ditch the pressure treated pine I was planning to use. I’ll ask about and maybe someone local has some.

If you’re interested, this is a good video explaining old growth lumber in greater detail.