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Here are some progress photos from the top of the house moving down…The main loft – lath and plater stripped down.  Laths have been separated and some will be used to support mineral wool under the ground suspended floor and some might be used for kindling if we put in a wood burning stove.In the loft was some patchy and damaged mineral wool that will be reused either insulation or sound insulation in party walls.

This roof can fit around 2.25kWp of solar PV facing pretty much south.


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The rooms below have been stripped back to the walls. The party wall was lath and plaster and in poor condition so couldn’t be saved.


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The top floor of the rear return dates from 1994 surprisingly.  This means that the roof is not too good and not too bad insulation wise.  Some damp patches required investigating so the ceiling has come down.  It turns out the damp was surface damp and so the actual roof needs no outside work.  Internally there is some PIR insulation but enough room to easily add at least 100mm more.The roof is also easily sturdy enough to take some solar thermal panels. 

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Moving down the stairs.  We’ve stripped back to the underside of the stairs. A small amount of old woodworm on a couple of the joists will be treated and probably supported by a few additional timbers.

We’ve probably taken out around 4,000 lath nails by now. 

 

 

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The first floor party wall appeared to be a solid supporting wall but after removing the thick plaster it appears that the support is in the timber and the bricks are essentially infill.

 

P1030589I’ve just started on the ground floor and have taken the front and flank walls back to the brick. The old Victorian plaster comes off quite easily.  The problems have been where its been replaced with…..concrete!Its worth going back to the brick for two reason i) a bit more space is saved which becomes important with the plan of to up 100mm of internal insulation and ii) the mechanical fixtures that hold the insulation in place don’t have to go that extra inch to find solid brick.

Taking down lath and plaster

And this is generally what I’ve been looking like for the last few weekends! Despite the effect of the dust my hair is not actually grey yet by the way – or at least not all over.This bank holiday weekend’s jobs include finishing off taking plaster down. Treating any problem wood, preserving the ends of the wood that touch the external walls and replacing nearby mortar with lime mortar (more on this later), adding noggings for new ceiling plasterboard, loosening floorboards……