We had decided on a design that would put a 4 meter wide dorma in the back extending from the ridgeline of the original roof out to the rear of the property.
In order to achieve this we had to take down the rear single story roof and back wall, dig down to establish a concrete floor with homemade UFH and re-establish a back wall that would be block faced with original stone half a meter thick.
But first the removal; of the old roof using the time tested method of “try it and see”
We hired a large skip (expensive but no other option) for the un-usable debris from the roof because the slate had had it and a lot of the small timber was beyond salvage.
There is a method at work here which involves a long shafted flat bladed spade and because we knew the slates were knackered it didn't matter how we got them off.
We saved all the old wood (mainly chestnut, oak and some old yellow pitched pine) that looked like it could be cleaned up and reused somewhere later.
Once we started taking the back wall down we were careful to segregate the stones onto corners, reveals and faced and “the rest”. We also saved every shovel full of dry mud and torchis (cobb) that came out and sieved this and kept this separate to go back in when rendering and pointing was to be done.
Here is our Initial neat and tidy pile of stone and salvaged wood it would grow and shrink and be moved then moved back and grow again in the next few years with al the wood being stored inside once we had an inside to store it in.
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Once the site was cleared it was fairly simple to dig down to the required level by using a laser level (shown in Photo on blocks and sand to get the right levels) and a tape marked stick.
If the laser shone below the tape it was too shallow and above too deep.
I took the height measurement from floor on the other side of the small doorway.
I did a lot of the digger driving and loading and Mrs B did the dumper driving assisted, as you can see by Minnie the dog.
The stones and dirt that came out of the floor we took down to the local farmer who was happy for us to tip as back fill on the site of new silage yard and was very happy to see Mrs B and the dog navigating in and out of the farmyard on the dumper.
The final leveling I left to a mate of mine Kev who is a superb digger driver.
Once the floor was roughly level and the footings about deep enough we used the laser and then sprayed the levels on.
You can see in the following sequence of photos the floor down to the required level and then the finished level painted on the wall over the laser line.
The bit by the foundations is the height first of the concrete foundation and then the height of the block work to get it up to floor level.
He dug the footings for the back wall while he was down at the new floor level on the same side as the floor and then “danced” the digger out over the footings and up the bank.
We then rendered up the sides and corners of the "floor pit to cover any sharp stones in the wall from puncturing the membrane
So apart form one troublesome corner, which I will cover in the next post that was the floor near enough down to depth and ready for the next stage
To get to this level had taken 5 weeks of labour from Mrs B and myself and 1 and half days work Kev on the digger.
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