Adventures in Cob
January 28, 2009
Chimney Gone - sorry it is dark
[/caption]Hoping all of the doggerelist’s friends, sparing partners and loved ones had a perfect start to their new year. For myself it was a quiet reflective affair but even the ‘bad’ alone moments had and have their place.
The chimney stack full of wet
I’m a naturally curious and impetuous person regarding certain things. It started way back when I wondered what would happen if I stuck a fork in the electrical socket. I was saved from myself on that particular occasion but the trend was set. However, I don’t want to bore you totally ridgid so I’ll hurry the tale up a bit and just skip to how this chimney stack came to disappear after decades reign of damp.
Discovery
In the post shock – early panicked time after Steve died, I tried to tidy up nearly five years of chaos in the house (which I’ve barely made a dent in by the way). I found plenty of evidence of earlier and successive attempts at papering over the cracks.
Of course, we knew that the house decor had long since fallen from grace. However, a dinnerplate sized active wet patch above a filing cabinet in my least favourite room sent me into a real panic. There was no point in not taking down the five or so layers of heavy wallpaper to see what the wall behind was doing.
Flashback – a few weeks earlier
Just to give some background to this tale – a few weeks earlier a lovely colleague at work (Conservation Officer) and her friends who are cob building specialists came to Hedgelands and spent two hours roaming the house and piecing together a timeline for the building, pointing out the different phases, noting any remedial structural work required and how urgent it was and generally sharing their expertise of caring for these old buildings. I was very reassured and the list of urgent ‘do soon’ jobs was fairly small and affordable. Guttering was top of the list.
Not only did I receive reassurance but a few tips on how to tell if a cob wall is a bit dodgy. If you strip back the paper and give the wall a shove it moves. This tells you the render either has separated from the cob wall or that there might be no cob left behind the render.
Back to the least favourite room
I duly stripped back some paper and exposed the wall surface and shoved and it gave. Deep breath – *!@#!!! So I excavated a hole to see if there was a wall left behind the render. Phew, there is the cob but it feels a bit damp. I went outside and saw the chimney directly behind the damp patch and it looked a likely culprit. A strangled call to the builder to come and quote for remedial works.
This was all before the Christmas and the wait wasn’t too bad. I like having the little I have in the bank so I can feel well off for a short period at least.
The beginning of . . . a small restoration
First stage – removal of chimney which has now been completed.
Of course I was warned that working with cob that has been entombed in hard cement renders can be a bit surprising. Worst case scenario is the cob is not there having washed away over the decades leaving the hard render behind to collapse spectacularly without warning.
Less bad but not great are evidence of cracks and smaller holes. Cracks happen when timber lintels rot away and the cob settles or when modern materials are used in the conversion from thatch roof and small windows to (in this case Cement) roof and bigger windows.
This particular chimney had been reduced in height and backfilled with the rubble and then capped with no air vent. Either through condensation or incursion the chimney was wet inside. Why the previous occupants didn’t just remove the chimney and re-render I’ll never know but I have a few choice words to share with them!
A building engineers pass the little place basically sound with a prescription of renewed guttering and chimney stack to be removed. So although I was slightly alarmed at the evidence of a crack it looked like an old one and it hadn’t significantly damaged the integrity of the wall.
Next stage – drying out (the cob, silly!)
The cob will be exposed for a few months to give it time to dry out a bit. Then the render will be replaced with lime products. The interior will have to be gutted and fixed but it might have to wait until I sort some other structurally important things like the former front door now a window which was (surprise surprise) bodged.
Oh and I’m signed up for a course in lime rendering in March so I will have a much better understanding of what working with cob is like.
Too much for one person . . .
I’m aware that 5 and a half acres of ground including a cultivated garden gone wild and an old property in need of total rennovation is a lot for one poorly paid person to handle. My decisions about any works to be done on the house and in the garden (euphemism for money to be spent) need to make sense if I stay or if I decide to sell. For the time being I am happy to stay and current economic turmoil certainly would make a desire to sell up a terrible and near impossible one to fulfill.
The story of the blue tit under the floor boards
I’m sure that Steve told this one much better than I am about to but here goes.
The setting is the master bedroom – it certainly is bigger than the average sleeping chamber but very simple. There are pine (newish) boards for flooring which are stained a dark oak colour. The walls are papered (sadly) and an old dark rose colour (don’t ask I was obviously in a romantic phase at the time).
The other important detail is Steve had phenomenally acute hearing. I’m deaf as a post.
Steve and the cats were aware that something was scratching under the floorboards. This sort of thing is a worry as rodents spring to mind. Mice are not so bad but rats are definitely not something you want under your floorboards. Anyway this noise carried on for a few nights and at dawn I decided to get up and shine a torch through the cracks as I had heard something near the window.
I wasn’t really expecting to see anything much but as I gazed down a little black eye gazed back and it was surrounded by yellow and blue which forced ‘its a blue tit’ from my lips. Steve just gave me a look that said ‘daft woman!’ and I said ‘I’m telling you it is a blue tit!’
So the decision to lift a floor board and set this little thing free was made and done. We closed the bedroom door to keep the cats out as we quite like blue tits and wanted to spare the little creature being played with to death and also spare a cat or two the embarassment of taking a leap out of the open window.
We eased the board up and out flew a blue tit straight for the open window. I gave Steve a look that said ‘what did I tell you?!’. He gave me a look back ‘Bloody hell she was right!’.
Of course we couldn’t figure out how a blue tit got under the floorboards. No structures directly abut floor level. My guess is there is a small opening somewhere and a mini tunnel in the cob that leads there. If I stay here long enough to rennovate the bedroom I might be able to prove that theory.
Pics – not exactly pretty but I feel that the house has been liberated even though I’m at the start of some not terribly exciting repairs. But who knows perhaps another cob dweller can gain an understanding and some comfort from these rather dull pics.
As always, comments are welcome (but not compulsory) as are verse and conversation about other things.
Michele
