Walls Come Tumbling Down

As predicted, last Friday the inner skin of the front wall of our lounge came out, to be replaced with a row of accro props. Actually I don't think the props are doing anything because it looks to me like the inner wall did not quite reach as far as the roof structure, which is completely supported on the outer wall.

There was a bit of a horror story under the floor. The floorboards were all in excellent condition, but the last joist, parallel to the wall was very wet. A combination of lack of sub-floor ventilation, ground level outside above the DPC, no gutters on this part of the roof, and no DPC under this particular joist where it rests on the foundations was just a recipe for disaster. This joist has been removed. It was in the way anyway as the new wall is moved inwards slightly to accommodate the thicker construction method of the new wall.

Fortunately the foundations are good so no problem building up the new wall. They wanted to get two courses of the concrete blocks in place by the end of Friday (one below and one above the DPC). This would allow them to set over the weekend, ready to build the rest of the wall with the lightweight blocks and the thin joining method. However they didn't get that far. One of the chaps said he would come and do it Saturday morning, but he didn't show up. This is the second time he has arranged weekend work, and the second no-show !

However, that doesn't seem to have deterred today's activity. The whole wall seems to have gone up in one go. Maybe the 2 rows of heavy blocks were done first thing, with the lighter stuff completed this afternoon. I guess the outer wall will be coming down tomorrow.

We now have the interesting setup of a window in the outer wall, and a gap for a window in the inner wall, but they don't line up !