Building companies make a clear distinction between employees working with bricks and those working with timber - the Brickies and the Chippies. You could call them the B team and the C team but that's probably not a good idea if you want to get off site in one piece. On our site the demarcation is rather more fluid with all the guys mucking in with a bit of everything as required. But that doesn't mean they are Jacks of all Trades Masters of None. There's still specialization, with half the team spending most of their time working on facing and brickwork, and the other half working on repairs to the frame. And there's a certain amount of good natured rivalry between them. At least, I've always taken it to be good natured ...
Most of the effort at the moment is being expended on the facing brickwork and the repairs to the roof timbers of the north projection.
Here's some interesting brickwork on a wall near the site. We're unlikely to try to emulate it, although it could be fun. They'd probably have a fit if we suggested it.
A row of studs waiting for the new wall plate to be slotted into place on top.
Some of the internal walls have feather edge boarding like the outside of the barn. It has been suggested that this is evidence that the barn was built in stages with extra bits being added over the years. It's a planning condition that we retain as much of the existing boarding as possible. However it's in a pretty poor state.
North projection roof timbers minus rotten rafters and cripples.
The 'tear down and rebuild' phase of repair to the brick plinth is hopefully coming to an end. We're now looking at what other repairs will need to be carried out, and this is raising some interesting questions. There are some places where work was done in the past using whatever bricks were to hand at the time. For example, a patch of suffolk white bricks used to patch up a damaged section of red brick. Do we chop them out and repair the hole "properly" using reclaimed bricks matching the rest of the plinth, or do we leave the old repair and just accept it as part of the quirkiness of the barn. The point is that, functionally, there's no need - the old repair works fine. It's just a bit of an eyesore. But then it was only an agricultural building and nobody really cared what it looked like as long as it kept the contents dry, be it animals, crops or machinery. So maybe we should just leave it alone. Obviously there are some places where frost and rain have eaten away at the brickwork where we have to do something. But there again, should we use matching reclaims or just use any old brick that happens to be lying around? (Actually they'd have to be bought in, but you get the idea.)
At the moment it's dead easy to see the new sections of facing brickwork. However we are assured that once the old mortar has been raked out and the wall repointed with fresh mortar (a mix of hydraulic lime and white cement) it will be less obvious. Personally I don't mind. To some extent it's good that the new bits will be obviously new and the old bits obviously old.
Getting there - facing at the north end.
The grass on our field (still leased to the farmer) is suffering from the lack of rain. The farmer's barley next door seems to be doing OK, but what do I know?
The views from the scaffold just get better and better.
We've been incredibly lucky with the weather - note the un-English blue sky. Virtually no time has been lost so far due to rain. Everybody else is moaning about drought conditions but we’re just counting our blessings.
The barge boards for the gable ends clearly need replacing. It would be nice to use a hardwood but that would cost a fortune - 4 enormous boards (2 for each end of the main roof) 5.4m long. We spent ages ringing timber merchants all over East Anglia and beyond looking for a good quality softwood and eventually found some 50 miles away.
The decision on capping boards was finally made this week. It has been a see saw few weeks - on off, we love them, we love them not. We've tried to balance style versus durabilty by going for a hardwood, iroko. Although it's expensive there's not a huge amount of it and they should last, hopefully. And, most importantly, they'll be in keeping with a Suffolk barn.
This week we hired a power washer to spray the brickwork to remove stains and algae. We also got in some anti fungal stuff to add to the spray but in the end decided not to use it as there didn't seem to be any need. I was loathe to run the washer at full power as, in addition to taking off the muck it seemed to be taking off a layer of brick. It didn't take long and the end result is fine, at least in my eyes.
Before
After
And finally
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