Contrasts

A busy week in prospect with stairs, planting, exterior doors and bathroom in prospect.

Yesterday, Sunday, was a glorious day throughout with brilliant sunshine and some amazing cloud effects.  Here are a couple of pictures of Settle Station by Anthony Ward:

and this one has just cropped up on Facebook.  It was taken at Appleby station on 14th January 1987 when the line's future looked very uncertain indeed:

That Ladder and Heights

 

Having recovered from the broken neck through just falling down stairs I was mildly horrified at this picture from the Yorkshire Post in 2011 of me near the top of the hairy scary ladder during the painting of the outside of the water tank.  To my left is the home-made cradle that was my workplace for the six months that it took to paint the tank.  I hasten to add that the cradle was secured to the tower with never less less than five chains and I wore a harness so that in the unlikely event of a fall I would only have fallen a couple of feet.  Still - never again!

I, like most, had a fear of heights which I learnt to overcome and I am quietly proud of that.

As a young PC in the centre of Bradford in the 1960s I from time to time  encountered lead-thieves on the roofs of mills and city centre high buildings.  The fire brigade would attend with their Snorkels - giant elevated hydraulic platforms for fire fighting at height.  Burglars however were a matter for the police and I now confess I lived in fear of being the chosen one (by the sergeant or inspector) to go aloft and make the arrest.  Mercifully for my self esteem it was never me.  There are times in life when you just cannot chicken-out on front of colleagues.

Architectural Inspiration

Pat, for some months past has been a willing refreshments supplier to sundry builders, digger men, roofers and whatnot.  Being a methodical type she makes notes about the varying requirements.  I did not know this and my admiration for her prodigious memory for names and milk-and-sugars was punctured when i came across this during a bit of a kitchen tidy-up:

I thoroughly recommend that you click on the image to enlarge then look at the entry bottom left relating to renowned and inspired architect Stuart Green.

The Staircase Exists! and I've seen It For Myself

Our cup runneth over.  Plastering nearly finished. Plumbing being finished next week.

And today I had occasion to travel through Keighley where our outside staircase has been made and has been most excellently galvanised.  I paid a surprise visit the JRFabs Ltd in Pitt Street on the off-chance and there in their yard was our staircase all in bits on pallets awaiting delivery to Settle.  Christmas, New Year and to some extent the complexity of this job have delayed things but it will be erected on site from next Wednesday onwards.   Here it is, in bits:

The handrails give an idea of the twists and turns involved:

 and here are some pictures taken by John Robb during construction:

click any pic to enlarge

Hot Glue Gun for Pointing

Our new lounge in the extension will have one main wall of 1876-built sandstone - the one-time external wall of the top of the tower.  Because of its function - to support a massive weight of water in the sky- the tower's walls, beside being massively thick, have the unusual feature of very narrowly pointed gaps between the courses of sandstone.   That is fine but it makes re-pointing, should it ever be necessary, almost impossible in such narrow gaps.   In fact, the lime mortar is in amazingly good order after 140+ years of exposure to the elements.

The tower walls are rubble-filled hollow and ventilated through cast iron air vents.  These keep the walls dry but also mean that when the wind blows there is positive pressure inside the walls which will leak out through any gaps in the pointing.   This is fine - indeed to be encouraged normally - but unwelcome when you are building-on an air-tight extension with heat-recovery ventilation which depends on an air-tight structure if it is to be efficient.

The retention of the former external wall as a feature of the new lounge is deliberate and should be a stunning visual feature but it needs to be air-tight.   Close inspection of the pointing revealed small but numerous holes in the pointing which needed to be filled.  But how?  Re-pointing was impossible with the very narrow layers of very hard lime mortar.   Patch-pointing could be visible to an unwanted extent.  I thought long and hard about this problem.  As a veteran of many things, including restoring several old buildings I eventually hit upon the solution.   Why not use hot glue from a glue gun?  Transparent, easy to apply, should be almost invisible from anything other than the closest scrutiny.   Most importantly, effective.

Well, today was the day.

Here is a picture of the sorts of holes that required filling

click to enlarge

Below are similar holes that have had hot glue fillings:

Obvious on close inspection but overall, invisible.

The top picture shows the remains of ivy roots, which once populated large portions of the tower's walls - and possibly accounted for some of the holes too.   I shall try to find a picture of this east wall with ivy growing on it.

Didn't have to look far - they are on this very Blog back in early 2011:

The lounge is built over the section of wall from the nearest corner of the tower to approximately the point where the ivy starts.  The dark rectangle at the start of the ivy is one of the iron ventilation grills on this east face of the tower.  It is now part of the lounge wall.

Below is that east face when cleared of ivy:

Fiat Lux

Plastering well under way now.  This requires good lighting to achieve a good finish though.  Et viola, to mix languages rather:

This, for now, is the view through the window / wall from the existing annex into the new extension's lounge area.

External Cladding Almost Falls into Place

Plaster boarding finished:

Today I have been experimenting with the rain-screen cladding which was removed from the original extension to see if it will fit the north and south elevations at least.   And Bingo - the vertical panels fit like a glove.

Each vertical panel is in two parts (see picture above).  The top part straddles the top of the parapet wall then drops down to the level of the tops of the new windows and door openings.  The lower and larger second panel drops from the window tops to ground level.

Just for today's test fitting I laid a heavy ladder horizontally along the top of the parapet  as it was quite windy (above).  Below is an after-dark picture of the top of the parapet wall with a parapet panel loosely laid on it.  The horizontal top face is actually a little too deep so there is an overlap which may or may not be modified to fit exactly.   The only people who will see the overlap will be the R.A.F.

Today's tests were done on the rear (eastern) wall for ease of access only.  They look a bit weathered but they scrub up well.  Subject to weather the top (parapet) row of panels should soon be in place,  So too the external doors where ply boards are deployed just now.

UPDATE 12th January - conversation today with architect Stuart Green about external cladding and slight change of plan.   We shall deploy new custom-made cladding to the north and south elevations, using the salvaged original cladding at the rear.  We shall have the to-be-reused parapet panels made narrower to fit the new parapets exactly - easily do-able it turns out.