No more drill holes and a nice old arch

This weekend I made rapid progress on the North gable wall.

The North gable wall

The first pleasant surprise this weekend was that the drill holes from the old injected damp proof treatment which I found on the north east walls did not continue round the corner onto the north wall. The North wall is brick sitting on stone with the old slate damp proof in between, so thankfully no wanton destruction of old bricks has taken place here.

The second surprise was that the bathroom window (that small one on the top left) still has its original arch and (rotting) timber beam BUT the window was originally wider than it is now as you can see in this picture:

At last we've found an original brick arch! The bathroom window is now narrower than the original window. This will either make a nice feature when the brickwork is renovated or we may consider reinstating a larger window.

Most of the render on the North wall came off very easily - it was really hollow in places and damp in places where water was trapped in the wall behind. There is one patch of soft cement base coat (from very recent patching of the render) which is not so easy to remove as its a rather shallow layer. The top layers came off easily here but left this base coat behind. I think this might brush off more easily than trying to use the chisel which was threatening to damage the bricks too much. I've left this patch for now and may just wait until the "pro's" can remove it when the brickwork is being cleaned.

Cement render base coat from a recent bit of patching.

So, the North wall was stripped, apart from the topmost parts after about 6 hours work and I am amazed at how much I've managed to remove so far after only 4 weekends. At least the money saved on this job can now be spent on more creative parts of the renovation - like rebuilding old brick arches which looks like being a significant cost.

Here's how the North gable looks now - compare it to the before shot at the top of this blog post.

Not bad in 6 hours - one nice old brick arch revealed but the arches above the other three windows will need reconstruction.

After making such good progress over the last month I'm having next weekend off but then:

Next: work starts on the South wall - 

next Blog post December 2nd.