Damp below render, 7 metres up a wall.

This weekend I finally put up a scaffold tower (lent by my friend Mick, thanks Mick) so that I could remove the remaining render from the tops of the north and south gables. This revealed some clear signs that even at 7 metres up the wall, moisture is trapped behind cement render! So that's certainly not rising damp!! It also revealed a bit more dodgy brickwork in need of attention :0(

The scaffold is up at last!

The render on this North gable came off nicely in big lumps. There were clear signs of moisture trapped in the wall. Take a look at this photo - the render on the light areas had been removed for about 15 minutes and started to dry out but look at the dark damp spot where the render is newly removed! This wall is now breathing at last :0)

Clear signs of trapped moisture beneath cement render!

It wasn't all hard work - time to take a break and soak in the view of the newly created veg and fruit garden - formerly our miniature Shetland pony Herbie's paddock (now grazing happily with new friends elsewhere).

Well, finally the north gable is done and the whole north side of the house is now clear of cement render.

The North side of OLF, now ready for renovation to start!

Next, onto the south side to put up the scaffold.

The brickwork on the south gable is not in great shape - what's under the remaining render?

This side of the house takes the full force of the prevailing winter weather and this is at least partly responsible for the poor state of some of the brickwork. There was an area just above the left-hand window which looks like it has moved a bit over the years and needs some attention.

More brickwork in need of repair :0(

The render on this gable was quite stubborn in places but after about 3 hours working off the tower and ladder, the south gable was finally clear of render.

The South side of OLF ready for the real restoration to begin.

So, OLF is now ready for the professionals. Once the weather is warm enough to allow the use of lime mortar, the task of cleaning brick, reinstating brick arches, stripping out cement or old lime mortar and repointing in lime can begin.

Please check my Blog in the coming months four updates when the work gets underway.

Its been a long winter - but we've been drying out!

Finally we seem to be emerging from the winter freeze and work can now begin on removing the remaining render ahead of the arrival of the experts to sort out the brickwork and lime mortar pointing. This has been the worst winter for snow since we moved here almost 20 years ago. Here was the scene that greeted us a couple of weekends ago....

I've now started to clear the rubble from below the gables so that we can get a scaffold tower up and the render removed from the tops of the gables on the North and South walls.

We have already noticed a big difference inside the house with less (or even no) condensation in the places where we used to find it - so the walls have already started to dry out and warm up since the render was removed. The brickwork and mortar, although in a poor state in places, has dried out tremendously over the winter and the walls are starting to breathe again.

Even parts of the walls where the bricks and mortar are in a real state have dried out very well. The wall in the photo below was one of the wettest spots and is now completely dry, despite being south facing and open to all the winter rains and gales.

Although I have taken a rest from render removal over the past few months I've not been completely idle. This winter we have created and planted a fruit garden in a small paddock where we previously grazed our miniature Shetland pony Herbie. He has now moved to new accomodation and the veg and fruit garden has been developed where he once munched the grass. Hopefully all those poos will have increased the soil fertility too!

This was the paddock being levelled in October 2012 in preparation for creation of the fruit garden.

And this was the start of the fruit garden on January 4th 2013 - putting in the supporting poles and wires to espalier and fan train the apples, pears, plums and cherries as well as a bed of raspberries and some blackcurrants and gooseberries.

And finally on March 16th the finished article, complete with traditional hedge, expertly layed by Ben Booth-Jones from www.wood-matters.co.uk

Watch this space, I'll be starting to update the Blog again as work starts to get the scaffold up and the rest of the render removed.