July Update - Week 16

This week marked a crucial and dangerous stage of the project. The whole roof structure required removing before any stonework and reconstruction could start. The existing oak timbers were in poor condition (as original structural survey stated) and we were advised therefore to rebuild the roof from scratch. This enabled us to redesign the main trusses to allow more headroom on the first floor.

David and Paul spent the next three days precariously balanced on a roof ladder and wobbly scaffold tower levering off the strips of tin secured very firmly by long nails into the old oak trusses (not easy!). Finally Dylan Thomas Crane Hire arrived to lift off the huge oak structure avoiding damaging the outside walls.

Help arrived at the weekend (Dave Martineau again, thank you!) to prepare the site for the stonemason contractor to start work next week. We also salvaged as much of the oak trusses as possible as we hope to use these as features within the barn e.g. for window lintels and part of the staircase.

July Update - Week 15

Finally we have two of the necessary services to site: electricity and water. We were instructed to dig a 50m trench by Western Power from a pylon in the adjacent field, right up to the barn. The cable was “moled” under the county highway by an external contractor who laid the cable in the trench ready for the August live connection.

In anticipation of the welsh wet weather approaching a storm drain was constructed to cope with flash flooding from the hills above us which will collect behind the retaining wall.

Interim Post July 2006

Whilst digging a storm drain David dug up a rabbit's warren with 4 baby bunnies in it, they were so young their eyes hadn't even opened yet! Unfortunately the tale is not a happy one so I will just end by saying may the Flopsy Bunnies RIP.

June/ July Update – Weeks 13-14

With the ground inside the barn prepared for the floor slab to go in, a delivery of 5 cubic metres of concrete was ordered for the Wednesday. I was summoned down to Wales as it would be all hands on deck. They weren’t wrong: - for a whole manic hour (concrete sets quite quickly in hot weather and also we were paying for the lorry by the hour) David and Paul were wheeling barrow after barrow of concrete into the barn while I was stuck inside raking and tamping the concrete. Finally by lunchtime we had half of the floor slab laid, the rest can’t be laid until the gable wall has been re-built.

At the weekend we still had two thin channels of the floor slab (left clear in order to be able to tamp the last load) to fill with concrete but this time mixing it up ourselves which took a lot longer. As we couldn’t really do much else other than watch it set we gave ourselves the afternoon off to watch the England game. I’m not sure what was more exhausting- laying a concrete floor or sitting through that game!


Last week saw the retaining wall finally get finished, hooray! A very impressive 10 courses high at its highest point- not very beautiful but that didn’t stop David standing admiring it for half an hour! We will of course face it with natural stone on completion, but not one of the most urgent tasks at the moment.

Another two weeks of unusually fine weather provided David with the opportunity to put in the soakaway. The soakaway is a 48 metre long, 900mm deep trench gradually sloping downhill from the septic tank and filled with 40mm drainage stone.