This was without doubt a genuinely interesting and challenging project from start to finish.
PJB Building called at this well-established semidetached property in the north of the City to
find out that this grand old lady was indeed requiring some TLC, after a thorough clean down of the old damaged water pipes and a full hack off of all external render it soon became apparent that we had worrying problems ahead. Not least issues relating to some left over bomb damage and a general assortment of wear and tear to the general conditions of the 100-year-old brickwork walls and rear elevation lintels above the new conservatory.
Most interesting and somewhat amusing, if it happens to someone else, was the homeowner recalls a story about her children hiding under the bedcovers during one stormy night many years ago, when the house was hit by a huge bolt of lightning, which put a 100mm crack in the side of the building from its foundations to the eaves of the roof, even blowing most of the chimney clean off into the surrounding gardens. After years of being called out late at night for various emergencies I can just imagen the homeowners son running around the house in his Y fronts and housecoat saying “it’s gone it gone, the chimney its gone”.
But even with this level of bad luck, the old girl stood strong over the time and it was our absolute pleasure to step in and help put her right.
Several conversations with the customer led to a firm action plan and a well-constructed estimate which gave us the opportunity, flexibility and agreement to crack on and fix issues as they would arise.
House Render - Old girl needed some TLC
The external render was no more than a patchwork of poor quality mortar spread across the whole building. This was carefully removed to expose as a raft of smaller problems that needed to be fixed, such as the removal of two old rotten wood lintels and, installing new bricks in 6 or so old balanced flue gas vent holes and the installation of two pre stressed concrete lintels.
The whole building was prepared by washing off the brickwork, raking out all loose joints and filling the gaps in all those loose bricks. Amongst the last of the preparation we physically removed any loose bricks and re-stitching the large 100mm lightning crack all the way up the side with new brickwork. This was reinforced with internal stainless steel wall ties, overlaid with galvanized mesh and fixed with heavy galvanized straps and bolted through good brick where and when required.
Two to three, 12mm layers of sand and cement render was applied as a base scratch coat to all external walls, drips, stops and molding timbers prepared the building for a final 12mm layer of sand and cement render to be applied and floated to a smooth finish This top coat process alone took over a five days to finish, but when it was done the house stood proud and looked stunning in her new waterproof winter coat.
After a thorough quality control inspection, the installation of new down pipes and guttering was completed, the scaffolding was removed and the entire site was cleaned to perfection.
For almost six months the old girl sat proud in her new Winter coat to allow for the building to fully dry out before we came back to give her a good quality painting.
We believe that the application of four coats of Sandtex light cream super trade masonry paint, was the best for the property based on our 30 years plus in the trade, it also helped that the paint boasted a 15 year guarantee, but I am sure you will all agree that the house looks lovely.
To top it all off we built a bespoke block conservatory base and floor at the back of the house to hold a new glass conservatory which was supplied and fitted by Apple windows, the conservatory was then plastered, a bespoke side gate and support posts were constructed out of tantalized timber and galvanized furniture to give many years’ easy access to the side of the building and to the bin storage area.
It’s was a lovely job done for a lovely family and we feel honored to be involved.
