1980s bungalow renovation

Also hope you're not breathing any of it in.

Goes with the territory I'm afraid. Nosebleeds, sore throat and a general feeling of being unwell. Aching joints. Anti-histamines help. Just glad the kids are away so they don't suffer.

Not much going on, I taped up some plastic to isolate the living area from the infected area. Bought myself a mask and went in and had a good clean around. I have put down two moisture traps on the concrete floor to see if they are moist.




Been down 24 hours and no sign of any moisture yet. We are alternately heating and opening windows to try and dry out the house. Getting a large dehumidifier next week for 2 weeks to help it along.

Sprayed all the mould tonight with 10% vinegar while I wait for borax and boric acid to arrive in the post. Will be cleaning all the mould tomorrow and then spraying everything with a good dose of the borax/boric acid solution. This was cheap enough, total cost €17 with post.

Will get the water out with the dehumidifier and see where we are after that.

Buying trickle vents for all windows for retroffitting. 10 cost around €50 and should add some background ventilation. Looking to beef up the bathroom extractor by changing the standard one for an inline unit that I can mount in the loft. The local grow shop has specialist silent ones designed for venting grow rooms and also insulated ducting to stop the moisture condensing in the line. I'm thinking this should work without the annoying drone.

Pricing new rads, took me a while to realise the ones we have are not metric, going to need some expanded unions but they seem cheap enough. The 6 large rads we have will come to €419 delivered and will need a few expanders at €8 each. I discovered the heating pipes are insulated in the floor so that is a bonus.

Bought it on ebay. Just search for borax, there are a few different sellers in the UK. Better wait and see if customs let it through before ordering though. It's a bag of white powder.

No real news today. Moisture traps are still bone dry. Odd. Expected some moisture coming up. I went up in the loft and cleared a bunch of crap (old mattresses and headboards etc) left up there by the previous tenants and set up a few flourescents for working. Found a hole in the gable wall the size of a football to accomodate a wire for the lamp above the bathroom mirror. Let me get a poke at the insulation in the cavity. All seems in order, might see about getting an inspection camera to have a look if the cavity is fouled before I seal it up.

Still alternating the heating and the windows. Bought a damp meter on flea bay for 25 quid. Will see how we get on, also a hygrometer to measure humidity for the wallet busting sum of 5 euros. Not sure how well they will work but worth a punt for domestic use.

This weekend will be mainly pulling out all the old fibreglass from the loft and hoovering all the spiders and guano out of there. Hopefully moving on the mice and birds too. Then I can get on with some wiring identification and removing all the unnecesary UPC, eircom and various other random aerial wires etc.

OK, the loft. Someone was kind enough to put up 6 bags of fibreglass, not kind enough to lay them though. This is the space, note the line of bat**** up the middle.



Parts are uninsulated like this, that vent pipe is not connected to the bathroom fan. Fan vents straight into attic. There is also a birds nest in the eaves in that corner. They have moved out now though.




An idea of the wiring I have to tidy and sort.



This support has been moved or has moved, I will tap it back tomorrow if I remember. Close to coming through the ceiling. :eek:



Quite a few of these holes in the felt. Probably where the bats are coming in. Not sure how I will seal these up yet.



Evidence of mice. I put these pipes up here for storage so this mice crap is fresh.



Forgot what a pain in the arse fibreglass is, eyes too. Managed to clear one side of the loft, about a quarter of total area of fibreglass. Not so easy bagging the buggers up though. Might try and get bigger bags tomorrow. Gave up as my knees had enough and sweating like a trooper. Will get the rest over the weekend.

DublinDilbert wrote: »

Are many of the ceilings cracked? Can't see any bridging pieces.

Was helping a family member who bought a very similar place back in April. A day in the attic cutting and fixing in bridging :-)

Minimal cracking in the ceilings. Can you explain what you mean by bridging?

20 hours in and the dehumidifier has finally shut off. 4 litres extracted from the room. This is the machine we rented.



Going to leave it in there for now and see what it comes up with.

DublinDilbert wrote: »

They are cross pieces that go between the joists. They stop the joists from warping over time and stop them cracking the ceilings below. They make the over all structure stronger too.

Get some rough timer the same thickness as the joist then cut to the correct length then fix in place with two long screws either end. I would stagger the pieces. Your joists are probably all different lengths, so you'll probably have to measure each one or just cut a range of pieces then mix and match when your up there.

Thanks, no, there is no bridging. Seems like a wise idea, I will add it to the list. What kind of spacing would be optimal? Every 2m be sufficient? I guess they should be staggered? (edit, just re-read your post) Staggered it is.

bonzodog2 wrote: »

If you wanted to change that join to an enclosed junction box, you wouldn't be creating a new circuit, or working on the consumer unit, so if you're confident, I'd go for it. However, that cable looks on the light side, i.e possibly not suitable for a modern shower.

TBH, it's looking like a complete rewire, need a new consumer panel so may as well lay all the wiring, chase all the walls etc. The regulations here are ridiculous though. Will have to think whether I am going to comply with them or not.

Got my burning barrel finished, must have put a good transit load of wood through it so far today. Still a good bit to go.

Cheers intro, I did flush the water system with 10 litres of 10% acetic acid. Twice as strong as vinegar. I'm happy enough it cleaned the pipes as it flushed through the green oxidation from the pipes. Only that one tap from the water tank, didn't do the shower right enough but that is getting replaced.

After the dehumidifier dried out the bathroom I noticed the wall started darkening again the next day. Decided to do a bit of digging.

Wow. Clearly there had been some work done here. Best bit was digging, first surprise was a biro, then some tiles, a few cloths and a load of gravel. Seems they just tipped the rubble into the hole and cemented over it. Anyway, exposed this.





I nicked one of the plastic pipes so had to switch off the water so decided to remove the bath and toilet too. Now have an empty box and can dig up the rest of the floor, I will be replacing all the pipes.

So, we have decided not to move the wall. We are limited for time and are getting distracted by this and it is a considerable amount of extra work we don't need. Wish we had made this decision before I broke up the screed in the bedroom but I suppose it was wet and smelly anyway. Spent today removing the pipes from the bathroom, have capped the ends and have the water back on. Fitted a couple of radiators too. I also did a bit of digging outside to check the sewer pipe was not damaged from the stack pipe swinging in the wind. (The brackets are broken and it is not secured to the wall.)



That ducting you can see to the right is the imaginatively routed cable for the air pump in our septic tank. It runs through the loft and down the cavity a bit and then out through this duct to THIS!



They had cut a trough in the concrete, laid the wire in it and put some wood over the top, then the wire goes into underground ducting, hidden under a conveniently placed large rock, then disappears under a flowerbed of sorts made out of decking.

Dug out the waste pipe to check for leaks. Seems fine.



Need some advice on this though if there is anyone following this thread that can advise I would be most grateful. There was a very hollow sounding corner in our bedroom, could not work out why as I would not expect the pipes to be there as this wall backs onto our front step. (Outside) So I decided to chop a bit up and discovered this.



This is very different to the setup in the hall and bathroom. Here the pipes are laid below the screed. You can see the damp proof membrane in the wall. They go out under the wall and then through our concrete step, here is a pic of the step. You can see a dpm here too.



Is this normal? I was under the impression that the dpm should not be bridged yet this hole was full of (albeit bone dry) screed. Here is another closer pic of DPM.



Cheers in advance for any advice.