- I pulled up all the cobbles (saved them for relaying later). They were expertly laid, I probably wont be able to do such a good job, but hopefully it will be much easier (and more forgiving of my technique) to lay them into Lime (NHL5)
- Dug out the dirt/earth they were laid into. This turned out not to be as much as I was expecting, a couple of inches and we were down to the shale bedrock.
- Managed to chisel the lime render of two walls. It was mostly pretty solid, and came off with difficulty, which is impressive after 250 years !!. Unlike most of the other walls where it came off much more easily. Our usual approach is to leave it if its ok (dont fix what isnt broken!), but I needed to see the walls behind, and some of it was gone, so it had to come off....We will be re-liming, so I don't feel too guilty.
- Once that was done, Jan and I (me on shovel, Jan on bucket duty) emtied all the debris, it was hard work, and took a while, but not as bad as I was expecting.
- Once the basement was clear, and we were down to Shale bedrock everywhere, I cleaned out the drainage channel one last time, ready for the perforated pipe. I have gone over this bit so many times in my head, and spent many hours staring at the flowing water, waiting for this moment.
- Jan and I (two person job) wrapped the pipe in membrane (to keep out the silt), lay in the pipe and covered it in Gravel. Section by section, and in no time it was done....Water flowing freely out of the house, in our first french drain :)
However the other end is shot, we will have to decide wether to take the beam down, and repair that end(scarf joint and post), or just pop a post underneath that end.
At least we now know what were dealing with, and its all fixable !!
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