So we begin now in earnest. We’ve been on site for two weeks preparing the site and beginning the demolition.
We’ve built ourselves a site office in the back garden which will serve as our shelter throughout the build, we’ll keep tools here, make tea and dry clothes, there’s a long cold winter ahead and for a good while there will be no roof over our heads.
Hoarding is going up at the front and sides to protect our neighbours and the back section of the house is now being taken down. The brick work is in such poor condition that we can literally pull bricks out of the wall, the render is completely gone.
We are hoping to save and re-use as many bricks as possible for the rebuild as London Stock bricks are super expensive, so far the building is so poor that we’ve only saved a few hundred. I suspect as we get into the main body of the house we might find a few in better condiotion….fingers crossed.
Bricks to re-cycle from the old building
A few days on and…..
….the building is coming down at a pace now, we’ve removed the back addition and will commence removing bricks from the top down to the main house. The walls are so unstable we have had to support our flank wall with our neighbours. Our problem is that the walls are so weak that we can only allow a few people at a time to be inside and taking down. It’s a slow and laborious process – at least for the time being the weather is holding off..
Now you see it….
now you don’t
