Removing a girder and rebuilding a wall.

Way back in time around the change of the century, not the last one, the one before it and somewhere around 1900 was when my house was built. It is a three bedroomed terraced house, terraced housing being a style perhaps common to the UK but I believe not in other parts of the world.
However, for reasons unknown, the ground floor at the back was only a single brick wall, yet the upper floor was built as a double brick wall. They achieved that by supporting the upper outer wall on a girder and why it was done that way is unknown, perhaps to save cost of brick or maybe some other reason. However due to corrosion something had to be done about that girder, so first a diagram of the two stories, the ground floor plan and the upper floor plan. The rest of my house, the front room ground floor, and front bedroom upper floor are not shown but are to the left in both cases.





then the reason for needing to do something is plain here as can be seen, the end of the girder is slowly being jacked up by the corrosion between the two ends and on the top of the girder, threatening the stability of the walls as can be seen by the crack going up the left hand wall.



After consulting with builders it was decided that the safest way forward would be to remove the outer wall from above the girder, then the girder itself and then build a complete new outer wall from the ground up.
That also meant dismantling the roof of a workshop I made some twenty odd years ago which houses a lathe, a small milling machine and various other engineering stuff. I dismantled the workshop before any other work could be started, later there are pictures of the workshop rebuild.

Here a start has been made on the removal of the upper outer wall, the two guys just broke the bricks away one at a time and threw them into a skip just below the shot, you can see one brick on its way down lower left.



The wall down, the girder down and the short stub end of smaller girder now cut off. (scaffold also dismantled, though will be required for the rebuild.



The yard area full of stacks of brick, sand and cement, insulation boarding to go in between the inner and new outer walls, and down on the floor the now removed girder.



As was discovered, the other end of the girder which was sort of buried into the dividing wall between my house and next door wouldn't have lasted much longer and could have dropped, bringing the whole of the upper wall with it. Here is that even worse corroded other end. Kind of made me glad I was doing something about it all.



A trench was dug down to foundation level, then filled with concrete to support the new outer wall.



Next was the start of building the new outer wall, with rain threatened at the end of the day, hence why everything covered up.



Bricks and mortar going upward, the main bricklayer on the scaffold and his mate possibly wondering why he was there, he certainly looks puzzled in this photo.



Going higher and over half way there, and then the finished rebuild. The odd bricks sticking out couldn't be removed without disturbing, and possibly damaging, next doors inner walls.





So, now that the wall is done, now to look at sorting my workshop out, the blue plastic sheeting is covering the previously mentioned lathe, milling machine, workbench and other things.



So starting with the roof, here are the main timbers going in, plenty of new and treated timber used here.





Then fixed the polycarbonate plastic triple walled roofing sheet.





Then a timber frame constructed and covered with 12mm ply wood boarding. complete with a door.



Further work has been done and even more to walls internally in order to make it a decent workshop once again. That included re-installing the electrics for power, and also re-plumbing in a radiator connected to my central heating system. The rough condition of the original right hand and back walls have to be improved yet and many other small jobs before I can even think of sorting out some of the rust damage from the damp conditions while under the plastic sheeting.

Nev.

 

Done well so far, Nev. Still a lot to go yet.
Looking better all the time.