Having removed the front extension (see previous post), the idea was to demolish the house in stages, starting with the western side. This was partly because we were still storing stuff inside the old house but also because we didn't want to disturb some blue tits that were currently nesting in the eastern corner of the building.
Since half the roof would be coming off, we'd shifted all our belongings stored below to the opposite end of the house to keep them dry while we continued to sort through everything. So far, despite all our smashing and bashing, the blue tits nesting in the other end of the house seemed unperturbed and continued to make their regular trips to and from the nest.
Although we'd never actually demolished a house, we'd seen enough Fred Dibnah on TV to know the basics... hopefully we could dismantle it in stages without the whole thing crashing down on our heads.
We set to work on the roof, pulling off the ridge tiles.
Once the ridge tiles were off, the slates could be removed. Some were awkward to get off and it took a while to prise away the nails without breaking them. We were trying to preserve as many as possible in order to sell them at a later date.
On very windy nights, when we used to live in the old house, we'd often hear heavy clonks coming from the chimney. Not very reassuring when lying in bed at night... and closer inspection revealed that the top part of the chimney was indeed rather unstable. The mortar had crumbled away around the bricks and the only thing keeping the stack intact appeared to be the cement render on the outside. We decided we'd better take the chimney down quickly, before it fell down...
Unlike the walls of the house, the chimney pretty much fell apart, so it was just a matter of breaking it up by hand and disposing of the rubble.
Removing the crumbling chimney stack didn't take too long. And immediately improved our view from the new house, unveiling a new bit of greenery in the distance.
Removing the chimney stack also revealed that the brickwork was just as crumbly below the roof.
As we peeled off each layer, the true state of the house was being revealed. Considering it had only been renovated less than 20 years before, it was in a shocking condition, with rot and mould everywhere.
When we bought the property, we'd never had it surveyed because it was always our intention to knock the house down (a structural survey would have been a waste of money - the owner made it clear that they were unwilling to lower the price and we'd already decided the house was beyond saving).
As the picture below shows, many of the roof timbers were completely rotten; the rafter (seen just above the chimney flue) crumbled to dust when we removed the tiles. It was clear that the renovation of the property was somewhat 'half-arsed'.
The remnants of the rotten rafter pictured at top right.
Once again, the old house appeared to be resisting all attempts at demolition; underneath the tiles and battens was... another roof! The original roof was constructed of wooden planks and covered with a thick, bitumen-infused 'carpet' that was held down with about a million nails ... sigh!
It was becoming clear that the original building must have been some kind of shed or barn. The 'renovation' twenty years ago was just a re-skinning exercise - rather than remove and renew the rotten parts of the existing building, they'd simply built new floors, walls and roof directly over the top.
The thick felt and bitumen layer was incredibly hard to remove (of course) and had to be levered off in small sections. After that, we could get to the 'sticky-with-bitumen' wooden planks underneath and these were cut and crowbarred away to finally reveal the main supporting roof timbers.
Five layers of material had to be removed just to get to the rafters. We were really beginning to hate this house and wondering if we shouldn't have just paid out to have a demolition team come and do it for us.
One section of the roof finally off.
We used the old wooden planks from the roof to make a safe (ish) platform for working inside the roof space.
It didn't take much to remove the rotten rafters; it was a wonder the whole roof hadn't collapsed.
Standing on the plank-platform and working from inside, made it much easier to dismantle the other side of the roof.
At last, daylight on both sides. As ever, the blocks on the gable end were incredibly tough to remove, but we gradually prised them off using an electric breaker.
The gable wall, like all the walls of this accursed house, were constructed of extra-thick, extra-dense blocks that weighed about 50kg each! To make matters worse, there was no mortar between the blocks, but instead it appeared as if some form of concrete had been used... it was built like a bunker and whacking it with a sledgehammer did little more than tickle it.
The rubble was already proving to be a problem, The individual blocks were too heavy for us to lift (each one weighed the same as two bags of cement!) so we had to break them all into small pieces in order to move them.
Having laid planks in the roof space made it much easier to work, so before knocking down the supporting walls below, we decided to remove the next section of roof.
As before, removing the multiple roof layers was a nightmare...
...but once down, it allowed us to shift the planks further along...
... which allowed us to start knocking down the west-side walls while still keeping the 'platform' well-supported under the remaining walls.
The second fireplace in the old kitchen added a lot of extra demolition work and rubble removal.
The kitchen fireplace viewed from above. It was block-built but then lined with an additional decorative layer of bricks (extra layers, of course...)
We'd only removed a quarter of the roof and the timber was already piled up high. Rather than pay to have it removed, we planned to burn all the wooden parts of the house.
Before taking down the west-side external walls, we had to knock down the ceilings and supporting wooden joists. As ever, the site inspector was on hand to ensure site safety protocols were being observed.
Once the ceilings were removed, we could start taking down the remaining walls.
Looking out from the old kitchen as the west walls gradually come down...
... and looking back into the old kitchen.
Finally we got the kitchen fireplace down and one corner of the house was gone. A lot of work still to go...
