Review Juli 2012 - Canalisation

The diggers were in the village and we were able to connect to the new waterline and sewage system -
we then wouldn't need our Septic tank anymore.

If you look at our old "water-construction" you can imagine that we were very happy to remove it.
Poor Heidi once a year had to creep in the hole to read the numbers on the water clock...

First find the old line to the Septic tank.

 dig a trench that slopes down in the direction of the street

and it goes deeper...

 and deeper...

and just deeper...

at the border of our property  the pipes were 150cm deep in the ground.

first we thought to drill through the foundation stones -
but they were ca 60cm thick, so we decided to go under the foundation (80cm deep).
Some slim hands were needed

finally we could get enough room for the new waterline to come in and the for sewage going out.

here's the outside

this is inside the house - the old led water pipe is still connected here

only 80cm deep

While we were digging the trench outside where the water goes into the house

John found a message in a bottle - The workers from 1929/1930 who laid the pipes then put a note down who was working there and what they had done. All written in the old German hand writing - Sütterlin and stuck it in a beer bottle:

We buried a copy of the old message (with a translation because not many people can read Sütterlin nowadays - we had to go to our lovely Egg-Lady "Tante Ilse" to understand everything), we then wrote our own message and stuck it in a whiskey bottle. If you want to know what we wrote you have to dig deep.

In 2012/13 we also dismantled  the Raeucherkammer - (smokehouse) that was in our attic, recycled the stones to built our barbeque in the Hof and kept improving the garden in the inner courtyard. But we will post that another day, lets get on with the pipework...


(Middle 2013 till April 2014)
With the new services in place we could start to build a shower-room - later to become our guest WC - because our only existing bathroom with the oil heated boiler was becoming unsafe and to wait for an hour for warm water after a hard days work was really not practical.

(Remember?)

So first repair the cracked and damaged chimney breast and lay the pipes for the shower-room and for the new bathroom upstairs.

First strip everything down to the bricks.

A couple of big holes appeared in the chimney.

and all the cracks needed a bit of tender love and care

our first attempt at plastering and the cladding for the waste pipe from upstairs.

 

here we now have the water clock already in an accessible position, new stopcocks are in place, here the waterline for upstairs is still old. We decided to get a company in to lay them in the first floor because the space was tiny and John had enough other things on his hands.

Here is the space for the new crapper

The window (wood, double glazed)  got a complete Restoration, it today only misses a bit of putty and the finishing coat of paint.

The windowsill  was past repair so, we gonna built a new one.

And after two coats of plaster, sweating with not 90° angled walls, our first tiling attempt, sawing a window sill and the cupboard tops, building a door + frame, quite a few trips to the Baumarkt, lots of hours and a lick of paint it now looks like this

 

open door turn right and move to left

We were able to purchase an complete show-room shower cubicle (already assembled) for half price because our local shop had to renovate. Standing/lying for ca.one year in our hallway, waiting for it's big day.
(It was the joke for every guest in our house- we are showering in there.)

But when we were trying to put it up we found out, that things weren't put together right in the first place and the design of the cubicle was missing some meager issues - the bottom of the glass wall didn't had a seal, (when you were spraying your feet, water splashed under the glass everywhere), after contacting the company who produced the thing we learned that this wasn't forgotten it was supposed to be like that and we just should put some silicon in the places!(Never mentioned in the assembly instructions)

I would never again buy or recommend a product from the company SCHULTE as you might find some unexpected surprises and their customer support was arrogant and not very friendly!

But we are happy after a lot of work to have a working shower and "one day soon" we will tackle the big bathroom upstairs.

The hallway

We're going for open plan...
to let more light in to the dingy hallway and build an open timber-frame area 


this was the view from our front door into the garden!
Toooo many doors!

First we checked to see if there was a lintel above the door
- No, but we found a beautiful old oak beam

in really good shape, just a bit grimy from being covered up for fifty or so years

not quite above the door but pretty close

and it stretches over the full width of the hallway :-)
maybe we won't need the timber-frame here

Peter and John are getting started...

careful there are cables "somewhere"and
don't forget the little oil pipeline is lying open on the floor right next to the old wall!

they create some windows to see if there are any vertical supporting beams or any more hidden surprises.
they find bricks, clay, wood and patches of cement

securing the house from falling down

Peter can't wait to get the rest down

and then it got a bit dusty, that's not a badly taken photo.

Peters' grey hair became blond/brown from the claywall-dust.

Hello, you again? He might need a shower or two.

They found some more more cables too

only a few more bricks

and as the dust settled

it looked quite promising -
A big THANK YOU for the help - Peter, great Job :-)

need to remember where the cables go

presumably that paneled white thing is the very old chimney from 200 years ago,

it is pretty solid so better don't touch

the bottom bit was falling apart, so we built a foundation to it
on the floor the little oilpipe that crosses the hallway -
we still need the thing for our wonderful heating system

the supervisor is having a rest

the under construction for plaster boards

first the plaster boards

fill in the gaps

the podest in front of the steps got rounded off

the first layer of plaster dries off

the old door hinges have to go

on the opposite side the wall is a mishmash of everything, so we give it a concrete shell

more plaster goes on the wall, more concrete on the right, the oil pipe goes under the floor

the floor leveled off and concrete over the pipe

that looks more solid
the door on the right will be closed off to create shelf space in the office

we cut an old beam that was lying in the hayloft in half and positioned the 2 half's
left and right of the hallway under the old lintel

nearly ready for the decorator

this is the view to our guest bathroom , the door is closed and the wall gets covered in plaster boards

This was the old work-kitchen, now a part is our guest bathroom and the rest we added to the hallway

The corner is now ready with the old wardrobe that Isa's Grandfather built

Remember?

the view from the front door into the garden now.
As soon as the Electrics are laid this will all be plastered over.

and the view up the stairs now looks like this.