Day 16, 17 and 18 - Scaffolding going up

The weather has been miserable and delayed the scaffolders a day or so. 

Day 16 arrived and I could hear a distant clinking and clanking of metal on metal. It had to be the scaffolding. Over the next 3 days the scaffolding men surrounded the barn with poles and planks, and inserted ladder-like steel poles from the front to the centre of the building, to enable the Barn Boys to raise the barn off its foundations (to be replaced) and to balance the entire structure on the steel rods! Hmm.

The sun came out and so did the scaffolders

Front door

Recording Studio...somewhere

East side - I asked Boss Jon if I could keep the decking! His answer was the short one

East Elevation

South side

South side

Sunny South side

South side

Inspector Walt - 'All looks good to me'

Through the keyhole -  East to West

Inside - East to West side

Check out the horizontal steel ladders; they'll be supporting the barn in a few days

With the scaffolding up, the Barn Boys can now start removing the brickwork at the front and corners of the North elevation. They'll dig down approximately a metre to prepare the new foundations - concrete blocks beneath ground level and bricks above.

Until tomorrow and the Barn balancing act.....
Love
BarnGirl
xx

Day 12 - Mr Mole arrives

 Today, Mr Mole and his merry molers arrived on site with their pneumatic moling machine.  

Mr Mole

Moling is a trenchless method used to lay pipes and avoids the need to dig a massive trench or, in my case, dig up a perfectly fine, tarmac drive. Moling can be used to lay water pipes, electrical pipes, phone cabling and heat pump systems. BarnGirl needs Mr Mole to dig two parallel holes for EDF and BT. These utility companies weren't happy to share the same pipe!  But lo, we would all love a share of your profits!

BarnBoys prepare hole for mole

The Mole

This simple looking device, known as a mole, forces its way through the soil, along the desired path of the pipe. It doesn't push the soil in front of it's steely point, it forces, or, should I say, compresses the soil, sandstone, clay....whatever, sideways, creating a neat pipe of its own. The electrical and telecom cabling can then pass through with ease.

One hole for EDF and one for BT

It takes Mr Mole a day per hole

Meanwhile, back in the barn and Digger Ryan is digging up yet more of my hall!  This time creating a metre deep trench for the utility cabling.  It required some precision driving, as Ryan Nureyev, danced his bronco over the trenches he'd so nimbly prepared. 

Digger Ryan pirouetting

You're fine. Both feet on the ground

 

Digger Ryan jetes across the trench into the utility cupboard. But who's the ghostly figure?

Cables in utility cupboard

 

'Has the cake arrived?'

  

















Mr Wickens, Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) man, was also on site today, preparing metres and metres of cabling, one continuous piece of copper encased in plastic tubing, for the Air Source Heat Pump.
This renewable energy will supply my underfloor heating and hot water.

Continuous length of copper cabling for ASHP

Pass the ball

'Real men eat quiche' or so I thought

I just had to include this. A picture of Digger Ryan's lunch. I'm sorry, but this is definitely looking more like a Nureyev than Rodeo man's lunch. Babybel 'lite'?!








I'm off to make lunch, Digger Ryan styly.
Love
BarnGirl
xx



If you're interested - more about moling....
The standard approach to moling is to dig a hole about 1 m square and 2 m deep. In my case, it was more like 2-3 metres by 2 metres. The mole is then entered into the earth on the horizontal face at the bottom of this hole. A destination hole of similar proportions is also dug (other side of the drive and hedge) and this is where the mole emerges. The mole itself is a steel cylinder about 60 cm long and 6 cm in diameter. It works as a pneumatic cylinder with pulsed compressed air causing the head of the mole to repeatedly hammer against the soil in front of the mole. Once the mole has passed through the earth the pipe can be pulled through the long horizontal hole.

Day 10 - I have a bathroom plug and a lovely Klargester!

Ok. I'm back. 

Apologies for the tardy updates; I do, however, have an excuse and it involves moving house for the third time in 18 months. Hopefully only one more move to go!  Away from the chaos of bubble wrap, packing tape and recycled Amazon boxes, the Barn Boys have been dodging the rain and getting on.
 
The Klargester sewage treatment plant is working and I mean working. 'Waste matter' goes into the larger of the disc-like sections, before entering the second set of rotating discs, where it sjhuses 'it' about breaking it down, to the point of allegedly being able to drink it!

Klargester up and running

The inner workings

The clean, waste water will then take a short journey, in the newly laid pipes, to the ditch, leading to the stream, the Kent river (dividing Kent and East Sussex) and beyond. Gotta love the temporary, anti-vermin netting at the end of the pipe. Building inspector requested it.

Mice, rats, voles - not welcome here

Please admire my en suite bathroom plug. The Barn Boys spent half a day digging through several metres of soil and sandstone to reach a suitable point, at which they could take the drain out to the manhole, to join the main drain on the West side.

My Bathroom Plug

The barn's overcoat of cladding removed and made ready for a fire. Strange beauty in a pile of ageing timber.

A stunning mackerel sky* cast a warm, golden light on the bare timbers.  But what does it mean?

"Mackerel in the sky, three days dry," "Mackerel sky, mackerel sky. Never long wet and never long dry," and the nautical weather rhyme, "Mare's tails and mackerel scales / Make tall ships carry low sails." 

Mackerel Sky*

Must dash, BarnGirl needs to sort pics and add the latest goings on.....scaffolding going up and foundations coming down. Eek!

Love
BarnGirl
xx



If you're interested......

*The phrase mackerel sky came from the fact that it looks similar to the markings of an adult king mackerel.

A mackerel sky or buttermilk sky describes a sky mostly covered by altocumulus clouds. It is rare with altocumulus and extremely rare in its cirrocumulus form. The occurrence of these clouds is an indicator of moisture and instability at intermediate levels (2400–6100 m, 8000-20,000 ft). Rainshowers or thunderstorms may occur should any lower cumulus clouds reach the layer of the altocumulus form.

However, the most common reason for the occurrence of a mackerel sky is an old, disintegrating frontal system. The cloud was probably originally altostratus and has been broken up into altocumulus as the weather front disintegrates (usually as a result of encountering an area of high atmospheric pressure). Little, if any rain most often follows a mackerel sky. Another common place that it is found is in the warm sector of a depression preceding the cold front and associated showery weather, however usually here it is obscured by lower stratus clouds.

Day 8 - Anyone for a jacuzzi?

Thanks all, for dancing.  The sun returned and, after a warm weekend, the ground dried out a little.  

More crushed concrete arrived and was spread over the churned-up west side, just in time for the arrival of the Klargester (sewage treatment plant). It's now in situ and waiting for a delivery of concrete to set it in place. 

Hot Tub (Sewage Treatment plant) arrives

Meanwhile, Rodeo Ryan decided to dig up my hall. With his nifty bronco, the original concrete was swiftly removed and dumped in the biggest skip I've ever seen.  I'm guessing it isn't called a skip, so, I'll update when I know.

Bucking bronco

Digger Ryan in the hall

Door downstairs to South Elevation

Drains going in on the South side and almost ready to be connected to the 'hot tub'.

They're all diggers to me, but, apparently they're not!   

 

I stand corrected  - This is a Digger, NOT a Telehandler

THIS is a Telehandler

I didn't realise there was so much involved in laying a drain. It's certainly not merely digging a trench and chucking a pipe in it. The fall level is worked out during the architect's initial site survey and in accordance with building regs. The exact measurements are achieved with a theodolite*. A fossil? Ancient man? No, 'tis a clever little device that sits atop a tripod, with criss-crossy grids to help guide the man with an oversize ruler a short distance away. In this case, it was Jon on 'up a bit, down a bit' theodolite and Matt measuring-up and making sure the 'fall' of the drains was spot on.

 

Matt with a very big ruler

Theodolite*

 If you really want to know:

*A theodolite /θiːˈɒdəlaɪt/ is a precision instrument for measuring angles in the horizontal and vertical planes. Theodolites are used mainly for surveying applications, and have been adapted for specialized purposes in fields like metrology and rocket launch technology. A modern theodolite consists of a movable telescope mounted within two perpendicular axes—the horizontal or trunnion axis, and the vertical axis. When the telescope is pointed at a target object, the angle of each of these axes can be measured with great precision, typically to seconds of arc.

West side stripped naked and enjoying the sun

Sun going down in the West

As the sun goes down, it's time for me to go.  I need to sort out the official name of the property - bank requires it. Another minefield. More of that to come.

Love
BarnGirl
xx