fernicarry
Member
- Messages
- 729
- Location
- Argyllshire
So about 10 years ago I had a man in to repair the soffits and fascias on the south gable and the big front gable as they were crumbling to dust and sections were landing on the ground every time there was a storm. He also replaced the rainwater goods all round the house and painted all the roof-line woodwork. This was prior to me getting into the whole old house renovation thing but since he left it looking presentable I had no reason to doubt the quality of the workmanship.
Fast forward a few years and whilst there was scaffold up at the front gable for repointing I thought I'd nip up and give the fascias a cheeky coat of paint, only to find that the bottom edge in many places was soft and soggy and the slate boards (the bit that sits at right angles on top of the fascia and overlaps the edge of the slates) were in a similar state. Cue a large amount of replacement prior to a round of repainting.
Now, both of these gables meet at essentially a point on the corner of the house. There is a valley gutter that runs into the corner and an outlet exits through the soffit connecting to a swan-neck. Or rather, that's how it should work, but for most of the time I've lived here water has been almost constantly dripping off the corner. Front gable reconstruction activities stopped a little bit short of this corner whilst options for improvement were considered. And so it sat for a few more years with me promising myself each summer I would sort it out whilst periodically visiting to unblock the valley gutter,
In the intervening time part of the new soffit at the back of the south gable decided to detached itself and the North gable started its progress towards ground level as the south had before it. More recently the rear gable has decided to get in on the act. This was starting to become a bit more urgent.
A large part of the procrastination was the access. I did have a couple of tiers of quickstage at the front corner donated by a builder friend but it was awkward to work off of and would not be the easiest to reposition taking super-human strength to erect and dismantle. I also had a "DIY" steel tower borrowed from another friend which used to reach the top of the gable until it got blown over in a storm (woken at 7am to the sound of a giant xylophone falling down a flight of stairs). After that experience when re-assembled with the least bent sections it no longer reached the top of the gable... A proper Boss ally tower appeared on gumtree so I jumped on it. The seller then offered me a second identical one which I also jumped on. A delight to put up and work off of and with a bit of caution can be wheeled into a new position without fully taking it down. Best purchase ever! With a combination of a 4m Boss tower, the old steel tower and an 8m boss tower I could work across an entire gable slope with relative ease. All towers were tied in to the building at regular intervals having learned that lesson.
I immediately set about the gap in the soffit at the back, nice easy starterm should be a quick one. And, surprise surprise, it was worse than it looked. The soffits had been made from soft pine floorboards and the tongue and grooves had no protection. A lot of it was actually still serviceable but I needed to cut away more of it before repairing the gap. There was also a massive amount of templating at the bottom where it turned the corner to go around the eaves at the back of the house, those pieces for some reason also missing. The big problem turned out to be the fascias which again had soggy bits at intervals and the slate boards weren't doing too well either. I wasted a lot of time cutting bits out and templating repairs to fit so as not to use up too much material only to find more sogginess a bit further along. This was going to take forever without more decisive action.
I spotted some rough sawn larch boards on Marketplace for a song so I picked up a trailer load and planed and ripped them down to size. Time-consuming but a very cheap way to get decent timber. The slate boards and much of the fascia went in the skip (also the trailer) and I replaced the full length along the back half of the gable. Faster and a better job. All of the replacement pieces were prepped with Jotun Visir. The joints mitred and bevelled to run downhill and towards the slates. Joints were glued with foaming glue to try to exclude water. It all got about 5 coats of Demidekk and finally the rear half of one of the 4 gables was back in service, a whole 12.5% of the job...
At this point I should mention the dirty secret of the first replacement done for me. The guy had decided that he should "waterproof" the structure. To this end he filled the gap behind the fascias with expanding foam before attaching the slate boards and then put a massive bead of roofing mastic down the edge between the slates and the board. I'm sure he was happy with his handiwork but this is probably one of the reasons for the accelerated demise of the whole lot as all the foam did was create pockets for water to pool in. Digging all of this out and freeing up the slates has been a large part of the job. Now there will be air circulation under the slate boards and out the gaps in the soffits so the structure should stay approximately dry. I don't think this is the only reason for it failing, the half-hearted paint job with dulux gloss, the badly fitting joints but mainly the use of modern redwood pine share the blame.
Whilst I was up there I decided to paint along the rear eaves. The weather was still good so I could take down the gutters and do it properly and I could roll the twin towers along the back of the house as I went, easy peasy. The rear fascias and soffits are more than likely original to the house. They have all the same layers of paint that the original windows do and the wood is in absolutely perfect condition after 160 years. Quite a stark contrast against the modern stuff that failed after less than 10 years. The dulux gloss wasn't faring too well either coming off in large blisters so it all got a very thorough sand and clean up.
The rear eaves fascias also have a corner bead detail on the bottom edge. I had to repair a short section at the gable end of the eaves and was able to cut in a matching bead so it all looks original. The fascia on the rear gable has the same detail as well as a large coved moulding at the top where the slate board attaches. The slate board itself also has a shallow chamfer along it, maybe to encourage water to run off rather than down it. All of this detail has been lost from all the other gables that are just made of plain square edged boards, I hope to do it "properly" when I tackle the North gable but for now I will reconstruct the south with plain boards. Suggestions on how to make a 1-1/2" radius cove on a router table solicited.
Working along the back of the house I reached the back corner where the kitchen sticks out (building is roughly L-shaped). This corner has always been a bit dark and dank and has never had any TLC so I found plenty of things that needed doing there. Quite a few slates need refixed or replaced, particularly the back part of the roof. Building up the tower to above eaves level made it easy to transfer onto a roof ladder. The soil/vent pipe (the only remaining cast iron one) got a good rub down and coats of Hammerite and a new weather slate where it penetrates the eaves. The stair window had recently been refurbished so I finished off the exterior with burnt sand mastic which made the kitchen window look a bit tatty (its overdue for decoration) so that got prepped and painted. And the little cloakroom window got the outer half of its sill replaced and a bit of paint. What with the new (to us) french doors in the back room this facade is starting to look very presentable.
In this back corner a short section of soffit/fascias had obviously been replaced. Whoever did this had at least tried to recreate the bead but it was a) too small a radius and b) a separate planted on piece that was now separating. They'd also obviously run out of brain power to work out how the two eaves should meet into the corner which was complicated by the fact that one section is about 4" lower than the other. So they just left the lower soffits sort of over-hanging in thin air behind the soil stack with some nylon mesh stuffed into the open end. More complicated templating ensued to get the two to meet in the correct upside down pyramid shape. I remade the fascia section with the correct bead and ran some CAT cable up to the loft for a security camera. 19th Century meets 21st...
So thats roughly where I'm up to and I'm now starting to look more closely at the front corner again which, shock, horror, is shaping up to be much worse than expected. I will dig out pictures and add.
Fast forward a few years and whilst there was scaffold up at the front gable for repointing I thought I'd nip up and give the fascias a cheeky coat of paint, only to find that the bottom edge in many places was soft and soggy and the slate boards (the bit that sits at right angles on top of the fascia and overlaps the edge of the slates) were in a similar state. Cue a large amount of replacement prior to a round of repainting.
Now, both of these gables meet at essentially a point on the corner of the house. There is a valley gutter that runs into the corner and an outlet exits through the soffit connecting to a swan-neck. Or rather, that's how it should work, but for most of the time I've lived here water has been almost constantly dripping off the corner. Front gable reconstruction activities stopped a little bit short of this corner whilst options for improvement were considered. And so it sat for a few more years with me promising myself each summer I would sort it out whilst periodically visiting to unblock the valley gutter,
In the intervening time part of the new soffit at the back of the south gable decided to detached itself and the North gable started its progress towards ground level as the south had before it. More recently the rear gable has decided to get in on the act. This was starting to become a bit more urgent.
A large part of the procrastination was the access. I did have a couple of tiers of quickstage at the front corner donated by a builder friend but it was awkward to work off of and would not be the easiest to reposition taking super-human strength to erect and dismantle. I also had a "DIY" steel tower borrowed from another friend which used to reach the top of the gable until it got blown over in a storm (woken at 7am to the sound of a giant xylophone falling down a flight of stairs). After that experience when re-assembled with the least bent sections it no longer reached the top of the gable... A proper Boss ally tower appeared on gumtree so I jumped on it. The seller then offered me a second identical one which I also jumped on. A delight to put up and work off of and with a bit of caution can be wheeled into a new position without fully taking it down. Best purchase ever! With a combination of a 4m Boss tower, the old steel tower and an 8m boss tower I could work across an entire gable slope with relative ease. All towers were tied in to the building at regular intervals having learned that lesson.
I immediately set about the gap in the soffit at the back, nice easy starterm should be a quick one. And, surprise surprise, it was worse than it looked. The soffits had been made from soft pine floorboards and the tongue and grooves had no protection. A lot of it was actually still serviceable but I needed to cut away more of it before repairing the gap. There was also a massive amount of templating at the bottom where it turned the corner to go around the eaves at the back of the house, those pieces for some reason also missing. The big problem turned out to be the fascias which again had soggy bits at intervals and the slate boards weren't doing too well either. I wasted a lot of time cutting bits out and templating repairs to fit so as not to use up too much material only to find more sogginess a bit further along. This was going to take forever without more decisive action.
I spotted some rough sawn larch boards on Marketplace for a song so I picked up a trailer load and planed and ripped them down to size. Time-consuming but a very cheap way to get decent timber. The slate boards and much of the fascia went in the skip (also the trailer) and I replaced the full length along the back half of the gable. Faster and a better job. All of the replacement pieces were prepped with Jotun Visir. The joints mitred and bevelled to run downhill and towards the slates. Joints were glued with foaming glue to try to exclude water. It all got about 5 coats of Demidekk and finally the rear half of one of the 4 gables was back in service, a whole 12.5% of the job...
At this point I should mention the dirty secret of the first replacement done for me. The guy had decided that he should "waterproof" the structure. To this end he filled the gap behind the fascias with expanding foam before attaching the slate boards and then put a massive bead of roofing mastic down the edge between the slates and the board. I'm sure he was happy with his handiwork but this is probably one of the reasons for the accelerated demise of the whole lot as all the foam did was create pockets for water to pool in. Digging all of this out and freeing up the slates has been a large part of the job. Now there will be air circulation under the slate boards and out the gaps in the soffits so the structure should stay approximately dry. I don't think this is the only reason for it failing, the half-hearted paint job with dulux gloss, the badly fitting joints but mainly the use of modern redwood pine share the blame.
Whilst I was up there I decided to paint along the rear eaves. The weather was still good so I could take down the gutters and do it properly and I could roll the twin towers along the back of the house as I went, easy peasy. The rear fascias and soffits are more than likely original to the house. They have all the same layers of paint that the original windows do and the wood is in absolutely perfect condition after 160 years. Quite a stark contrast against the modern stuff that failed after less than 10 years. The dulux gloss wasn't faring too well either coming off in large blisters so it all got a very thorough sand and clean up.
The rear eaves fascias also have a corner bead detail on the bottom edge. I had to repair a short section at the gable end of the eaves and was able to cut in a matching bead so it all looks original. The fascia on the rear gable has the same detail as well as a large coved moulding at the top where the slate board attaches. The slate board itself also has a shallow chamfer along it, maybe to encourage water to run off rather than down it. All of this detail has been lost from all the other gables that are just made of plain square edged boards, I hope to do it "properly" when I tackle the North gable but for now I will reconstruct the south with plain boards. Suggestions on how to make a 1-1/2" radius cove on a router table solicited.
Working along the back of the house I reached the back corner where the kitchen sticks out (building is roughly L-shaped). This corner has always been a bit dark and dank and has never had any TLC so I found plenty of things that needed doing there. Quite a few slates need refixed or replaced, particularly the back part of the roof. Building up the tower to above eaves level made it easy to transfer onto a roof ladder. The soil/vent pipe (the only remaining cast iron one) got a good rub down and coats of Hammerite and a new weather slate where it penetrates the eaves. The stair window had recently been refurbished so I finished off the exterior with burnt sand mastic which made the kitchen window look a bit tatty (its overdue for decoration) so that got prepped and painted. And the little cloakroom window got the outer half of its sill replaced and a bit of paint. What with the new (to us) french doors in the back room this facade is starting to look very presentable.
In this back corner a short section of soffit/fascias had obviously been replaced. Whoever did this had at least tried to recreate the bead but it was a) too small a radius and b) a separate planted on piece that was now separating. They'd also obviously run out of brain power to work out how the two eaves should meet into the corner which was complicated by the fact that one section is about 4" lower than the other. So they just left the lower soffits sort of over-hanging in thin air behind the soil stack with some nylon mesh stuffed into the open end. More complicated templating ensued to get the two to meet in the correct upside down pyramid shape. I remade the fascia section with the correct bead and ran some CAT cable up to the loft for a security camera. 19th Century meets 21st...
So thats roughly where I'm up to and I'm now starting to look more closely at the front corner again which, shock, horror, is shaping up to be much worse than expected. I will dig out pictures and add.
