With the foundations dug, a couple of courses of reclaimed brick laid and a limecrete slab poured, we arrived at the stage of constructing some walls. The majority of these are made from reclaimed timber, which will then be filled with insulation and clad. The external finish of the walls will be a mixture of reclaimed brick, lime render and reclaimed timber cladding.
Reclaimed Timber
There are millions of tons of usable timber chipped, burnt, or thrown into landfill every year. We have not selected our timber for any aesthetic reason, although I do think what we have done looks good enough to have left it as an exposed frame, it is going to be covered up. We are using reclaimed timber because we can, and we think that we should. We also believe this type of construction should be used more often and hope to show how easy and successful it can be. The reason more reclaimed timber is not reused for cabinet making and joinery is that it contains nails, has the odd split, holes, and notches, but where it is not seen these do not matter. As the builder commented, ‘pre-drilled for the electrician’.
The first wall to be fabricated was along our boundary with the neighbour. We obviously wanted to get this up as quickly as possible in order to contain the site. We made this frame from some Victorian joists that I had purchased from a demolition in the Midlands. There were 110 three metre lengths of 7 x 2 inch boards, originally the floor joists in a Victorian property, and these were repurposed to make the timber frame which went up inside two days, the carpenter commented that he would never have got such a straight, true wall using new wood.
The timber that we are buying in for this house is costing approximately 30% less than new timber. There is a little more to be paid out in labour charges than if we were utilising new wood, in processing it, but since we are just cutting off any nails that are actually in the way, this is not a large cost. There is a small amount of wastage with split and damaged boards and we will treat it before covering it all up, which is a small extra expense, but I still believe that we are going to make a small saving over using new wood.
When the engineer was asked how we could guarantee the strength and integrity of each beam, he replied ‘well you just look at it’. This was the common sense answer that I needed to hear, and with visual inspection and slightly oversizing the frame we are very confident in the longevity and integrity of our timber frame.
Reclaimed Steel
There are many items that we all are very used to recycling; glass bottles, for example, have been broken in bottle banks and then re-manufactured for reuse since the late 1970s. Metal is another material that is widely recycled, melted down, and utilised in new construction. However, a milk bottle that is cleaned and reused is an obvious example of reducing waste and energy consumption, and so it should be with steel beams.
When aspiring to construct a truly reclaimed building, we decided that we should use old steel beams and columns within the building. The construction, itself, does not require a large amount of steel, but because we are adapting an existing steel building, we are using steel beams to support the second story and a flat roof extension.
Luckily, up the road from us in Hingham, there is a large established firm that makes steel framed farm buildings and had manufactured our original structure. I approached the Managing Director about purchasing some of their reclaimed stock. After a bit of persuasion, we managed to get someone to look at our specifications and see what was lying about in their yard. In an enormous muddy field, there are hundreds of sections of steel, that have been removed from existing buildings when alterations and the like have taken place. They are reused when temporary bracing is required or shoring up of old structures.
Our engineer was very happy to use the reclaimed steel, but it did mean that we had to be quite flexible with sizes. Some of our beams are now way oversized to that which was required - the only complaints coming from those with the task of lifting them into place.
I visited the yard to approve each beam and we decided to use some large round columns, rather than those drawn, for our balcony supports, which I think will look great. The biggest surprise was the difference in price between new steel and our reclaimed. One new beam (for which we failed to find an alternative) costing nearly as much as all the other beams together. We paid a little above scrap prices for the material and then we paid for the steel to be altered, with new lugs for fixing, and re-sprayed.
My honest conclusion to this part of our project is to question why more people are not doing it and using reclaimed steel.
Reclaimed Brick
Everyone knows about the reuse of the humble brick. Commonly reclaimed and used for extensions and alterations where buildings are required to blend seamlessly into their locations. However, they can prove an expensive choice. We are using them quite sparingly on our building, but they are forming a striking front wall, which will be seen from the street and incorporates our antique Georgian entranceway with half round fanlight. A homage to the finer examples of Georgian portico to be found in Hingham. I have bought 6000 bricks from the demolition of an old barn nearby. Norfolk bricks are quite soft and vary enormously from one part of the county to another so it can be very important to source the right brick.
We pay roughly £1 a brick from site, but due to the soft and crumbly nature of our local bricks we shall allow for a degree of wastage. The front wall, which is laid using Flemish bond, is going to be an important and striking feature to the building. The whole building is to be a mix of these bricks, some reclaimed Douglas Fir cladding, mainly on the existing steel construction, and coloured lime render for the side extensions.
Next we shall be tackling the roof, the Victorian Orangery and the interiors. To be continued.
Story Type: Columnist
