1930s Semi Refurb - Part 5 of ... (Edition: 'Dining' Room)

[dlockers]

Hi folks, spent the day trying to make progress on the "dining room" (was the living room I think). After considering lots of other jobs I could be doing, I have decided this is the best place to start... I've cleared it out to the outbuilding, so just my desk and a few other bits in here now.



The main objective was to be able to sort the pipework out for the new column rad I ordered. And then sort out wiring for new plugs. However rolling back soon became a pain, and self-evident I needed to just lift the lot...





Sacrilege to consider cutting these boards as they are uncut 4m boards for the most part, however enough of the floor is patched to make me not feel too guilty.


^ No wonder the telephone didn't work (I jest).


^ Revealed the "original?" hearth.


^ Liveable


^ This is the hallway that has the pipework that feeds the dining room. The retrofit of heating must have been done in the early 1990s. A decision was made to run the pipework on the skirting, annoyingly. It comes down from the roof at this point so I lifted the relatively "new" carpet and discovered the original parquet hall floor. Not worth saving I don't think, but kind of nice.

The plan is to take the 22mm (not visible) into the floor and run it to the dining room rad, and spur off for a new hallway rad, and also plumb in the living room rad.



^ Cross post from networking but this is the rough idea. I've also got some insulation coming from a dodgy bloke on the internet (£42/unit for 2.4m x 1.2m celotax/kingspan).

Watch this space...

 

[dlockers]

@dLockers

Coming along nicely mate Lotsa work

See I think that floor is absolutely worth saving, get it sanded and then protected/stained

For ya surface mounted pipe shenanigans... https://www.manomano.co.uk/cat/skirting+board+pipe+covers ?
Or similar, the other option ...

The 2 walls beside the chair / high cup are they stud walls?
I mean I don't know the entire layout but have you looked at running the pipes that go up/down between floors inside the wall?
Smashing a plasterboard wall down and running a few pipes pipe thru the noggins would be **** easy

If you can cleanly get a few of the boards up in the dining room you might be able to crawl under the floor space under the hall, which would be awesome.
That would mean you could fastcut 2 holes for the tails of the rad and run the pipework under the floor, speedfit ftw.

Cheers fella - yes, am starting to feel the work on my brain and body now!

The floor is nice but unfortunately it needs enough work to make it proper than the design intent (hard wood herringbone pattern, throughout living + dining and hall - potentially even the kitchen).

No stud walls - all solid. Like you said though, crawl space isn't enough for a human but plenty to feed the pipes through. The idea of taking up the carpets was to make it an easy job for the plumber who is coming for 5 days to rip out and relocate the boiler, water tank, and hide various pipes under the floor for me. I'm hoping I can chat him up and get him to do this job at the same time!

That floor in the hallway is a lovely feature

You can get specialist companies to come in and restore it.

They must have loved it in the 1930’s a lot of houses have the same style

Yeah you'd think so but pretty sure it was a later addition. It is just 10mm parquet AFAIK.

DVD drive…really?

On a serious note are you thinking knock through to the kitchen? When I had a house almost identical to yours the kitchen was tiny. I didn’t knock through but I moved the kitchen into the front room instead. It was magnificent!

Haha funny you mention that. I lost the blanking plate years ago so the drive just sits there unplugged in. The wife discovered 5 childhood DVD home movies of hers the other day though, so providing it works - I'll be chuffed!

Long-term the plan is to do a rear extension, or side return extension. With interest rates like they are though, that's 5+ years. I'm not actually a fan of open plan kitchen/diners as I like the living/dining space. The kitchen is then like a "working" kitchen.

to match the vitage Parquet

---

Lifted the carpet and cleaned off the floor today. Also took down the cabinet, ready for the vertical rad to go onto that wall by the window (RHS).

 

[dlockers]

Folks,

I have a lead on £42/sheet delivered for 2.4x1.2 100mm Manok board. Is that decent? It all looks pretty much the same tbh.

 

[dlockers]

Where is your TV going in this layout (and what size is it)?

Probably in the "Little Cup High Shelves" alcove. Tbh on reflection I'll probably just run an aerial to that alcove versus the others.

I'm not a big TV binger so it's just a 43" with space for maybe a 46.....50 at a total stretch. I don't really want the TV to be a "feature". I put it on a bracket a while back which works OK:


Edit: hard to see but there is a SONOS mounted beneath the TV too. The Dell is a media server/cum VLC machine which needs to be hidden in the understairs cupboard with a massive HDMI.

 

[dlockers]

Nearly all PIR board is identical from the big manufacturers with a TC of 0.022w/mk, the only one being slightly better is Kingspan Kooltherm but that carries a fairly hefty premium. So yes, Mannok is on a par with Celotex.

Cheers Orifice.

Would you know if thickness being the "max possible" is wise or should I leave a gap beneath the floorboards?

My joists are 100mm but some 75mm insulation has just popped up.

 

[dlockers]

Take it flush with the top of the floor joists and put some aluminium tape across the joists/joins to seal any air gaps.

You can fit some 25mm batten at the bottom of your 100mm joists to take the 75mm insulation boards.

Is the performance of 100mm better than 75mm? (obviously yes, but meaningfully?)

 

[dlockers]

It would be sacrilege not to restore that floor imo.

The hall? Possibly - I was thinking of leaving my own mark on the house though, by way of a full matching hardwood floor throughout hall, dining, living and potentially even the kitchen.

 

[dlockers]

Go again @roccles , not sure what post came through correctly?

 

[dlockers]

Bit of progress today. The plumber is definitely booked for Monday 8am... I was hoping to have cleared the floor boards so that they could do all of the rads. Unfortunately progress is pretty slow...


Whipped out the track saw:


First three were different and must have come up at some point. Unclear why!



Got almost the full length up. Plumber can now sink the pipes underneath and fit the new rad.



Unfortunately there is a solid wall between the dining room (pictured) and the hall, which I ran out of time to try and attack... the plan is a 22mm drop feeds this dining rad, and then a vertical rad will go on a "close but not that close" wall nearby...

 

[dlockers]

Good work.
Did you get the track saw for this or did you already have it? Could do with one of those.
What type of column radiator are you having fitted?
We’ve got a traditional style column being fitted in one of the alcoves of our dining room on Friday.

My brother has quite the DeWalt collection so he has brought it down for me. It is an awesome bit of kit.

I went with Acova as I fitted one for my mum 15 years ago and it still looks great.

 

[dlockers]

Looking good.

Are you running in all electrics, insulation and the like with the floor up?

I'll be doing the same soon with a turn of the 20th century floor with lathe & plaster walls for electrics and making the floor good....Got the depth cut track saw and all, but am not looking forward to it one bit.

Priority right now is to convince the plumbers that hiding the pipework was part of the quote

But yeah I've got all of my gear including a socket sinking tool, wire, insulation - I may try and have a weekend off as I'm pretty battered as it stands right now.

 

[dlockers]

I'm not actually clear what my walls are yet - plaster on brick seems to be the theme so far! In which case I'll be getting the masonry bit out and drilling a thousand holes.

There are definitely some sockets sunk into the wall so fingers crossed.

 

[dlockers]

Aren’t there risks involved with insulating under the floor boards as the house is designed to breath. E.g Wood rot? I read this previously so haven’t insulated under the floor. (Also a 1930s property).

It's a floating floor with air bricks front and back so I don't see why it would cause an issue.

 

[dlockers]

Coming in late and catching up. I'd be looking at how you use the spaces and if you have people round etc. I know when I have people over it's often people are in the kitchen and that, so with the kitchen and dining room detached from each other I personally would have the lounge at the front of the house, knock down the wall between the kitchen and dining room and open up to have a kitchen dining room with a big island between the two. As your kitchen is 1930s style and long, it would make it so much more open. I'd probably eventually remove the window in the dining room for some big double doors to have a nice flow into the back garden for nice summer days.

I know I'm far too late for this just think it would make the space so much more open and flow between usable zones of activity.

It's a source of much debate! As costs have gone up exponentially and I'm mortgaged up to the eyeballs it may not be realistic to do plan A which was to build an entirely new kitchen diner much like what you can see the neighbors on the left have. The current kitchen would then be split into a study/utiliry.

That makes any other ideas a bit of a compromise -- and how much were willing to pay for that compromise.

The cheapest solution I've engineered is extending the kitchen into the utility, bricking up that back door for a nice window, and then being content with the layout till a point that a proper extension/another house move is possible.

I'm not a fan of the kitchen diner with the floor plan as it currently stands as it feels like an even more expensive compromise.

 

[dlockers]

Right chaps!

Getting a bit sick and tired of living/working in the building site, so I need to get a move on. The sparky is booked for 28th March, so that'll see consumer unit and porch outdoor sockets fitted.

I plan to lift the rest of the boards in the dining room and clear out the builders mess underneath, PIR, and then board over.

I am thinking I can over board each room at a time in 5.5mm ply --- just to help with the draught sealing around the edges, but also give me a smooth surface to cast off of for the floor that goes on top (potentially LVT or something - who knows - am totally skint now ).

Any thoughts?

Non-Structural Hardwood Plywood Sheet - 5.5 x 1220 x 2440mm | Wickes.co.uk

Non-Structural Hardwood Plywood Sheet - 5.5 x 1220 x 2440mm

www.wickes.co.uk

 

[dlockers]

Whats it like living in a construction site?

The last time i experienced living in one i was like 13 years old when my parents bought a completely derelict place . Literally there was a hole on the floor from the top floor all the way down lol.

I have not moved into my place yet but close to getting at least two rooms liveable (gosh i need to do a update on my build log thread too!)

Haha, I don't mind it too much tbh. But I am imagining what a weekend would be like without this enormous list of jobs...

Best of luck - keen to see how you've progressed!

 

[dlockers]

@dLockers have you done anything about internal airbricks?

How do you mean?

There is one in the hall that is almost skirting board height which I'll fit a venting kit to. The others I have just vacuumed out.

 

[dlockers]

Yeah I wondered if you kept them, given the need to insulate. It's something I need to consider in mine.

I'm not 100% following --- you need air bricks to ventilate the under floor.

 

[dlockers]

I meant the ones (if any) within the rooms themselves. I get a real draft through some of mine, so how do you square the need to ventilate with the need to insulate?

Ah I think I understand. I don't have any vents in the room itself. All the airbricks just go to the underfloor. The only one that is an issue is the hallway vent is a bit high, so I'll put a 45 degree angled piece of PIR and a vent extender to get it right under the floor.

I was then advised to basically seal the floor to the walls to stop any draughts.

 

[dlockers]

I have air bricks high up the walls in all three upstairs bedrooms, and several airbricks behind the cupboards in the kitchen. Can feel the draft flowing from under the cupboards in the kitchen when it's cold.

The bedroom ones aren't too bad, but i was thinking of blocking up the kitchen ones when I redo it. But will I create mould behind the cupboards with no ventilation?

Ahhhhhh I know what you mean now. My moms house (~1960s-1970s?) has those air bricks too. There is a vent in my brothers room and one in the kitchen. I'm not sure tbh. We fitted an extractor fan in the kitchen one, and my brother just put a stainless cover on his like what you see on chimneys that are blocked up.