New Floors (2)

Some more pictures this morning of the impressive transformation of the house last week, when all the upstairs floors were ripped out and replaced with new. First up a shot of Dad raking out the old joist pockets. The joists had originally been levelled and set up on strips of soft wood which was sitting on top of a course of blocks, like a wall-plate. These, like most of the wood in this house, had long since rotted or been eaten up by the woodworm and reduced to peat-like fluff. This had to all be raked out and the new joists would be set up sitting on little stacks of pieces of slate which pretty much lasts for ever and does not crumble to softness (at least when its out of the frost, anyway.

2nd is a picture of the new joists just because we liked the effect the light made slanting down through the gaps. 3rd is the stack of kindling which came from sawing through all the upstairs floor boards between every joist. Facebook friends have likened it to a book case and you can see why, though Mum claims that none of her bookcases are as untidy as that! Finally a picture of Dad using the powerful nail-gun to nail down the main bedroom floor boards.

This weapon can fire a 3 or 4 inch nail right down into solid wood in one hit. Here we are using 3 inch nails and we have the power backed off a bit so that the nail heads don't slam down right through the floorboards, splintering the timber. We nail every board twice at each joist, which is quite a lot of nailing and we are thankful that we are not having to do it all with a hammer. The 'report' of the gun is very loud, so ear defenders are worn. By the time you have brand new joists, lots of cross bracing bits to stop any whip, and then tongue and groove boards fixed down everywhere you end up with a very solid structure which barely bounces when you walk or jump on it. Bit of a change from the house last week then!

Deefs