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Picking up Speed

Picking up Speed

Things are starting to move forward. Well at least from our side!
Now that we have the okay to buy the second building, we've been able to take the probing to a slightly different level! There were areas in the building that we needed to see, behind wooden ceilings, brick or plasterboard walls, and cutting a small hole in a wall or ceiling just wasn't enough.
We're now removing walls and ceilings, instead of making small holes in them! And having a lot of fun doing it.
This, of course, makes it a lot easier to see what we need to see, to be able to plan for what needs to be done, but it also shows us some things that we would have preferred not to have seen. 
The one that we already knew about was the chance of asbestos in the buildings. With buildings of this age, it's to be expected and we'll get it checked out.
What we hadn't expected was the level of workmanship from one of the previous renovations in the new building. Crumbling walls have been hidden behind sheets of chipboard. Floorboards have been replaced with chipboard. Large holes have been drilled through, and channels hacked into the original beams, with no concern about the structural strength. New floor beams have been added to support the chipboard floors, but these beams are connected to planks of wood that are crumbling due to age and woodworm. Then all of it was hidden behind, yes that's right, sheets of chipboard. There has been extensive use of chipboard!
In short, the work that was carried out was done badly and cheaply, it was done to mask, rather than renovate and essentially damaged more than it repaired.
On the plus side, we're having a lot of fun removing lots of chipboard and a few other things.
Last weekend we got to remove a wall. It was a wall that was in the way for our plans, one that was crumbling and held up with chipboard (who would have guessed), but one the Denkmalpflege have been umming and ahhing about. When we took a closer look at it we discovered that the entire wall had water damage. A leak in the shower upstairs had been slowly destroying the wall and the beams above it. This was the deciding factor, but when we finally had the okay to remove it, we still took it away very quickly and before anyone changed their mind.

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