Day 1971: Not to diss-a-point

The Great Wall of Surbiton is nearly complete .. just some finishing touches such as capping off the chimneys and lots and lots of pointing. 

A good view of the floor steel joist at the front. They needed to 'tooth' these bricks in to the chimney.

And the finished product. 

A good perspective of the pointing. This is a very meticulous and labour intensive process. But it looks great. 

A great view of the finished wall. The white bits are efflorescence - salts in the brick that escape when exposed to moisture - they will eventually wash away. 

A view from the back .. just loving the little platforms that they guys make for themselves. This one was to cap off the rear chimney.

Another view of the parapet wall brickwork (and platform) 

It took well over a month to build but the walls are finally complete. We're happy that we went this route vs the typical tiling. 

Day 1957: The wall in-between

With the wall nearly complete on the right of the house, it was time to look to the other side and build up the parapet (party) wall. The guys at MTL wanted to build this is brick as well which will look nicer and if our neighbours ever want to build into their loft, should make the work a bit easier than if we tiled / rendered. I've read about issues where dormers were built too close and left no room for maintenance. And the beauty of brick is that it doesn't need any maintenance. 

Here was the starting place. The top of the brick was the height of the original roof at the back. 

What I found most impressive about this work was how the guys built little platforms for themselves. I had no idea how they would do the outside but they managed to string something together which looks to be quite secure. 

The old bricks were taken back and staggered (toothed) to accommodate the new ones. You can see the double skin of the original in the photo below. 

A view from down the street. The wall again will be cement blocked on the inside and bricked on the outside to match the original. You can also get a feel for the additional height we've gained from the dormer. 

And a view from the inside. A bit like a jigsaw puzzle with the combination of bricks and blocks but it looks solid. This will be all covered by plasterboard so the inside handywork will never be seen again.

Next week the guys will come by to finish the second, outer skin of brick (the parts that people will see

Day 1952: The wall continues

This week was all about the wall. The sun was shining, Cyndi Lauper was blaring and the guys were singing (just maybe not at the same time). I've gained some appreciation for bricklaying - it's a long meticulous process. But so glad we decided to do it. 

The guys at MTL had to order 1000 more bricks ... guessing that means they have already gone through 1000+ .. crazy. 

Here is the wall about 3/4 done. Really neat how they built a platform up as they went.

You can also see the formerly leaning stack of Surbiton (see here) in it's new glory. There is a story on this but will save that for another post when I run out of things to write about. 

A close-up showing how the bricks follow the front pitched roofline. 

As these are reclaimed bricks, each one is unique and has a story. Some have been used more than once and many are bowed and slightly varied in sizes. What's great is the character they have. The guys will point and stain some of the more yellow ones to better blend in later on.

And the final wall from the front with the roof battens bedded in. You can see another mini-platform that the guys built to reach the top. Check out the blue skies!

Another view of the finished chimney .. not from an angle I'd be talking. I'm dizzy just looking at it. From here you can see the additional height of the chimney vs. our neighbours.

And's here's how it looked from the inside. The concrete blocks are more structural and will be hidden under plasterboard (dot and dab) so it's function over form here. 

And lastly the fished wall going all the way to the top. The support is holding up the steel joist at the moment but this will be removed to rest on the concrete block wall at some point. 

With the wall in place, the space is feeling more and more like a room. Exciting!

Next week they'll start on the other side.

Day 1945: Another Great Wall

Throughout history, many iconic walls have been erected which serve as a testament to the might and engineering capability of the civilisations that built them. 

The Great Wall of China (Qin's Wall, c. 221 BC)

The Great Wall of Scotland (Hadrian's Wall, c. 122 AD)

The Great Wall of Mexico (Trump's Wall, c.2017) 

Well .. now we're adding another landmark to this list ....

The Great Wall of Surbiton (Hare's Wall, c.2021)

Ok, it's not quite finished but it will be equally as spectacular as the walls that came before it. 

Now that the weather returned back to normal - cloudy and rainy but above zero - the brickies could get to work on the gable wall. The intent here was to make a new wall look like a 120 year old wall so it wouldn't be too obvious. The solution was to use reclaimed bricks taken from some unfortunate building or perhaps a not-so-great wall. The colour of bricks here are know as London Yellow Stock. They are common on many properties in the area and typically go on the side of buildings - the pretty facing bricks go on the front. 

A little about blockwork before showing the details. There are multiple different styles of brick courses the most popular shown in the photo below. 

The stretcher bond is the most basic that people will recognise and works well on a single row ("skin") brick wall. It has good vertical strength but not lateral and isn't typically used on house walls. 

The next 2 types are for double skin solid walls where the bricks are alternated length and width wise so that the two skins are physically connected and offering strength vertically and horizontally. The choice here is just a matter of taste. The Flemish Bond has a similar cousin the Surrey Bond which coincidently was used on our house. 

Below is an example of the Flemish Bond being used on our wall. Now building regs call for a cavity wall - air gap between the skins - so the alternating bricks can't be laid lengthwise and were instead chopped in half. 

The inner skin won't be visible on the inside or outside so the guys used cement blocks. Denser, bigger and less fiddly. The two skins are held together with metal ties that go into the mortar. These are placed throughout to keep everything solid. 

And the Leaning Stack of Surbiton is no longer leaning - we decided to rebuild this from the base. It also needed to be raised to meet building regs. Unfortunately, we'll also require a new longer stainless steel chimney lining (queue sound of money going down drain)

But on the bright side, the bricks look great. Most match, some don't. But the guys are going to go over with a stain to blend everything in a bit better. The unevenness of the bricks is intentional and provides some of the character - it will look great when it's fully pointed. 

And rest assured, while the bricks themselves aren't perfectly even, the wall is perfectly level as the guys are following a brick line across. 

There you go. The making of the Great Wall of Surbiton. Hopefully it be just as iconic and will last as long as some of it's predecessors. Just hoping it doesn't take as long to build.

Day 1934: A couple of bricks short of a wall

This post was going to be about the great brick wall of Suburbiton .. or something to do with Pink Floyd. Emphasis here was on 'wall' ...

The bricks were delivered on Friday, ready for the brickies to do their magic this week. The weather was great - blue skies and about 13 deg C.

They are new yellow bricks with an aged face to match the existing. After 120 years of exposure to just about everything the weather had to throw against it - not an easy task. I must admit however, MTL did a really good job finding a very close match. Looking forward to seeing how it looks when it goes up. 

A good start, but unfortunately you can probably gather from the opening, things didn't go as intended. As luck would have it, London got hit with ...

What better way to build on record rainfall, a once in a decade snowfall than by adding a twice in a decade cold snap. Why did we decide to start a loft conversion in January again?!!!

Our friends in Canada may be laughing and saying "That's not cold!" .. but to that I respond "It is when you don't have a roof!"

Anyway, as you really can't lay bricks when the weather is below c. 2 degrees C due to freezing/expansion, our beautiful wall will have to wait another week for this cold snap to blow over. Lots more time to think of something creative to write about it I guess ...