My workshop studio rebuild and make over

As folk here may have noticed modeling projects on my workbench have somewhat stalled recently, this is because it became necessary to undertake some vital repairs to my studio workshop, this work was started earlier in the year and is still ongoing. Basically we had some water ingress through a poorly designed roof in which the tile overhang to the walls was virtually non existant, this fault over time allowed rain to pass under the verge tiles and down into the wall via the cavity where it collected and formed damp areas on the floor. Initially these went un noticed until the brickwork in the corners started to spawl from winter frost damage... the decision was to change the roof design into something more asthetic looking.

The first work done saw the replacement of the wooden end doors with new uPVC French doors with side window and a new uPVC side access door... that was completed last year and I held back on renewing the long side window unit because we felt we might want to enlarge it at a later date. It can be clearly seen in the lower right corner of the building how the bricks have spawled due to frost / static water damage.



So in Febuary this year the roof was totally renewed creating a nice canopy overhang made to a traditional goods shed type design. A stone slabbed area under the canopy will be laid next year.




There will be a timber planked painted under-drawing installed inside the canopy later on ... its all a matter of time and priorities.



One further job we did was to renew the oil storage tank and move it to a new position, this involved supporting one end of the near empty tank on a temporary frame then demolishing a concrete support leg which was in the way of where a new concrete base had to be cast... the team Alan the Brickie, Plastic Pete and myself did this job one Saturday morning. The base took one and a quarter tons of agregate sand mix and six bags of cement in the pour. The new bunded tank position now allows room for a future studio workshop extension to be built.

 

So now bringing things up to date work turned to the inside where the floor covering and skirting boards had to be ripped out due to rot and static moisture collection where damp had permiated in through the walls particulaly near the spalled brick corners. On exposing the concrete floor I noticed that the DPCM strip had been inserted one course of brick higher than the concrete floor. and that there was no moisture membrane between the DPCM and the ground Visqueen sheeting protecting the floor.. this had over time allowed moisture to ingress causing the wooden skirting boards to rot... clearly the original builder or person lacked the necessary construction skills and understanding. To remedy this I removed all the plaster and loose masonary around the floor to a height of 200mm and allowed air to evaporate the static moisture and dampness, next job was to coat two layers of a product called IKO Proof which is a flexible spirit based water repelent polymer creating a sealed envelope between the exposed internal DPCM and down onto the concrete floor. We are only talking about low levels of damp here and since this work was done there has been a considerable increase in dryness interally so much so that I can now look towards remaking the wall damage and laying in a new ceramic tile floor.

This picture shows the residual static damp in the corners after removal of all failed material and how the plaster has "blown" off the walls through moisture rising.




Here was the original substandard building work which created the damp issue... the DPCM can be seen but there is not continuation of the moisture membrane down into the concrete floor creating a barrier against damp.




And here is how dampness can damage a building if left unchecked... thankfully now this issue is resolved and I have a clean dry substrate again.

 

Finally for now after two coats of the IKO syntherproof application which has cured the walls can be made good again and the tile floor laid.The unaffected area of the concrete floor has been coated with Benfer Prim solution which allows the Mapei tile adhesive to grab the floor and also acts as a binder for the concrete surface.

This picture shows where the long window depth can be lowered to make the same level as the small end window against the bottom end French doors, also some of the ceiling spars will be removed to increase the sense of height and allow for new LED lighting ... I'll bring in an electrician for a new install before final replastering and decoration. This job requires a Part P certificationin order to meet Building regs. If the forum is wondering where all the Leek station models and loco bench builds are don't worry they are all tucked up away safely in the house until modelling can resume.

 

Best for a studio would be Network Rail white colour...

 

oh dear... lets leave that one for the model buildings

 

The budget doesn't stretch to a constant supply of candles... so we will have to make do with an occasional yellowishness.