In goes a beam....

I have been a bit worried about the old kitchen chimney since we removed the fire hood, so we have a nice little concrete beam to put in to support the roof and chimney. We cast the beam a month ago so that it would have time to obtain it’s strength. and now with Dan here we can try and get it in place.

So with a hammer and chisel I started to cut the holes in the wall to take the beam, as the roof slopes one was much larger then the other. But very shortly (and with Dan helping from the outside) we had two very nice holes.

First hole on the inside

And on the outside

 

And the smaller one on the other side of the room

Now with the holes in place we had to get the beam in the holes…. The first idea I had was to bring the beam in through the kitchen door and up and into the holes. but as the beam was up on the car park, the through suddenly hit me .. Why lug it all the way down and then strain lifting it up. it was much simpler to just put it through the first hole from the out side. Which is what we did. I will not say it was a simple job but with the three of us it was not long before it was in place .

Look a beam….

I had planed to put a bed of mortar on the top of the beam before jacking it up as the ceiling was not even. But this did not work to well as the mortar hardened to quickly so we have to remove it and jack it up again. Before mortaring the beam in at the ends and leaving it to set for several days.

The beam in and waiting for the mortar to set.