2018 shopping list

As far as we know, we need to buy the following:

• Granite lintels, cills and thresholds – from Lantoom Quarry
• Around half our concrete structural lintels – Having bought a whole load of 1.5m and 1.8m lengths a year or so ago, we need to get 18 x 1.2m, 8 x 1.5m and 8 x 1.8m ones. We can do this by buying 4 x 3m & 10 x 3.6m lintels and cutting them.
• An initial tonne of NHL 3.5 lime.
• A truckload of sand, probably from the Bridgend quarry near Tipperty, for lime mortar
• A heavy canvas that we can arrange over scaffolding to protect us and the walling from the elements.
• A tarpaulin to cover the sand.
• A truck load of 440 x 215 x 100 concrete blocks
• DPC and other sundries
• Locking castors for our scaffolding so we can run a bay around the concrete slab for working inside.
• A silt trap so we can install our linear drain in front of our garage & front door.
• Blockmix, sand & cement to build a concrete apron in front of the garage up to the linear drain.
• A bilge pump to clear sludge out from our concrete tank

Depending on progress with walls, we may need:

• Structural timber to support roof trusses at each end of the north wing (where we demolished the internal rubble walls)
• Timber for wallplates, truss clips, tie-down straps etc.
• Roof trusses
• Sarking boarding
• Breather membrane and tape (may be a cheap temporary fix to protect the roof, to be replaced when we are ready to slate)

Methinks this will stretch our finances until we can sell our current house and I retire.

Cills & lintels decided!

With the open season for building approaching, weather permitting, we really need to sort out cills & lintels, so we can start building upwards.

We made no progress getting reclaimed granite so will go with Lantoom Quarry, Liskeard, Cornwall. The irony of the cheapest option being at the opposite end of the UK is not lost on us!

What we need
So we have to create 18 windows and 6 doors.

17 windows and all doors need lintels – the large (3m x 3m) window will keep its concrete lintel, which Ric has suggested we can bush hammer to get to a finish consistent with the granite lintels. The lintels for the windows and 5 of the doors will have 215mm high, 100mm deep profiles with 150mm bearing each end. The garage door has a 2.2m span so we are looking at a 300mm high, 150mm deep profile and 200mm bearing each end. Most of the lintels will not be load bearing – the 2 downstairs windows in gable-ends will be, as will 2 doors and 5 in the east/west wing walls which will bear around 1m of wall above them.

All doors, apart from the one for the garage, need thresholds. We will get 215mm deep, 150mm high profiles and will embed them into the openings by 25mm each end, to lock them into the quoin stones.

All 18 windows need cills. We will get 215mm deep, 100mm high profile lengths, again embedded 25mm each end into the quoin stones at each end. The big window we can do as two cills jointed in the middle. In fact, three of the shortest lintels will be off-cuts from the thresholds, so will be 150mm high.

The practicalities are:

1. The garage lintel needs pre-ordering, with a 6-8 week lead time, the rest is stock.
2. Total weight is likely to be between 4 and 5 tonnes, with shipping costed by the pallet/tonne.
3. We will split the order in two. We will get all the granite for cills, thresholds and for those lintels that will be built over first. The lintels for the garage and those for the north wing, (which will not be built over, they will fit at the top of the wall behind the soffits. This should mean we can get going as soon as we get on site.
4. On first calculation, the first batch would be just shy of 3 tonnes, the second batch around 1.5 tonnes.
5. We will need the carrier to unload the lintels at our end!

This all comes at a price – around £4,000. The slight comfort is, this is less than we would have spent locally, for lintels alone.

Alternatives to granite 1 – cast stone
For a bit of due diligence, I looked at prices for cast stone lintels/cills. These are made from crushed stone in a cement binder. My only real objection to them is that they invariably look too clean and perfect, where we want/need a more rustic appearance. There is no problem getting the right colouring and, when weathered, they would probably blend in well enough. We could probably bush hammer them, but…

Without wanting to embarrass them, one manufacturer sells 1.6m non-load-bearing lintels for £136.70 inc VAT against the Lantoom price of £73.03. Another sells them for £52.80. I expect the latter is more typical, some 28% cheaper.

For fairness of comparison, we will need to trim the granite sills, cut out drip lines and finish any cut surfaces. This would be mostly our labour, which we do not cost, but would include some Ric time. So possibly another £1,000 on top of the £1,000 price difference.

Alternative to granite 2 – concrete
Fortunately the architect did not expect us to use concrete outer-facing lintels, if we did, these could be around £58 for a 1.5m length. He did specify concrete sills: A basic 1.2m (4ft) length is around £47, the 1.8m (6ft) length is around £74. On aggregate, this would be a similar saving to cast stone. I am a bit surprised it is as costly as it is.

Next step
Safe to say, using granite is still an easy decision, even with a £2,000 premium. Once we have agreed the details with Lantoom, we will press the button, for a first delivery in early April.