This was a nasty challenge, for sure. A dirtier, dustier, downright awful place to try and get clean.
How many decades of foundry soot did we have to remove? Inches and inches of it. A ‘crust’ had formed over most of it, a very fragile one. What was underneath almost flowed lie water. Try to get up with a dustpan and brush ended up with clouds of stuff everywhere.
Even through respiators the smell of it could be detected. Vacuum? yeah, right. A ‘Henry’ bag would last maybe 5 seconds before it became totally clogged, & boy, this stuff is so heavy (a large % would be iron / oxides of) So what to do. Google showed some interesting ideas, so a small industrial ‘cyclone’ was made from bits and pieces, and that then connected to Henry.
That worked, mostly. Bags and filters still needed changing regularly, as they became totally useless, being so clogged. We tried to estimate how much we removed. Gave up after a ton+ of the stuff.
It was everywhere, and I mean everywhere.
Once cleared, we could then move on to putting in place the engineeded wooden ‘I’ beams I had made.
The base of the I was the ideal shape to support rockwool, and as the ceiling was going to be a complete bass trap (as both other were) we wrapped each in muslin and put in place, after having wrapped in polythen to protect from everything else that would be going on.
That was 100mm RW3 60Kg Rockwool.
On top of this was then placed ‘fluffy’ loft insulation (2 layers of 150mm) to fill the rest of the void, and then on top of that was screwed a double layer of 18mm hardwood ply. Then painted.
The ceiling corrugated sheets were cleaned as best possible, then the joists, and then push fit 75mm RW3 60kg between every one, followed by a layer of twin wall white flame retardant sheet to help with light and keep rockwool in place.
Loads of LED lights fitted, and ready for the DR3, I invested in a forced ventilation and heat recovery unit.
This pulls dirty air from DR3, passing it through an ultra high efficiency heat exchanger, which then heats of cools incoming air from roof vents, via a massive activated charcoal filter. once that was fitted it did look like the Borg had decided to make the loft their new home.
While clearing away all of the detritus, we noticed something sticking out of the dust on top of one of the joists. As we got closer it became obvious that it was an old nest. When we finally got to it, no ordinary nest though. Definately a pigeon, as a solitary egg remained, along with numerous droppings all around. This was no ordinary pigeon for sure. It had intelligence? I mean, what would you use for a nest if you were building in a foundry? Ill let you look at the photos, but I have kept both egg and nest as proof, just so bizarre to find.
Enough words for tonight, some photos follow, and probaly more tomorrow.
The next post – Holes where you really don’t need them, and they get bigger and bigger and bigger..
