Part 3 - Great Excavations!

The first major task we had to do was, to completely clear the house. Some walls had wallpaper on them, which we decided to take off so we can see what the walls are in.

So, after clearing out everything out of the house, we had a good look around and finally realised what we'd got ourselves into.

The next step was to dig out the entire ceilings and floor made up lime and Sauerkraut papers. Lime flooring system are an alternative to cement-based concrete, used in old and historic properties. This is a mysterious substance about which few people know much.  There's very little in the literature and we don't really know much about how the material was prepared and used.  

Based on the fact that the house is over 200 years old, we decide to replace almost everything that was not as it should be..and build the house from scratch.

Removing the ceiling and digging out the floor was, by far the first real insight into how hard the project was going to be!

 

Approximately more than 200 tonnes of lime, earth and sauerkraut dirt had to be removed and carted away. It took a lot of containers and over a week to complete.