20 Oamaru stone 2

Oamaru stone 2 - 25 March / 15 May

Once the Oamaru stone Gables, corbels and lintels were deconstructed probably the most technical and difficult part was done.

The bulk of the stone was left over and  from here it's just Oamaru stone and me.

I had extended my mobile scaffolding with a steel outrigger and had attached the winch at the end of it.
Once a stone was broken (chiseled) loose, I lifted it a little bit and put a wedge underneath it to allow me to put straps around it at both ends.
With the winch and the mobile scaffolding, the stone could be lifted and dropped on the ground floor just in front of the wall where it was put onto another wedge to ease removal of the straps.
Walls are taken down block by block; interior and exterior.

For numbering the stones every course was given a letter and every wall was given a number.
For interior blocks identifying only wall (thickness) and course (height) is sufficient.
An additional number was given to every exterior block, following the sequence the block was taken out.
So each exterior block has an unique code, related to its position.
All codes were marked onto drawings as I went.

Once or twice a week either Jaydon, Duncan or Peter would come in and help me walking the blocks from the house into the garden and stacking them onto pallets.

The further the walls were taken down the easier it got and it was quite a relief to be able to work without the scaffolding.

No evidence was found that walls or interior doors had been moved, added or taken out at a later stage.
This result confirms that the plan of the house was the original plan including the centre position of the bathroom.