agg221

I am between Haverhill and Clare so pass through Sudbury from time to time. I will let you know when I am heading that way. Alec

If you are near Woody Paul then you are relatively near me. I would be happy to take a look when passing and give you some idea of what to take off and what to leave if that would be helpful. I am typing this on the iPhone and can’t figure how to add links but there are a couple of old threads showing an orchard I maintained which had similar objectives. Alec

I milled the tree into slabs at 2.5" thick. Once seasoned, I cut them down to widths of between 9" and 12.5" and then split them into two boards on a bandsaw and put them through the planer/thicknesser to give a 1" planed finished board. 12.5" is the width limit of my thicknesser. I actually built everything you can see in that picture. Most of the timber I felled, milled and built using timber framing methods but the door frame was made from some old timbers which had floated down the river and jammed up in the Dutch ford at the end of our field, so I fished them out, dried them and re-finished them, leaving the edges with the texture they had developed over the centuries. They are also all properly peg jointed in, which is why it looks like that. I then finished all the panels with lime plaster. Just need to get round to finishing off the ceiling and putting down some carpet. Alec

Pretty much entirely agree but a few specific exceptions to be aware of. Sweet Chestnut is generally better when it is woodland grown, particularly coppice. Old trees have a tendency to have spiral grain which means the milled timber warps terribly and is weakened as the fibres don't run down the length. Absolutely agree regarding poplar. It's good cladding because it is also permeable, so if you treat it it takes up the preservative easily. It is a fairly light, plain timber but gives a nice look. It is also a good carcassing timber as it is pretty stable. Seriously underrated in my view. The picture shows a ledged door constructed in poplar using clenched nails. There aren't many timbers where you can get clear boards that wide which won't warp. Alec

OK, five properties of wood I would regard as relevant here - strength, durability (resistance to decay), permeability, hardness and tendency to warp or split. I am ignoring aesthetics and availability as the first is personal choice and the second is based on what you have. Oak - strong and pretty durable. Also low permeability, high hardness when dry and in general the tendency to warp or split is fairly low. Makes it good for outdoor structures, much easier to work green and design around that, or to use designs which allow for the use of machine tools. Cutting mortice and tenon joints by hand in dry oak is possible, but slow. Ash - strong but not durable. Also not very permeable. Fairly hard when dry and it tends to warp or split about the same as oak. Good for indoor use. Horse chestnut - not strong, not durable. Very permeable and soft, does not tend to split or warp too much. This means it is generally regarded as useless, but one thing it will do well is soak up preservatives without needing a pressure tank. That means it is decent for rough cladding if you treat it regularly. Note, a completely different species to sweet chestnut and they have nothing in common except the name. Sycamore - not very strong or durable. Some permeability and reasonably hard. Doesn't tend to warp or crack too much. That means it isn't useful for construction but does make decent furniture and would probably make a reasonable floor. Probably a rather under-rated timber in my opinion as it's much better than cheap softwood (not that that is cheap anymore). Larch - reasonably strong, reasonably durable. Does tend to crack and warp. Medium on hardness, not very permeable. Good for construction and outdoor exposure except for direct ground contact (fine if buried or really wet, just not in locations where it is nicely damp for fungi to take hold). Cypress - does depend a bit on exactly which one, but fairly similar to larch, possibly a little less durable. If you have plenty of cypress and not much oak, or you want to work with dry rather than green timber, I would look at that as your best construction option so long as you can design in a way that avoids ground contact. Beech - not very strong, not at all durable. Not permeable but very hard. Again, indoor use as it makes good floors and kitchens. Does not tend to warp or crack. Milled vs. round - milled lets you use only the heartwood which matters for oak. Round is far less effort but you do need to design your joints for it. Charring provides a layer which fungi and insects don't get through so easily. Once through it will rot out from the inside (bear that in mind if you are making holes) but it will extend life considerably. Think that's everything? Alec

Softwood and hardwood have different grading schemes, which are also different for green and seasoned timber. I haven’t checked for a few years but 8yrs or so ago it was the case that seasoned softwood as generally used in construction had to be mechanically tested and stamped afterwards (it’s a simple bend test with point loading so most mills have it). Seasoned hardwood has a visual grading system for defects including knots, cracks, grain run-out and insect or fungal damage. There is (was) no formal qualification needed so technically you could just get on and do it if you could find the classification table which used to be possible with a bit of careful Googling, or buy them from TRADA. Green hardwood as used in timber framing had no grading system so technically you could use what you like, which given the hedgerow poles still with the bark on that which narrow to 3” round holding my roof up is clearly traditional. But then they have been doing that for 500yrs so it works fine if you know what you are doing. I’m not sure if there is a grading scheme for green softwood, and this only applies to structural timbers, not cladding or similar. Alec

Careful with that axe Eugene!

I would agree with cutting one half out, but I would take the left hand side (cut shown in blue) and then straighten up the right as shown below. I have done this a few times with good results, usually where light has forced a tree to develop a lean that I want to correct. I cut a long, fairly stout pole (something like a piece of hazel 2" at the base) and brace it on the diagonal (shown in red), tying to the trunk like a tree stake at the lower yellow point, either using tree tie or a piece of bike inner tube. The top can then be pulled upright - I would anticipate the tie needing to be around where I have shown the upper yellow line. Bike inner tube is good for this. You sometimes have to play around with the angle of the pole if it bends more than expected when you start pulling the pole and the tree together, and may need to set the upper tie a bit lower if you get too much of an S-curve rather than just straightening. Take it off a year later and you won't even know it was there. Do NOT use string or baler twine for a heavy bend like this - it works really well for smaller bends which only need to stay on until the first flush of new wood growth but on something heavy like this it will cut in and damage the bark, so inner tube works much better. Alec

3' and 4' are the standard lengths for lath. It's a tedious job, but because of that there always seems to be demand for them. Alec

Picture of the door attached. Our house had a chimney added c.1550 with a bread oven of the type shown immediately above (see picture) but this is not currently operational. It then had another chimney stack added in the 1700s, specifically as a bread oven. The door came from the latter (now demolished). Alec

Not sure if this helps as it's a rather specific situation, but we have an agreement in place in advance with our neighbour (Anglian Water) relating to a large, unstable willow (>3ft DBH, height around 80ft). It was already hung up in a row of sycamores our side of the boundary and Anglian Water acknowledge it is unstable and will probably fall at some point. When it does, it will land on our side of the boundary. We have specifically agreed that we do not need them to take any action in the meantime. It is a feature on the skyline and we like having it there. When it falls, it won't hit anything of note (it will land on an unused paddock) but in recognition that they have not had to deal with a very awkward dismantle with no vehicle access and nothing to rig off, Anglian Water are happy to sort out a clear up when it comes down (although in practice I may well cut it up and turn it into charcoal). This is a mutually beneficial arrangement which we have in writing. Just a thought that such pre-emptive agreements can be useful in some circumstances. Alec

Shouldn't be if shallow and well ventilated rather than forming a deep bed. Think disposable picnic barbeque rather than half an oil drum. Still worth having a CO monitor in the vicinity though, whatever the fuel. Alec

I wonder if you could get away with charcoal? Essentially a portable barbeque, so still no requirement for a flue. Ironically, our bread oven of equivalent age was demolished in the 1990s when it became unstable, so the only bit we actually have is the original door! Alec

Not in any sense seeking to be negative but two observations before you proceed. 1. It's worth reading the right section of the Building Regulations - available to download online. 2. Given the age of the place, is it listed? If so, that has a bearing on what alterations are allowed. Alec

Somewhat surprisingly (to me at least) most household contents insurance includes public liability for the use of your own possessions outside of your own property, so long as it is not for hire or reward. That means, so long as you are using your own saw for cutting your own firewood, you are generally covered. I used to have a very helpful insurance broker who told me that when I first started milling (planks for my boat). Alec