No sane Greek would have built a balcony out of wood. It's been giving us problems for years, but before we left Ano Korakiana this November we'd made an arrangement to have the present decking removed, all dozen support beams lowered and cleared of rot, the whole re-assembled with eleven additional tantalised beams and new hardwood decking.
The internet makes overseeing building at a distance much easier. Mark, working on
our balcony off
Democracy Street has uncovered and communicated an unexpected problem.
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| Part of the support beam that runs the width of the house is badly rotted (photo: Mark Jacks) |
The front to back cross beams were all in place - the old ones ground and sanded to remove rot and the new ones tantalised; the lot treated with preservative, then Mark emailed:
Hi Simon and Lin. As you can see from the photo's from today most of the old beams are now back up along with all the new 7x7 ones. It's been a long slow process getting the beams in order as I first had to get all the rotten wood out (ground out) then sanded out with an orbital using a very course grade p40, then 3 coats of the universal wood preserver which kills all manner of grubs and beetles apparently, then I gave all of the old beams the 2 coats of Resolcoat which seems to have gone off nice and hard so sealing all the preservative in and keeping the bad weather out hopefully.
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| Before and after (photo: Mark Jacks) |
A couple of problems have arisen - one being the old beams are 14.5 cm x 7 cm (not all are this by the way) and the new ones are 7x7cm with the extra piece under the end being added to make them 14x7cm, which leaves half a cm out from the tops of the new 7x7 cm to the tops of the 14.5 cm beams, meaning along with other inconsistencies with the old beams not running true we have the decking touching the tops of some of the beams and others not...
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| '...touching the tops of some of the beams and others not' (photo: Mark Jacks) |
...at its worse out by 1 cm and its least ½ a cm, so I am going to have to pack in places to get the levels as right as I can.
- two you will see on the photo's the beam which is attached to the house (2 actually), the one that is directly under your balcony french windows. In the very left hand corner the wood is rotten far worse than I thought, this beam holds the house side of I think the last 5 beams.
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| (photo: Mark Jacks) |
I saw a bit of rot on the top of it so got a wire brush and started to scrub away and it just fell apart on the back side up against the wall up until about half way along to the centre of your balcony door. You can even see one of the coach screws now from one of the brackets.
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| (photo: Mark Jacks) |
I have cleaned it out the best I can and given it some of the wood preserver and hardener, but I am not sure if it doesn't need to be replaced totally, which means I have to take half of the beams down again and get another length of timber and replace it
Maybe it will hold for many years after treatment. I don't know, so you can decide on what I should do with that one.
I am behind schedule as I have yet to remove the last middle beam and 2 end beams after having to secure the balcony first , which is in quite a sore state on the whole. I was hoping to be putting the decking on next week but I don't think so, not with these few minor problems arising, then of course I have to adjust all the beams so as they will allow the decking to sit on top .
All the old beams I numbered so as they went back on the same bracket in the same place and even with no work done to the bracket area of the wood on the beam apart from a little sand and then treated, they don't all allow the decking to make contact so I will have to either raise or lower them a little to try and square it all up, just shows how bad the work was done on it in the first place .
That's it , not all doom and gloom from below it looks quite nice. Sally and I think and the weather is great for doing this work. Hope all is well. Cheerio, Mark
Dear Mark. Thanks for the latest news on the balcony. It will cost more and take more of your time but there's no question this must be made good. Please go ahead and ‘replace totally'. This is a key support for the whole balcony isn’t it? It will take more time but please order a tanalised beam from the Velonades yard. It’s a jolly good thing you found this. If it had been left, even with a dose of Resolcoat, it could have been a weak link in the whole ‘new’ balcony. Glad you are figuring out ways to deal with the inequalities of the beams as they emerge. That’s our John the Builder again. All the best, Simon
This wooden balcony has been a problem since we bought the house in Ano Korakiana in 2007. It has two balconies - one on the plan and the wooden one not, being treated as a temporary structure. Turning it into a permanent structure would be a bureaucratic nightmare; but ignoring the law and creating an illegal addition would be no better, as planning regulations tighten across the Republic - and rightly so!
Early on we made the mistake of thinking we could make the balcony leak proof, so that the area beneath it would be dry in bad weather. We covered the decking with UV resistant polythene and went to great pains to seal it all the way round. We should have realised that covering the wood in this way would make it sweat, encouraging rot...
I put some L-brackets under the dodgier decking and even began replacing some of the planks, an expensive option that didn't deal with rot in the support beams...
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| Before Mark started work |
By May this year I was putting temporary planks over the worst areas of rot; wholly unsatisfactory, especially as we'd at last dealt with the problem of keeping the space under the balcony dry by rigging a tarp on hooks and carefully anchored bungees.
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| Amy and her mum fix a tarpaulin to create a rain shelter beneath the balcony |
Once it had been fitted the first time, it has become a matter of minutes to put up the tarp and take it down. It works perfectly. If only we'd thought of this years ago. The new decking will have gaps between planks; no attempt to make it into a 'roof' for the veranda below. It will be stronger, having more support beams. It's hardwood, more resistant to sun and rain. The wood will never be covered again, prevented from breathing or allowed to rot. Yet the balcony will remain, as legally necessary, a temporary structure; not too tricky to disassemble if required.
When we first inspected this house in in 2005 we were taken out onto this balcony. It was where Linda and I decided to buy the house.
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Our wooden balcony ~ overlooking the Sea of Kerkyra, Albania and Epirus on the mainland of Greece beyond |
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I had lunch with Mark Woblee* in town. He'd driven down from Lancashire to give me recordings he'd made of
Old Country as a young man. We had two pints of
Doom Bar and sausages and mash in
The Bull on Loveday Street. A proper pub entirely built for privacy in public and undamaged by restoration and fake tradition.
*Mark's domain name!
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| In The Bull, Birmingham Gun Quarter |
I've seen some of Mark's recordings of
Old Country before but not all the episodes he's so generously let me have, and certainly not the ones with signing, nor the additional programme - a BBC interview. Pity that the recording ends abruptly mid-sentence before the end.
Almost within minutes of streaming it on
Facebook I got a message:
Iwan Bob Geldart - I was a cameraman on the show on the Vimeo link above. The show was Open Air shot at BBC North Studio B, Oxford Road in Manchester. The presenter was Susan Rae
...and then hardly an hour later...
I'd never heard of the BBC
Genome Project. I searched my name and came up with Miles Blackley's BBC
Private Investigations programme about the Victoria Jubilee Allotments made in 1999
Victoria Jubilee Allotments: BBC Private Investigations from
Simon Baddeley on
Vimeo.
Shoot forward 15 years ....Wet on the allotment this Friday.
Not much to do but continue weeding and tidying. Winnie pruning too.
She found a plastic cloche and made it into a shelter for Oscar as he gazed at the park. I dug up enough potatoes for supper and harvested a pound of Jerusalem Artichokes - peeled, boiled and liquidised with a chopped onion and a few young carrot leftovers in chicken stock made a good winter soup.
