Many of you may have heard through the Furnace grapevine that there are problems underneath the hall floor.
This has been an ongoing issue and we decided to get a full survey done of the hall. This was to include the floor, the roof, the wall, ventilation, rainwater goods, essentially all aspects of the hall, toilets, kitchen and bar area. All the money raised at our very successful Easter Weekend Fund Raising Event has been ring fenced to go towards the costs of this much needed restoration.
The surveyor was Ewan Stewart of Bowman Stewart and runs to 22 pages, including several pages of pictures. Ewan noted that he had visited many similar village halls and that our hall was in remarkably good condition for it’s age. Please contact Elaine at [email protected] if you would like to read the survey.
- For those who don’t have a spare afternoon to wade through the report the main (Urgent) points are listed below.
- Probably built in the late 19th century, the hall is in overall good condition and structurally sound.
- Urgent – Overhaul/renew rainwater goods – This is being done under the Hall Renovations programme.
- Urgent – Address poor slating at rear pitch/replace slipped slate on front – This will need to addressed asap.
- Urgent – Some significant decay to the joist ends and the moisture content of the joists and the wall plate were excessive. There are also beads of moisture to the underside of the floorboards suggesting condensation is a problem. Although the floor structure is not considered unsafe, repairs are needed to prevent deterioration and address what appears to be a longstanding problem with moisture.
- Staining to the hall ceiling was noted and this corresponds to water ingress due to the missing slate.
Point 3 & 4 above are the 2 urgent areas of concern. Our next step is to have the perimeter floorboards lifted and inspected to ascertain the extent of the rot. We will then be at the point of being able to get quotes to do the jobs. We will be looking at Grant funding and probably more fundraising.
There were other repairs noted as being needed in the survey. Some of these are already underway in the Hall Renovation programme. Those that aren’t included are recommended as being done in a 5–10 year period.
If you have any questions about this or any other matter you think the SCIO can help with, please get in touch. We’ll do our very best to answer your questions.
