I was diverted from the barn project a couple of weeks ago as we were faced with a collapsing terrace wall in the garden. Overdue work in the bed above had disturbed things.
This was made from treated softwood sleepers and wasn’t held up with very much. It must have been there for a number of years as the back of the sleepers was eaten away. I had thought we might be able to re-use them but they were too far gone.
I decided to replace them with oak sleepers slotted in between appropriately sized RSJs. I ordered the RSJs from the guys at Blaker Welding who are always brilliant to deal with. I anticipated that sourcing the oak sleepers would be more of a problem in the current post-Brexit building supplies fiasco. And sure enough the “go-to” company for these had none with no prospect of getting any for “at least a month”. However, to my surprise, my local Chandlers had them in stock so we were in business.
The RSJs went in first. The concreting didn’t take long once the RSJs had been positioned straight and level and we did it one evening at the end of a couple of very hot days.
The “only” thing left to do was to cut the sleepers to fit. I put angles on the cuts to go around the corners.
I did make one mistake and cut three sleepers too short! But fortunately I had spares and I will be able to use these elsewhere in the garden.
This is the job finished.
Now I need to get back to the barn.