Making a Hackspace, part 5: 16 cubic yards of waste

16th Oct 2017

Skip

After the walls started coming down, it was very quickly apparent that we’d soon be drowning in brick unless we had somewhere to dispose of it. In other words, we needed a skip.

Like milk, beer and newborn babies, it seems that skips have avoided the general trend towards measuring things in metric. Investigations soon showed that skips came by the cubic yard, and that the biggest one we could get and fill to the brim with bricks and rubble was 8 cubic yards (bigger skips are available, but have to be mostly filled with lightweight items or the skip lorry can’t lift them).

So we got one.

Empty skip

Empty skip number 1

And filled it up

Full skip

Full skip number 1

And another one

Empty skip

Skip number 2. Tesselating the bricks apparently means more can fit in

Block-paving a skip

And filled that up too.

Full skip

Full skip number 2

Between the skips, the Hippobag, and odd bits that people have helpfully taken away, roughly 21 cubic yards of rubbish have left the building since we took over. That’s 16,000 litres.

Or, less usefully, one-seventh of a double-decker bus.

The inside of the building has been transformed into a large open space which can be divided into two areas.

Ladies side (workshop area) where the janitor’s room used to be

Gents side (office area) looking through the doorway to the workshop side

Ladies side (workshop area) looking through the doorway to the office side

The difference in floor height between the ladies and gents/cistern room that we weren’t aware of before we started

Other activities

Two urinals, various sinks, a pair of girders, many bits of pipe and a load of wire were taken to a scrap merchant and exchanged, to the surprise of everybody, for nearly enough money to cover the cost of the second skip.

The gutters under the tree were cleaned of leaf litter, as was the roof. Despite us cleaning it 6 months ago, it had already accumulated enough bits of discarded tree to start to cause problems again. This is clearly going to be a regular maintenance activity.

The Freecycle/Freegle scouting continues. We now have a nice porcelain toilet instead of the steel horror we were previously forced to contemplate using.

Next?

The unused drains need to be stopped up and capped off.

The walls and floor need to be made good where walls were removed. The ceiling also needs to be fixed or, more likely, replaced.

The walls around the old disabled toilets (which will now be a toilet on one side and a small workshop on the other) need to be built up to the ceiling

We need secure external doors. And internal doors. The windows need to be repaired or replaced.

The lighting needs to be rearranged to meet the need of the new space. We need to put power sockets in place on both sides. Toilet, sinks and kitchen need fitting and plumbing in.

The roof still needs to be fixed.

If you can help with any of this, please get in touch or pop along to see us in Ransom’s Rec Pavillion on a Monday evening.