Bowerfold Brewery Build

Ok, so I've got a horrible, horrible garage. Really, it's horrible. You can just about see it in the background here...

Not sure who that good looking fella is stood in front of it. Here's some more of its horrors...


Its sat there for five years, waiting to be demolished. I have finally acknowledged that this is not happening any time soon, and that its begging to become brewshed. The better half has agreed, on the proviso that I make it look beautiful. This is no mean feat, but I have sweetened the deal by offering to build into it a platform with slide-back roof for astronomy-related activities....

...and so the Bowerfold Brewery renovation begins! A bit of hot weather has given me a space to unscrew the horrible metal door (note: this is not a one man job. I speak from slightly squashed experience), and with the magic of powertools, the frontage now looks like this...



Much nicer. Next step is to re-roof, though I have been categorically informed that removing the existing asbestos concrete myself is Not Allowed, so I'm saving up to pay a real man to do it. More updates when I've got enough pennies.

Looking forward to seeing your build progress M

I see you got your priorities right and installed the easy chair first. :grin: :grin: Good luck with your build.

Much nicer. Next step is to re-roof, though I have been categorically informed that removing the existing asbestos concrete myself is Not Allowed, so I'm saving up to pay a real man to do it. More updates when I've got enough pennies.

Click to expand...

So the asbestos police have been to see you? :lol: :lol:
Get it stripped off and chuck it in a layby somewhere, contractors do......... ONLY JOKING :lol:

You can see why people do though, someone will be on a nice little earner. Good luck with the build.

looks good so far :) Keep us up to date :)

I'm interested to hear how the re-roofing goes. We have a similar looking garage with the same type of roof which has come to the end of its useful life. All the recent rain showed up a number of leaks, and no sooner was one sealed than another appeared. Don't fancy demolishing and rebuilding but would like to sort out a new roof...water & electrics not a good match I'm told :nono:

Unless the roof leaks I'd be tempted to leave it. Get some sealer and coat the roof in it (inside), then if you have beams you can use some cheap plywood and make a false ceiling. If you don't have beams you could make a frame inside and attach the false ceiling to that then insulate and put food grade PVC along the sides. Sounds expensive doesnt it? Probably cheaper than removing your roof and replacing it with another one.
£70 insulation 14.4M long, 2.4M high
£150 PVC wall cladding 5M^2
£60 Plywood ceiling board for 4 panels, which would cover the roof of a typical garage.
Again, had a link for some cheaper PVC cladding but at this present moment I can't see it for looking, I will update when I find it.
Food for thought anyway mate,
Cooky

Alas, the roof leaks considerably. And at some point before we bought it, a window cleaner has put there foot through one corner. I've found a fella who'll remove and bag it fairly reasonably, at which point my local tip will take it off me.

Ah i see, well was a thought. If you don't mind me asking, how much is reasonable?

250 quid, off the top of my head. Which is fine by me, given it would probably take a couple of days to do it myself - and I'd fall off the ladders at least twice.

It is truly and ugly building.

£250 seems reasonable to me.

re asbestos.... I recently had my loft insulated... for free by the gas board. However on inspecting my loft he came across an old ( never used in 25yrs ) asbestos flue pipe 6 inches wide 5 foot long. Unfortunately back in the mists of time it had got broken on a bend.
The gas man came out of my loft like a rat out a drain pipe. Loft door shut and a notice fixed... " Condemned "
No one allowed in there till its removed he bellowed, well remove it I said innocently. :thumb:
Ha its now not as easy... because the gas board have found it its on their records and no person professional can go in there and do any work on the roof floor or water tanks, until its removed by professionals in a controlled way and the area receives a certificate of clean air, when the notice will be removed.
Seeing as the gas board wont remove it I cannot remove it and then show this dam certificate, so I contact an asbestos removal company...
Remember the problem is a 5 foot flue pipe. The cost £250. do I then get a clean air certificate ? No we have to install monitors and take measurements over a few days, it will be an extra £250 :twisted: :twisted:
Anyway to cut a long story short they removed my pipe ( 4 men dressed in white suits and face masks took them 20 min ) They wrote me a professional looking note to show gas board ( no cost )saying they had removed the pipe.
The gas board were happy no clean air cert was required because it was a pipe and the asbestos was not built into the fabric of the building...
Result free loft insulation completed at a cost of £250 plus an extra £100 for the skip to shift 30yrs of attic junk.
So a warning if you are having any such work done yourself. Have a poke around first and if you find any suspicious pipes more or less in good order, Remove it yourself and take it to the local tip who will happily accept flue pipes etc or if they get shirty dig a hole in your garden and put it there !! save yourself some money and all the red tape that's involved !. Of course if its asbestos that's loose and powdery that's a different matter but a solid pipe ?

Whilst I'm waiting to be able to do the next lot of big structural work on the garage, I'm going to build me a a heat exchanger. I'l looking to be able to hook it up to my existing 5 gallon system, to maintain and step mash temperatures, and I'd also like to be able to bung ice in it and use it as my cooling system. Couple of quick questions, if anyone can answer them...

1. I'm looking at these stockpots as a basic container. What size would people recommend? I'm leaning towards 11l. But this is because its in the middle. I'd be interested in hearing any advice people have...

2. Heating element... I'm going for one element as I'm only dealing with mash temperatures (I'll use my gas-fired boiler to bring it up to temperature to begin with). I'd like to base-mount the element, to stick it in the middle of the coil of copper. I've seen this recommended around here ... but boy is it expensive! Its pretty swanky, but I wonder whether its overkill? Can I do the job with a Tesco kettle element (I've already got Q-Max cutter), or will i regret my cheapness in the future...

Advice gratefully received! M

General rule is the smaller the heat exchanger the faster it can react to change temperatures. Whilst a larger HE will provide better initial heating it will be hard to change temps quickly due to the larger energy requirement of heating more water.
This was/is my HE

Point taken. I guess a 6l one, then. Or would you hold out to try and find a pot which is taller than it is wide (as in your build)? Is it tenable to use the HEX to cool with ice in it?

First bit of heat exchanger built! Don't look too closely at my crappy soldering.





No element in it at the moment (that's next month's task!). Am currently running a 25l boil up so that I can play with cooling times by filling it full of ice and recirculating through it.

This looks like an interesting thread - keep us posted on progress :thumb:

Looking good M
Sorry I've missed your question above

Well I done my little experiment: 25minutes from boiling to pitching temp. I think I can probably do better though, there was lots of swapping out water and dropping in frozen bottles of water. I think loose ice cubes might work better.

Messing around with a control panel today...