not another door…

Remember when I told you about the extension of the pig house? Simon, our builder, made a mistake when he built the veranda. When he had finished it, he realised that the gate to the pig house would not close anymore as the veranda was in it’s way. So he had to move the door frame. We weren’t happy with that as this led to a big gap between the gate and the pig house’s wall. Gaps are very bad as pigs would force their snouts in it and may damage the door when pushing. Another thing was that when he moved the door frame, he had to dig a hole and use cement to re-attach the frame. As he mixed too much cement it changed the ground level which led to the door drag on the cement and wear off the hinges.

In short: after a couple of days the door broke to pieces and the hinges got lose. So I had to repair it.

So I first checked the door and I have to say: another piece of crap… the whole thing was just nailed using a few hooks and there was nothing done to make it really stable. Then there was an extra weak corner that absolutely lacked stability.So when Vicky pushed the gate the whole thing would give way and break. The last few days we had to push some rocks in front of the gate so Vicky could not escape.

Ok, I was alone… but I still wanted to fix it as I was going to leave the farm in a few days to travel a bit. I had no timber to replace any of the existing ones, only a few smaller ones that I could use to make it more stable… I needed something to make it even more stable… So I searched the shed again to find some helpful parts… Underneath a piece of tarpaulin I found a few angle irons. That’s it!

After I locked Vicky inside the pig house I started to dismantle the door. It was going to be difficult to attach the hinges without anyone assisting but I just thought that I was going to manage that. After I had removed the gate I used the pick to remove a bit of the cement that was in the gates way and cleaned the ground with a hoe until it was level. Then I nailed the angle irons on the inside of all 5 corners. Then I removed the hooks which were lose anyway and nailed some 5” nails. On the inner side I additionally used 2 timbers to make it more stable. Then I tried to attach the hinges which was a bit difficult as I was missing an extra arm to hold the gate. A few bent nails later I was finished. And – surprise – the gate closed smoothly and the lock would still work. Phew, that was a hard piece of work in the hot midday's sun. My pants were soaked and as I started tidying up, some clouds hid the sun and a few raindrops fell on me… That’s what they call just in time! I locked the shed, released Vicky and got myself a zip of water watching the rain falling on our garden…

the gate after repair

I used a few angle irons and two timbers to make it extra stable