"We only use high-quality tools, which is crucial because the tools we use have to stand up to a lot. We're nearly always working in the open air, things are exposed to the weather and sometimes they're lying in the sand too."
Rainer Schnitger
Preserving heritage buildings –
Restoring timber-framed houses demands creativity and precision
Ten carpenters, three bricklayers, three apprentices – and for each team a VW van full of top-quality tools. Equipped like this, Schnitger is ready for any challenge. The company builds and renovates timber-framed houses. It's a challenging job that calls for both creativity and precision.
Learning the trade
One Sunday morning in 1982, 16-year-old Rainer Schnitger hopped on his moped and headed for the carpentry shop where he had done some work experience years before. His father had advised him to train as a toolmaker and had even arranged an apprenticeship for him. But Schnitger had other ideas: he wanted to be a carpenter.
Unfortunately, this plan was easier to make than to carry out, because, for the high-birthrate generations, there weren't enough apprenticeships to go round. So he decided to go back and speak to his old boss, who had promised him during his work experience that he could train in the carpentry shop.
Schnitger knocked on the door until the boss answered it. "What do you want?" he asked impatiently. "I wanted to ask if I could do an apprenticeship with you," replied Schnitger. But the boss didn't remember him and sent him on his way. "We don't take on apprentices any more," he said, and closed the door. Disappointed, the young man turned to walk back to his moped. But then the door opened again. "Wait a minute, I know you," said the boss.
Three years later, Rainer Schnitger finished his apprenticeship as a carpenter. He stayed with the business for another two years before going to a college in Detmold to learn the specialist skills involved in conserving heritage buildings. A year later he became self-employed, qualifying first as a master carpenter and then as a master bricklayer. Schnitger now employs ten qualified carpenters, three bricklayers and three apprentices. And he still has his old moped.
Building an effective team
The office team consists of two part-time employees and Rainer Schnitger himself. "We keep the paperwork to a minimum, we're mostly a hands-on, productive team," says the boss. It's important to him to find the right people and make sure they form an effective team. "Everyone needs to be able to work with everyone else. That's why I often reorganise the individual teams, so we don't work in fixed groups. Fixed groups might make sense from a business perspective, but from a human standpoint it's better this way. When we're sitting in the workshop grilling sausages, everyone sits round the table together. You don't have one person standing here and someone else over there, we all sit down together and chat. We all need to be part of the same team. That's important to me, that's what makes for success."
Another characteristic of the business is the fact that it specialises in timber-framed buildings. "Once a carpenter or bricklayer has done their training and worked for a couple of years, they have enough practical experience to do the job," says Schnitger. "But when people come to me, they need another 18 months to two years to learn how to renovate old buildings in line with conservation requirements. Making timber joints by hand, for example, is something that's really only done in this line of work nowadays. You need time to get the hang of it. And to do that, you have to enjoy it. I need people who want to be doing exactly this. The work is more creative and varied than in a typical carpentry business, but it's also dirtier."
As well as a being willing to roll up your sleeves and get stuck in, it's important to have sensitivity, especially when dealing with customers. When someone is building or extensively renovating a house as a once-in-a-lifetime project, and spending a lot of money on it, they need to have confidence in the people doing the work. So it's important to answer all their questions patiently and explain what's happening on the building site at any given time. For the experts it's quite normal, during a renovation, for it to seem like the entire house is being taken apart. But for the client, the site can quickly start to look chaotic. "That's why I encourage my team to answer questions in depth and always take the time when the client asks something," says Schnitger.
Every house is different
The team mostly works on buildings with protected heritage status. "But even with other old buildings, the aim is always to create a structure of lasting value that can be used for many years to come," says Schnitger. "That necessitates certain materials and particular techniques." Work on listed buildings requires not only a construction permit but also a special permit for heritage buildings. The team must always engage with the authority responsible for the protection of historic buildings. This includes recording the damage to the building on a specific document and drawing up a restoration plan that enables it to be restored without anything being lost from the building structure.
"The biggest challenge," says Schnitger, "is that we deal with a very wide range of building developments. In an urban area, there is often very little space. In the countryside, there is sometimes no electricity, or the property might be difficult to access or in a derelict state. In a situation like that, we don't know what's still holding together and what isn't. The sole plate and posts are the timbers most affected by weathering."
“In timber-framed buildings, it's only the posts that have a structural function; the infill timbers are only there to fill in the walls. If the posts are decayed, these timbers take the load and the whole building starts to collapse. Added to this is the fact that most buildings lack a sufficiently deep foundation. A timber-framed house is relatively elastic and resilient, which compensates for shortcomings like this because the structure is so stable. It can withstand a lot. But during the restoration process you need to work all the more carefully and support each wall with a new concrete foundation, which serves as a base and enables you to make the whole structure level."
In a large building in an urban setting, you often find that you can't get it 100% level because you can't strip or gut it properly. You then have to compensate for the loss of height with the floors. To avoid too much loss of height in the storeys, we always try to re-align the building, restoring the correct vertical and horizontal angles.
It all comes down to the tools
"Each of our carpentry teams always consists of two or three people, and each team has a van with all the tools we need for our particular type of work: chain mortisers, bandsaws, various handheld circular saws, cordless screwdrivers, chainsaws and of course measuring tools. We only use high-quality tools. That's crucial, because the tools we use have to stand up to a lot. We're nearly always working in the open air, things are exposed to the weather and sometimes they're left lying around in the sand too. Our equipment is exposed to harsh conditions, so it's subjected to a lot of wear and tear.", says Schnitger.
For this reason, Schnitger believes in investing in good tools. "Anything else won't work. You just don't get the right results," he says. "What's the use of aligning a building and then finding I'm 2 cm out? Level means level, anything else is basically useless. With STABILA I'm in good hands. Obviously we use modern equipment like rotation lasers and laser measuring devices for distances. But especially inside buildings where conditions are tricky, we find that using a measuring tape or conventional spirit level does the job very well. We use them a lot to align various parts. These tools get used on a daily basis. That's why we opted for STABILA for our measuring tools. We have only had good experiences with them. They simply live up to the name."
