O.T. Gas man's nightmare

The gas guy and his helper arrived today to run the line for the new DCS range. In an old stone house nothing is easy but things went normally until they drilled a hole though the west wall. Or somewhere. The 32" drill didn't make it through, and they had started in a cavity 18" deep. Much perturbation and attempted excavations from both sides came to naught until I grabbed an old ground rod and sledge and determined to bludgeon my way through the wall. Nearly gave the assistant a third nostril as I pushed the 6' ground rod through some mortar and up to the hilt.

54" of stone wall. Why would anyone built one like that? the time of construction in the late 1830's. as anyone else run into a really thick wall in a house?

But the 54" section is the thin part of the wall, the south-west corner. After five feet it juts back at least another three feet into the basement, and still no fireplace. A chimney for a stove and a furnace goes up through the middle of the end wall. An identical chimney at the other end accomodates another stove pipe.

An architect friend suggested they might have walled up a well with the extra stone, though there is a cistern at the other end of the house.

I'm gutting the rest of the upstairs this summer. It doesn't make sense to go this far without putting a proper vapour barrier and insulation mat around the entire compartment. So it takes another year? I'm retired.