Renovating a Gite in Brittany

I finally took the ugly clothes of the doorway to reveal the king in all his glory. Et Voila. Alright it's not that pretty, but at least it didn't fall down. There is still the hole above the door to fill where the supporting timber went, but basically it is complete. Once the thing is plasterboarded (or rendered, I haven't decided yet) it will be fine.

Whilst the concrete has been drying, and along with jobs I've been doing for the roofers, I've started the next doorway but through a cob (mud and straw) wall this time. The wall is about 60cm thick and the door will be 90cm by 2m tall, roughly. I started bashing away with a chisel and hammer thinking, hey it's only mud, how difficult can it be. Well after a full day with power tools (an SDS hammer drill) I can tell you this stuff is like concrete. It's far harder and messier than a stone wall any day. The dust gets everywhere and the volume of spoil seems to double, if not triple, in size as it's excavated.

I used a similar technique to the stone doorway by knocking a couple of holes through above the door to insert two supporting timbers. Because the cob is so tough I don't think I'm going to need to shutter up the side of the door and back fill with concrete so I just cut a large slot at the top of the doorway and inserted three large bits of timber for the lintel and cemented them into place.

After they had set for a day or two I then cut through below. The door will be the width of the orange lines eventually, but I broke through first and I'm then going to trim and straighten the edges later. I friend of mine (thanks Chris) did tell me that they actually make a special saw for cutting through cob. It's got very large teeth and he believed a bit like those old fashioned two man tree saws. Fortunately he had a knackered old two man tree saw in the garage which he has lent me to try to trim the edges with. Once I find a sucker to work the other end I'll let you know how it works out.

Anyway, as I was excavating I just shoveled the mud down the staircase. Here's what I ended up with. A huge pile of rubble and god knows how many wheelbarrow trips to clear it all. Note the acro prop downstairs to support the acro prop upstairs.

I finally got around to filling in the gaps either side of the supporting beam. It was quite a fiddly job packing in cement and stone always bearing in mind that it needs to be packed well because of the huge weight thats about to be placed upon it once the acro props are removed.

I've got another two of these openings to do, both upstairs, one in each house. One is in a stone wall again and the other in a cob (mud and straw) wall. I think it might be wise to go and buy some more acro props, especially for the upstairs because I'll need to support the floor beams from underneath to take the strain of the bracing on the first floor.

On a slightly more fun note, I had a huge bonfire at the end of this week. All the old lattes removed from the roof needed disposing of, so the obvious solution was to burn them. The wood was tinder dry and so it was certainly a fierce blaze. Every after several thousand years a great bonfire still captivates.

Today I finally got round to finishing the doorway through the stone wall that I started last week. The shuttering on the side pieces was taken up to the height of the bottom of the lintel and filled with concrete a few days ago. Today I made the cross pieces for the base of the lintel and braced them securely. There is going to quite a mass of concrete above. Everything was nailed together and an extra acro prop placed under the center. Before using masonry clamps to fix the long boards, for the front and rear face of the lintel, I had to remove quite a bit more stone. This was to ensure the edges of the lintel extended out over the sides.

The lintel is 20cm thick, the width of the board, which doesn't leave much room above to pour in the concrete. To make it a bit easier I knocked up a 'chute' out of scrap wood to slide the concrete in the gap. Apart from laying a few lengths of iron rod into the mould it was just a matter of pouring, tamping and pouring. It ended up taking 6 or 7 mixer loads (I lost count) to fill the thing up.

Judging by the state of the concrete I poured last week I reckon I should leave this for at least a week before removing the shuttering. I can, in the meantime, re-fill the hole above the lintel either side of the beam with stone to support the wall above. Once everything has set firm I can take out the supporting beam and then finally fill the last hole.

The other thing I did today, which was very satisfying, was put in three of the new windows. All three went in like a dream. I had been very meticulous ensuring that the oak frames and window sills were all level, square and vertical. It certainly paid off. The windows came with some metal brackets that twisted into a groove on the edge of the window and then just screwed onto the inside of the oak frame. A little silicon mastic around the edge and squoodge, installed. One handy thing about the windows is that when delivered they come with temporary spacers around each opening pane to 'lock' the whole assembly square. There is a tiny bit of give, but not a lot. The supplied instructions said to remove the opening window panes, fit the frame, check the diagonals for square, then re-fit the panes after everything had set. I couldn't see the point, so installed the whole lot all in one and just made sure the top and bottom edges of the window panes were level. Checking later in the day confirmed my laziness paid off, as everything worked fine.

The other good news is that the roofers finished the front today and removed the scaffolding ready to start on the back. So to celebrate, here is a photo of progress so far, compared to the starting point.

All in all a good day, the building is starting to go back together and look like a house again.

brittany renovation

I've been flitting about between jobs this week so far. The carpentry work I've had to do for the roofers is now finished. The last lurcarne (dormer window) is now complete and ready for tiling. The guys have almost finished the front of the house. A little bit of general masonry work to repair loose stonework where the roofers have removed the old roof or replaced rafters. I've had to move a purlin (panne) because it was too low and blocked access to a window. A little more concrete work on the doorway I started last week. I'm up to the height of the lintel but ran out of cement. Finally I've been to collect the 5 upstairs windows today which hopefully should be fitted by the end of the week

With luck I should be able to complete most of my current jobs within the next week or so and post some 'finished' photos. So far I am very encouraged by how things are going and it's still an enjoyable experience.

Whilst the guys have been working on replacing the slate roof I have been bashing a hole through a thick stone wall to make a doorway between the future kitchen and sitting room.

All the walls in the cottage, like the majority of old Breton houses, are built with stone and mud and range from about 60cm to 80cm thick. They are amazing sturdy and robust.

Before starting, workout were you want the hole and markout the size plus a bit extra for the width. I used orange fluo spray and made the opening 10cm wider each side than I wanted. The reason is that the stone overlaps quite a bit and often there is a really large stone right where you want the edge. It pays to have a little flexibility.

Unfortunately I forgot my camera yesterday so you'll have to visualise what I'm talking about. Obviously to stop the wall collapsing on your head it needs some support, so start by making a smallish hole, or holes, above the proposed lintel height to slide a heavy duty bit of wood through. In my case I only made one hole for a 1m wide opening because I also had two existing beams set into the wall. Usually the beams go most of the way into the wall so I used them and the extra central prop. Use some spare planking and big nails to 'lock' the whole lot together to prevent twisting. Also nail the acro props top and bottom. A little errant driving later with a wheelbarrow full of concrete could spell disaster.

Once everything is secure it's time to start tunneling through. It is a bit scary and stuff does just suddenly drop down from above, so basically take care. The hole will end up being a lot bigger than you expect because of the nature of the stone wall. Once you have made the initial hole a crowbar and a lump hammer should be sufficient to excavate the whole thing.

Don't be surprised about how much stone and mud comes out of the wall. A little tip, during demolition take the stones, especially the larger ones, out by hand and toss them to the side. If you let everything fall to the floor at you feet it's a pain later on as you work down the wall to clear up the mess, especially if your acro props are too close and you forgot to put some old board down to make shoveling up easier. Note how the wall 'collapses' in a triangle shape.

Once the hole was opened up to the correct size and all the rubble was cleared up it was time to repair the damage. Using an old door and some planks, I clamped some vertical supports each side of the wall to the required finished size of the opening. These vertical bits of wood are used to nail the shuttering on to so we can backfill with concrete. I'm using concrete because the wall is going to be plasterboarded later. Starting at the bottom (!) nail short bits of planking, one or two at a time, to the vertical pieces and pour in the concrete and some old bits of rubble to pad it out a bit. Basically work your way up each side a few planks at a time tamping down with a stick to ensure the mix gets into all the crevices.

With several barrow loads of concrete behind the shuttering I made sure the planks did not 'pop' off by adding some bracing between each side of the door to hold the shuttering in place.

By the end of the day I had managed to shutter up to about 1m 50cm on each side and decided to leave the whole lot to set for a day or two before tackling the lintel. Hopefully things should go smoothly.

brittany renovation

I suppose the photos tell the story. For the section of roof in progress things are moving on now. Personally I really like the way they have curved the slate from the top of the dormer to blend it into the roof. The guys have also done a really good job of straightening out the ridge and packing up some of the sagging parts of the roof. It's was never going to be perfectly flat, but I think if it was too perfect it would take away some of the character of a old building.

Two guys, two days, very pleased.

All the replacement guttering and downpipes are going to be zinc rather than plastic. It's a bit more expensive but I think it looks better, lasts longer and doesn't creak and crack in the sun. The roofers actually make all the guttering on site to fit from basic half-round pipe, zinc sheeting and tubing. I was watching one of the guys cutting zinc sheeting to fold around the end of the guttering to solder on the end caps. He also cut holes and soldered in the downpipe T's all from scratch. Very time consuming.

In a previous life the building had a thatched roof and so has large granite coping stones on the gable ends. Once the old roof was removed we could see that some of the coping stones were loose and a fair bit of supporting stone had shifted over the years. With my masonery hat on I had to climb up the roof and repair the stonework, balancing a bucket load of stone for in-fill along with a tray of mortar. Not a very enjoyable experience considering I'm not that good with heights.

brittany renovation

The roofers turned up early this morning on time ready to go. It might take a few months to get a quote and then several months to get a start date over here, but once they start they really get going. No chatting, cups of tea, or pacing about scratching heads, they just launch straight into the job. Within an hour the scafolding was up and the two guys were up and ripping slates off like a couple of sugar low maniacs.

The scafolding is just 'hung' on the wall with extension pieces nailed to the rafters (chevrons), which were exposed by just smashing a hole in the slates. There is no support/legs onto the ground, the whole thing just floats off the side of the building. You can see that they strip a 'ladder' up to the ridge then work across and down removing the slates using the existing woodwork for support. Note: No gloves, hard hats, harnesses etc. A fairly cavalier regard to personal safety.

One interesting thing was the 'special' tool each of them carried. You can just see it in the tool belt if you zoom in. It was a sort of combined axe, hammer, crowbar and lifting tool. I'll try and get a close-up photo later.

By 16:30 the roof had been stripped of slate, de-nailed and the old lattes/roof battens (linteaux) had been removed, also a couple of rotten rafters had been replaced. There is now a couple of large piles of broken slate and wood pieces for me to remove.

Whilst this frenzy of activity was going on I had to construct the new roof section over the dormer windows (lucarnes) and deal with a delivery lorry loaded up with slate, velux windows and wood whilst the guys were at lunch. At one point I also had to go shopping to the local timber merchants get some 200mm by 60mm section to replace some rotten soffits (sabliere) – I mis-read the quote and thought they were being replaced – and some nails. Of course none of the nails I had were quite the right size!

The roofers were very, very helpful and explained how they needed the new roof timbers built in order for them to fit the tiles. I had recess my timber the width of a roof batten (about 8mm) on the inside of the window frame edges to allow them room to hang the tiles at the side. They also pointed out that new timber had to be packed and padded correctly to ensure that the old and new sections 'blended' into the roof shape correctly.

The only fly in the ointment was the length of the timber I had brought. I had planned on running the timber from the top of the window frame to the first purlin (panne), however the roofers thought this would be too flat. I did do some research and discovered that the minimum slope for a slate roof was 4 in 12 (about 18 degrees). My slope was slightly steeper than the minimum but often it's best to go with expert practical knowledge. They wanted to use longer lengths of rafter to reach nearly to the second purlin, but, and here's the fly, all the wood I bought was too short. I'd bought 4m lengths and cut them in half to get them in the car.

Fortunately, we comprimised and agreed that putting a batten a little above the purlin and then running the rafter so that the 2m length intersected with the original roofing rafters would suffice. Hopefully the photo explains it a little better.

So it's been a hectic day, and most probably continue that way, with me fitting in my carpentery jobs in between their stripping and fitting the slates.

brittany renovation

Got a call from the roofer today to say they were coming Thursday morning at 8:30. Eight thirty, 8:30, it's a bit earlier than I'm used to, (several hours earlier if I'm honest), but it will be nice not to have to write about window frames anymore.

The original plan was for them to start at the back of the house, but because of the rain delay and me having finished the window frames (opps there I go again) they are starting on the front. This does mean I have to go shopping tomorrow to buy vents and extractor pipes ready to fit in the roof. These are to shift the waste gas produced by the septic tank and also from the ventilation from the kitchen and bathrooms. I'm putting them on the front of the house because I have Velux windows at the rear and don't really want odours blowing back inside.