Category Archives: brittany

New doorstep and staircase opening

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Door step Two main jobs this week, increasing the size of the opening for the staircase and building a door step.

As I mentioned before I've got two pieces of granite from a broken mantlepiece. I did consider using them as external door steps but neither piece was really long enough. The sill of the side door from the lounge is about 20cm about finished floor height, so why not use the granite inside. It should tie together the stone walls and complete the picture. Each piece of granite had to be cut to length. I used an angle grinder with a diamond blade to cut around all four sides then a couple of whacks with a coal chisel and lump hammer saw the two pieces part company.

The idea here is to remove the broken ends of each piece then butt up the clean original outside edges in the center of a new step. The cut ends will be pointed in.

In order to get the levels right it did require some excavation under the door. A bit of hard core, sand, plastic membrane, then mortar to lay the granite blocks on. Positioning the blocks was really really difficult. We couldn't get our hands round the blocks and anyway they were just too heavy. After quite a bit of shuffling the blocks were in and positioned and level, but too low! The mortar shifted around, squeezed out and mucked everything up.

It was a tough decision, but it would have annoyed me every night, so out came the whole lot. The mortar dug out, more hard core and packing and second attempt. This time it went much smoother. We used a technique of aligning the blocks on a plank then rolling them onto the bed of mortar. It worked much better than trying to lift and shuffle.

Staircase openingThe new opening for the stairs was necessary in order to fit a standard 'off-the-peg' hardwood two quarter turn staircase. I've choosen the staircase I like and it required a 180cm square opening. The current opening was too narrow. I could have had a staircase made to measure but that doubles the price of the stairs, so a bit of elbow grease was required.

The cross beam (the one with the ladder on it) needed removing and moving back about 30cm to ensure the hole was large enough. Because the cross beam was buried about 40cm into the wall the only option I really had was to cut off the tenons to remove the old beam. With the other beams supported by acro-props the cross beams could be wiggled free. The existing beams cut where short and new tenons made at the beam ends to fit into the cross beam mortices which where then pegged with new oak pegs. These seasoned oak beams are like cutting concrete and I've completely trashed a couple of panel saws hacking away.

Re-using the existing cross beam meant I didn't have the extra length to remake the tenon and I certainly didn't fancy cutting a new mortice so I cheated and got some 14mm steel bar and just drilled right though the beam and into the end grain of the cross beam. A couple of 'pegs' and it's rock solid.

You can just see above the blue clamp some shuttering where the hole has been filled from the old cross beam position. The horizontal acro-prop is just there to ensure the cross beam was pushed up tight.

Breton Fireplace renovation

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Original fireplaceIn between renovating the fireplace I've also been sorting out some other little jobs, like digging trenches in the house to get the water supply to the correct place and digging more tenches to lay the soil pipes so I could install a temporary 'coffee station' with running water and a waste supply. I was getting a bit fed up with only having an outside tap and no sink. Because you are not allowed to use 90 degree bends on horizontal runs of waste pipe it is necessary to pass through a wall at a 45 degree angle. When the walls are over half-a-meter thick it needs a big hole. I guess the rule is to help prevent blockages in soil pipes buried under floors etc.

Anyway back to the fireplace. The photo above showing the original fireplace was taken just after I bought the house before sandblasting the beams. Not very attractive. After stripping back all the plaster and removing the breeze block and various in-fill I was left with a shell of the original fireplace. Old fireplace ripped outIt's not very clear but in the photo there are two stone 'shoulders' about 1m50 off the floor. On these shoulders used to rest two oak supports for the mantelpiece. They protude into the room about 20cm and also extend back into the wall about 50cm. The weight of the wall on the rear of the supports and the lever effect would have supported the original mantelpiece.

I knew they used to be wooden, probably oak, supports because when I dug into the wall there where the remains of the old rotten timber.

From some spare oak I had left over from the windows and created two new supports and fashioned a traditional rounded end to the section that protrudes into the room. These were cemented into place and the stonework above reconstructed to lock the supports into place.

For the hearth of the fireplace I decided to dig down a little to lay a plastic membrane and cast a concrete base for the new stone hearth. It was a bit of a suprise and a real disappointment but under the floor I found two very large pieces of granite. Once pulled out it was obviously the original mantlepiece broken into two halves. A real shame. I can only guess the timber supports must have rotted away and the granite mantlepiece fell and broke.

New oak mantelpiece in placeAlmost the last piece of the puzzle was to fit a new mantlepiece. I decided to use an oak beam 20cm by 20cm rather than granite. Partly cost and partly because it fitted in better with the beams above and the wooden supports.

The beam is shown resting on the new supports and just awaiting some infill above from the top of the mantelpiece to the ceiling.

Whilst all this has been going on Debbie has been slaving away raking out all the mud and clay between the stonework and cleaning up all the stones with a nylon brush. It's a bit of a time-consuming soul destroying job, but once it gets pointed up it should look fab.

BTW – The electric meter is being moved into the laundry room off the kitchen.

Bits and bobs

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With a few days off for Christmas and New Year I've been mainly doing just a few little jobs here and there. You know, all those ten minute tasks that end up taking all day that you put off and off until they start to bug you too much and they just have to be finished.

Before I do much more upstairs with the insulation I need to decide what floor finish I want upstairs. Floorboards, tiles, laminate ? I can't really start building the walls etc until I've got a plan for the floor.

With those decisions still pending I've made a start on renovating the old fireplace downstairs. If I get it done fairly soon it will stop the icy wind coming down the chimney and I can fit a wood burner to keep me a little warmer during February and March. The original fireplace had been partially bricked up and 're-modelled' with breeze blocks. In order to try to return it back to it's original Breton style I've had to rip out the breeze block and recreate the oak supports for the mantlepiece. It looked like they had rotted away and the holes also bricked up.

Once I get a little further with the uncovering I should be able to post some photos of the old fireplace and some of the renovation work which hopefully should be much clearer.

Roof insulation

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Roof lined with insulationI've made a good start on the insulation. I really hope this stuff works because every morning this week it's been at least -3oC and not got much warmer during the day. A bucket or water in the house had even frozen over. Brrr.

The insulation was fairly easy to put up providing you have a reliable staple gun. The cheap stapler I originally bought ended up in the bin. It's a real pain balanced up on a platform in the rafters with one had free and then the staple gun jams or mis-fires. New staple gun in hand and things were a lot easier. The insulation is fixed to the rafters, which leaves an air gap between the tiles and the insulation. Around each of the A-frames and purlins I've put metal tracks to take the supports for the plasterboard.

I quite liked this insulation compared to rockwool, even though it's more expensive, there none of the horrible dust and fibres and it's much thinner so more of the old carpentry gets exposed.

One side upstairs complete, now on to the other.

Work starting upstairs

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The septic tanks and all the various bits of pipework outside etc. have been backfilled and the ground levelled out.

insulationLast week we started work upstairs cleaning and treating the beams and floorboards. All the beams, a-frames, purlins etc. were dusted and swept through to remove any loose muck and dust, then all the exposed timberwork was washed and cleaned with water and sponges to remove any dirt. All the timber was then spayed with a couple of coats of multi-purpose woodworm/beetle treatment. There was a little infestation in places but nothing too much to worry about. It's worth doing as a preventative measure and it helped to bring the wood, which is going to be exposed, back to 'life'.

I've bought loads of insulation to start lining the roofspace. In the past I've just used 100mm or 200mm thick glasswool or rockwool behind the plasterboard, however this time I'm leaving both the purlins and the A-frames exposed and there isn't the room for thick insulation. It's a bit more expensive (about 2 to 3 times more) but I've got a multi-layer thin reflective insulation. In my case it's got 14 layers of insulation, silver reflective sheets and other stuff. It's only about 25mm thick but has the same R-value (insulation) as 200mm glasswool. It's easy to install via a staple gun to the rafters and doesn't have all that horrible dust and fibres of traditional insulation. It is necessary to leave a 2cm air gap between the roof tiles on one side of the insulation and 2cm on the other between the plasterboard.

It all looks very space-age and shiny. I'll have to see how it works out.

Septic tank inspection

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The guy came to inspect the septic tanks this morning. He was pretty thorough, checking the depth of sand and gravel in the filter beds, various levels of pipework, the levels for the septic tanks, the pumping stations, ventilation out to the roof, etc. Everything passed although he did recommend a grill on the outflow pipe in the gulley to prevent vermin coming up the pipe.

Once he had left the guys starting backfilling everything and leveling out the garden. It rained really heavily all weekend so the ground was very wet which didn't make it that easy, but even though they haven't quite finished it's starting to return to normality. Hopefully they should be finished by lunchtime tomorrow.

No grass left but at least I've got a nice blank canvas for new garden design.

Fosse septique photos

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As promised some photos of the septic tanks and filter beds.

Everything has gone really well and both sand filter beds (bac-a-sable) are now complete with the guys just finishing the outflow pipe from the two filter beds out to the gulley in the lane.

The only slight delay was the suspected presence of an underground PTT cable in the garden. My neighbour mentioned it and gave me a copy of the plan showing the 'approximate' position of the cable. It was a very old hand drawn plan. The guys from the digger company also had a plan from the PTT which was slightly different! No problem, they say, the boss is coming to find the cable. I expected someone to arrive with a metal detector, ground radar or something, but he turned up with a couple of rusty bent welding rods. A bit of divining and some comical and sceptical remarks from me and the 'known' position of the cable was marked out and everything positioned to avoid the cable.

Well as it turned out, the diviner was just about bang on and as you can see the cable was uncovered without plunging Northern Brittany into silence. Apparently it's a fairly major national trunk cable.

Once the authority's inspector has been and checked everything conforms it will all be backfilled, covered over and the garden should be ready for planting. It's certainly going to need some work as it's a very muddy mess at the moment.

Hole for septic tank
Hole for first septic tank		 Septic tank
Tank lowered into place
Septic tank installed
Pipework connected and pump (green top) fitted		 Gravel delivery
Gravel delivery rescued from mud
Sand filter bed
Hole for sand filter		 Sand Filter bed construction
Plastic liner, gravel and pipework
Filling sand filter bed
Filling with sand		 Complete sand filter bed
Completed filter with input pipework and gravel
Waste water exit
Filter bed outflow pipe		 Telephone cable
Buried national PTT cable

Septic tanks started

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The digger men turned up this morning to start installing the two septic tanks and filter beds. The bad news is I took loads of photos but left the camera behind at work. I'll update tomorrow with photos. Pictures speak a thousand words.

After a some minor discussion and planning about placement the guys got straight on with the job digging two very large deep holes for each tank at the front of each house. Each tank is 3000 litres, that's 3 cubic meters, so lots of spoil. Most of the spoil was clay.

The only hiccup during the day was that the lorry delivering gravel for the filter beds got stuck driving across the garden. The digger soon managed to pull him clear. I suspect it's quite a regular occurrence as they were not fazed at all and just hooked up a chain to pull him free. I also lost a couple of concrete gate posts and a garden wall which got pulled out by the digger to give the lorry access. I was going to pull them out and remove the wall for a better view anyway, so they saved me a huge job.

By the end of the day both tanks were buried, two thirds filled with water, and all the soil and ventilation pipes connected up. Interestingly they are not allowed to use 90 degree bends and have to layout the pipework to avoid sharp turns. I guess it's to avoid blockages.

Concrete floor laid

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Been a bit slow blogging the concrete floor day. After the last week or so of hectic digging and preparation for the 'big' day I've been mostly sleeping and relaxing. Anyway,

Concrete mixerThe concrete mixer lorry turned up on Thursday as arranged at 8:30 with 6 cubic meters of concrete for the two rooms. The day before several wooden battens at the correct level were placed across the floors. Each 6m batten was supported every meter or so with small piles of mortar to stop them flexing when a straight edge was drawn/shuffled across the top.

There was a slight delay unloading the concrete because I had ordered the conveyor belt attached to the lorry so the concrete didn't need to be wheelbarrowed in. The driver said he didn't have enough room to extend the conveyor and so a few phone calls had to be made to the supplier to arrange a rebate for the conveyor before he would start unloading. After that was sorted we had to use wheelbarrows to unload but as it turned out it wasn't too bad, just a little frenetic as the concrete really rushes down the chute.

Once all the load was in it was relatively easy to shuffle the straight edge left and right across the top of the battens to level the concrete off and pull the excess back to the doorways. By the time we had finished there was only about 5 wheelbarrows too much. Better than being short.

Once we had finished the surface was fairly flat but had a few ripples in it. With hindsight we should have gone back and repeated the process but quite a bit of water rises to the surface as you 'work' the concrete and it was difficult to keep the liquid 'tide' at bay. I'd also been advised that it was possible to come back just as the concrete is setting and use a float to go over the surface and smooth out any ripples and lumps. By the end of Thursday, coming back later with a float seemed like a great proposition.

Having taken a bucket of concrete home to test how cured it was (I didn't fancy driving back at midnight to find it too hard/soft) I went back the following morning float in hand. It turned out that my bucket set slower than the floor and I was a few hours too late. The ripples aren't too back and I reckon I should be able to tile over it, but it wasn't as flat as I hoped. The moral being, don't put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today.

For all the work and deliveries I've had up to now, I have only ever paid a deposit then the balance on delivery or completion. It's standard advice. However, the concrete supplier insisted on full payment up front or no delivery. I should have gone somewhere else, but didn't. So the cockup with the conveyor ended up costing me an 'admin' fee for a rebate on the unused conveyor. I wish they had mentioned that they needed 20m of clear space before I ordered the belt.

Even with the minor hiccups the good news is the floors are in and curing over the weekend. All the pipework is in place for the septic tank guys on Monday and it feels like a real milestone on the project.

Floor next stage

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DPC and insulationAnother busy day today getting the floor ready for the concrete delivery Thursday morning.

On top of the hardcore and sand layer we finished yesterday we placed the DPC and large polystyrene sheets. The damp proof course is basically a huge plastic sheet. Each sheet of polystyrene insulation is 2cm thick and two layers are placed on top of each other at right angles to cover any gaps. It was worth the extra effort to ensure the sand layer was flat as the polystyrene sheets are very brittle and any potholes would have caused a problem whilst you are walking around over the sheets.

Unexpectedly a delivery lorry turned up during the morning with 2 3000 litre septic tanks and the various pumps, pipework and stuff for my sewage system. A week earlier than expected. Hopefully they should start on the filter beds in the garden rather than digging large holes in front of the house, otherwise the concrete mixer is going to have a real problem on Thursday. The delivery driver thought they might start installing the tanks Thursday or Friday. We'll have to see.

Metal mesh and cablingBy the end of the afternoon we had the metal mesh laid on the insulation and I had laid out the electric cables and pipework that will be buried under the concrete. Both the electric cables and plastic water pipes are encased in a plastic conduit (gaine). The water pipes all run from point-to-point without any joints and are fed from a large manifold (nourice). Each conduit is tied to the metal grill with scrap wire to prevent it floating up to the surface of the concrete. It is also fixed to the wall with a push in plastic bracket. The idea of running cabling and pipe under the floor is mostly for convenience. You could run everything from the fuse box, or water main, above ground but getting around doorways gets a bit tricky.

So, tomorrow I've got to fix some wooden battens across the floor at the correct level for the concrete floor. With a straight edge we should be able to shuffle across the battens and get everything flat and level.