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.

Last 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.

brittany renovation

That has turned out to be a bit of a false economy. So far this afternoon we have shifted 4 large trailer loads of slate to the dechetterie (rubbish tip) and we are only a quarter of the way through. I useful technique is to stomp about on the slate to break it up into smaller pieces making it easier to shovel. Fortunately the dechetterie is only 2 minutes down the road so it's just costing me time, and a little backache.

I've finished the doorway through the cob wall trimming the edges of the doorway to the correct width and squaring everything off. More rubbish to dispose off, but this time it's getting spread on the garden. It's just mud and heather mixed up.

The good news is that a man from EDF (the french electric company) came to look at my electric meter with a view to having it moved. Currently the equipment looks like it's from the 1930's, and is placed high up on the wall right next to the fireplace. This is the wall I want to keep as exposed stone, so the EDF guy came to survey the place and give me a quote for moving the meter into the proposed laundry room. I can't put the meter under the stairs because it has to be about 1.5m off the ground. I thought I would have to run cables in trenches or under the floor, but he said they could just extend the supply outside the building running a cable under the guttering at the back and drill through the outside wall. Fairly simple and inexpensive job. Whilst they are there all the Bake-A-Lite kit will be replaced and a remote meter box placed outside. He took a few photos, a couple of measurements and 'the quotes in the post'.

It looks like the rest of the week is going to be dedicated to clearing up the mess from the last month or so before I hire the mini-digger to rip up the floors ready to lay new concrete floors.

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

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 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