Roof nearly complete

Our new roof is nearly complete after what seems an age with house exposed to the elements. The joiners have been taking full advantage of the September sunshine and the timber roof structure is finally in place, fully constructed and trimmed out ready to receive the Velux rooflights.

We were given the news last week that the chimney stack was unstable and needed to be re-built. This came of no great surprise given the age of the property and that the mortar bonding the stonework and brickwork together is clay based (ie mud). The plus side of this is that the stack has been reconstructed re-using the bricks. If you look closely at the photographs you can just see the leadwork that has been built into the brickwork that will be dressed over the tiles.

You will also notice that the there are little columns or pillars to the corners of the stack. These will eventually support a concrete or stone capping slab. This is the french way of doing things although they also have clay chimney pots in much the same way as in the UK. There is also an element of making good of the stonework along the gables and at the wallplate position.

With the rooflights having been picked up by our neighbours and safely stored in their garage and with the tiles having arrived last week together with the felt and battens, fingers crossed we shall  have achieved our first construction milestone by the end of the week. At this point we have to thank our friends and neighbours Martin and Angela for taking these photos and keeping us informed on progress and generally "running around" on our behalf ensuring that things dont go wrong - something that often does if you aren't "on site".

Anyone seen my bike?

 During the work to remove the existing roof structure of all things a bike was found in the roof space. This was thrown unceremoniously over the wall only to be caught in the ivy growing on the wall. We are thinking of framing this and sending to the builders. 

                                   

There was a suggestion that we should extend the renovation project to include the bike. Needless to say the bike found its way into the skip.

Now the roof has gone the next job is to level up and strength the existing wall . This is being done by the casting a reinforced concrete ring beam to tie the walls together. The photograph below shows the timber formwork in position ready to receive the reinforcement and concrete. There needs to be a similar beam casting to the front with tie rods connecting them together to form a rigid box. Then the new roof can be put on.

 

Holiday report part 2

During our stay in France, holed up in our little touring caravan waiting for the rain to stop, we had plenty of time to think about how we wanted to renovate the cottage. We decided to discard with the underfloor heating to the ground floor opting instead for a log burning stove kicking out up to 7 KW.

More than enough space heating. We will probably put in a some electric convectors in here and there as background heating for the Winter months when we may not be there.




The biggest decision was to take up the existing clay floor tiles which have been laid directly on the ground and are an original feature of the house. They are 30mm thick so these will be re-bedded onto the new floor construction. They will need a bit of cleaning before they go back down but it will be worth the hard work.