Under floor heating and electric boiler

Back in February 2011 I posted a blog about underfloor heating something that we have decided to use in our bathrooms but of the electric type. Also in an October 2010 blog I wrote about an electric boiler which could be used to in conjunction with a piped hot water UFH system. Now I can report on project that incorporates both.

Even better this current project that I am working on. It has a piped UFH system and the Contractor has cleverly incorporated a temporary heating rig utilising an electric boiler to help dry out the floor screed. The rig is connected directly into the header pipework and can be moved around the building as required to other headers so over a period of time the screed is helped to dry out slowly. The building is not yet watertight and is waiting for the windows to be fitted which will over the next week. The temperature through the screed has to be carefully controlled to prevent the screed from drying out to fast and cracking.

Below are are a couple of photographs showing the floor before screeding together with the temporary boiler arrangement. Hopefully you can work from the photographs how the rig works without explanation. However, if you need more information please leave a comment and I will get back to you

Stonework preservation

A common mistake many people make when renovating a stone built property is to use cement based renders and mortars. Raking out the lime mortar and re-pointing with sand/cement mortar or even worse rendering the stone with a sand/cement render will literally prevent the stonework from breathing. Likewise rendering the internal surfaces of the external walls with cement based renders and plaster will cause decay of the stonework. Literally the walls will weaken, crumble eventually collapse.

The tradesman of the past knew a thing or two when building stone properties. Stonework needs to breath otherwise trapped moisture together with the extremes of weather in the form of freezing and thawing will permanently weaken the stone. Lime based mortars and renders allow the passage of moisture through the wall construction. and allow the surface to dry out. Poor choice of materials including vinyl based emulsion paints result in the formation of salt stains and paint flaking on internal surfaces.

So use lime mortars and renders if you want to preserve stonework. Lime based paints must be used on the walls. You may get the odd damp patch here and there in the winter months but these usually dry out with minimal damage to the decorated surface. At worst patch painting of the wall with spare lime based paint is all that will be required. Better this than rebuilding the entire wall.

A really good site that goes into greater detail and should be consulted in all matters stone wall damp issues is http://www.heritage-house.org/damp.html

Latest Photos

Our builders have been motoring on with the work to the first floor and the rooms are now formed with almost all of the first floor first fixes complete. The ceilings are fully boarded together with at least one side of the metal stud wall. We have decided to insulate certain walls to cut down the sound between rooms and adjacent to Bathrooms.

 

Much of the telephone conversations with Tony and Steve over the last week has been about plumbing. All the hot and cold supply pipework and drainage connections are being hidden behind stud walls and then terminated at the right position for the appliances that have yet to be purchased. I think we have just about eliminated all of the surface fixed pipework which we would have had to boxed in.

 One thing that needed us to compromise on is the shower tray which has to be built up off the floor by 100mm as we have an exposed beam ceiling. This is to enable fitting of a trap and the waste and to achieve the correct fall into the main drain pipe and soil stack. In short we don't want to see pipework hanging through the ceiling when we are sat in the lounge.

The weather is much warmer in France at the moment so we are hoping that work on installing the new windows and doors can re-start.  This will be just about the last major work item to be completed and will transform the ground floor and give a view out the back of the house onto the garden.

 We are heading out to take a look at the work next month staying at our friends house literally a stones throw away. It will then have been seven months since we saw our petite maison at a time when it didn't even have a roof so we are getting really excited.

Progress Indeed

Here's the latest photos sent over from France kindly taken by our builder Tony. They were taken a week or so ago and show the first floor bedrooms and bathroom spaces taking shape together with the first fix electrics. All the walls are being formed in the metal studwork that was the subject of one of my first blogs.

 
The sloping parts of the ceiling have been insulated and plasterboard fixed to these areas. I noticed something in the photographs that appeared to look like a trestle but after a bit more of looking at I worked out that it was a piece of equipment that is used to load a sheet of plasterboard on then it is mechanically raised to the ceiling for fixing. This certainly takes the back breaking work out of the operation. These can be purchased or hired and the link below will take you to a typical site.
http://www.brandontoolhire.co.uk/lifting-hire/prodview.asp?idproduct=142

I am hoping for some more photographs to be sent this week so will do another post soon. If you missed my blog on the studwall you can find it on the listing on the right for Saturday, 27 November 2010

Stair Crazy

The builders have asked for the details of the staircase. We have always said that we wanted something unusual, simple and chunky looking that will be hidden completely behind a wall. The French seem experts in producing creaky staircases and given our exacting requirements this would need to be of a bespoke design and hand made. These are the details that we quickly drawn up.

  Together with the drawings the builders were also sent a photograph of a similar staircase that was found on the Internet. If ours turns out like this one we shall be really pleased.

The baluster at the landing level was something else that was a thought about hard and long.First of all we were thinking of glass then developed into something a bit more simple in the form of stainless steel posts and wire. It moved onto wrought iron and is always the case back to our original idea of glass.

For more details on stairs in oak and glass that can be purchased in kit form here are a few links.

 http://www.tradestairs.com/acatalog/Vision_Oak_Grooved_Handrails.html

http://www.stairplan.com/townsend-oak-staircase.html

One last thing is that we had a bit of surprise with the discarded floor joists in that they are of oak and have enough to make the treads and risers. Cutting the timbers down to the right dimensions and building up the staircase is going to be a really nice job for the joiners right now particularly as the temperature in France is around about -9 degrees during the day. The inside of the house is bitterly cold especially when the wind gets up and we think on more than one occasion Tony and Steve had to head back home early to get warm.

Build update

The internal block support wall running up alongside stairway opening is now complete. The new first floor joists all in oak has been installed and trimmed back over the stairwell.

As the floor joists are to be exposed I suggested to the builder that we lay the plasterboard on top of the floor joists before laying the floor board. This would save time later plaster boarding from underneath. This has worked out brilliantly well and all that needs to be done is to carry out plaster skim work and we are done. I had thoughts about the plasterboard crushing under the weight of furniture loading but decided that the floor board would distribute the load sufficiently not be an issue.

We have issued an electrical layout to the builders giving switching positions/arrangements as well as power outlet positions and tv outlets. So we had to carefully think out were we wanted beds and furniture to be put. There has been a change in programme and with the freezing weather setting in any stonework operations is out of question.The builders efforts over the coming are now concentrating on the first floor works,first fixes, insulating and boarding the ceiling.