Roof problem

Unfortunately numerous Winters and a leaking roof have taken their toll on our poor oak roof trusses. On close inspection we have found that the top ends of the main frame members that have been exposed to the elements have rotted together with the ridge timbers.

 Our builders are a little nervous about touching these, let alone lifting them to their new elevated positions. Looking closely at them last week I have to agree. There are limited options, including taking the trusses down piece by piece, carrying out repairs and refitting. Another being to have new oak trusses manufactured. Both these options whilst being a solution unfortunately add too much cost to the project that has a finite budget.



We are therefore looking at the option of purchasing factory made raised tie trusses. This will possibly end up with a saving in that we won't need to lift the roof. However, we will lose a lot of character, something which is a concern. But needs must.

We will of course save the oak trusses and hope to incorporate them in some way in the work to the property even if it means using them in the scheme of landscaping.

nos nouveaux voisins

Whilst over in France a couple of weeks ago we were  introduced to our French neighbours Dennis and Teresa (Deni and Teres). They own the little cottage next door and use it as a maison secondaire. What a lovely couple whom made us feel very welcome.

They are retired and don't speak a word of English so it was really great to try our French out. Its amazing how much you suddenly remember when you need to. What we didn't know a little bit of hand gesturing got us by. We managed to get across to them that we wanted to erect some scaffolding in their garden to work on the roof and that we were going to lift the roof and put some velux windows in. They were fine about it and then asked us into their house to look how they had done things roof wise. The staircase was so steep you had to go down again backwards and had no handrail.


We then talked about our children and what they were doing . So all in all we were very pleased and our French lessons are starting to pay off.

Fosse Septique Pt 4 - I love France

Last week the Monsieur Maire himself dropped in a form to our Friends house to pass onto us. This was a fairly simple form asking us to give details regarding our new fosse septique which once submitted they would stamp in and send onto the district office.They would then inspect the work and we would get our certificate of compliance.

Therefore as soon as the scanned copy dropped into my inbox I eagerly printed it out  and set off filling it in with my my best friend google translate. Job done, scan and sent via email back to the Marie's office all in the space of an evening. That was nearly a week ago. As is the theme of things at the moment I am now told by the district office that the form I was given is out of date and that I would need to fill the correct one if they are to process the application.

I am getting to love France more and more.

EDF

EDF work in mysterious ways. We have been trying to have the electrics reconnected to the house. Theres an electric pole outside the house with a cable leading from it to the EDF  main fuse and meter. Theres also a existing fused distribution unit.

 

So I rang the English speaking help line and try but I may I couldn't get the guy on the phone to understand that I needed just to meet a man in van at the house to put a main fuse back in.  Instead as he had no records of such a property then it simply didn't exist and disbelieved what was telling him. I needed to ring another number were I needed to speak to the Engineers that would carry out a survey and then give a devis for a connection.

After a few days I decided to ring the help line again. I gave the lady a meter number and every other number that was on the meter but still no records. Just as I thought that I would have to install my own electrical generator as my life seemed to be ebbing away I was asked two questions. What is the name of your nearest neighbour and what is the meter reading? Incredibly this enabled the meter to be found on EDF system and within five minutes I became the newest EDF customer and an appointment with a man in a van that would turn on the electrics. And sure enough we are now energised. I will need to get the connection up graded but for now I am revelling in this small achievement. Now for the water connection!!

Under Floor Heating

I have been thinking again about under floor heating to the ground floor of the house. This being something that I considered from the start of the project, my thoughts being around heating pipework rather than electric cables. There are lots of products on the market and the cables are pre-spaced and attached to hessian matting.and can be bought is various roll lengths.

Thermostats can be inserted into the floor and coupled with zoning and programmable thermostats enables greater control and economy. In our particular case we have two options with regards to installation, The cables can be buried within the screed and then the floor tiled. Alternatively if thinner cables are used these can be placed on top of the screed then tiled over.


 

 
At the moment I am in favour of cables being directly under the tiles as response times to temperature changes should be much quicker. A little worry being however that the cables could be damaged during the laying of the tiles or by some fixing through the floor.

Putting things into perspective

On good authority I have been informed that it would aid our planning application if we submitted a perspective of the our proposals to the Maries office. So here it is.

After looking around for a bit of free software on the internet I settled for Google SketchUp. Whilst being a bit clumsy and sometimes frustrating it does in fact produce remarkable results and has some nice enhancements that allows you to convert the image to look "hand drawn".

So I hope the nice people in the Maries office like the images and give us permission to build.

Oh and sorry for the pun!

Planning Problem

We have just been informed by the Maries Office that our planning application for permission to carry out the alterations to our maison secondaire has been incorrectly filed. We need to submit a permis de construire so guess that the grenier is not classed as an existing habitable space even though its boarded out, has windows and is accessible.


So back to square one and now we have to wait up to eight weeks for the permission to come through before we can make a start on the building work. Hopefully however, we can still start putting the drainage in and dig out the bay tree to the front of the property and re-build the wall that it is pushing over.

Despite the set back we are still hoping to get the work done this year and think we are about to learn that things in France don't happen as fast as they do in the UK. We can live with that, after all the slower pace is one of the reasons why we love France.

Déclaration Préalable

Its a geat sounding name but obtaining planning permission in France for building works of a minor nature is relatively straight forward. Simply you fill in a standard form describing the works and its location together with drawings and the all important Plan Cadastral and send everything to the local Maries office and wait for 28 days.

In our village I have been told the Mayor rides round in his car looks at the building and decides if it causes any issues with the neighbours and whether it looks ok. If you hear nothing then you can proceed. Great system if you have to work within the planning system in the UK where every step of the process can be made very arduous by Council red-tape. In France if you are wanting to work on your house go to your local Marie and tell them and they will advise you what to do next,

As guide a those building works that require a works declaration can be summarised as follows:

• A new building or extension to an existing building, not greater than 20m²;
• Creation of any openings in a building;
• Garage/Workshop not greater than 20m²;
• Conversion works that transform at least 10m² of the gross surface area into net surface area, eg garage, attic, basement;
• Changes to the exterior finish of the property;
• A below ground swimming pool;
• Works to historic listed buildings not requiring planning consent;
• Boundary wall or fence above 2 metres;
• Change of use of a building, even where no works undertaken (although planning consent required if external structure altered or structural work undertaken);
• Installation of temporary caravan.

The  Declaration Prealable can be found
http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/R17501.xhtml

An English translation can be found
http://www.propertytranslations.com/component/option,com_docman/task,doc_details/gid,30/Itemid,42/lang,english/

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Water Water Everywhere

Our builder called us last week from France to say that the twelve continuous days of rain they have suffered has started to take its toll on our petite maison and that it is flooded out with rainwater because of the gaping hole in the roof, as can be seen from the photograph.

The worry being that the chestnut floor boarding will need to replaced if the water continues to penetrate the structure. Also the timber kingpost roof truss is being stained by the weather. We took the decision to carry out a repair on the roof even though at this point in time we aren't the legal owners of the house. However, we needed to protect our investment as our Compromis de Vente clearly states that the vendor cant be held liable for any deterioration of the property during the period that the Contract is being prepared .

As a matter of courtesy we obtained the permission of the owner through our agent Christophe. Unfortunately the work to repair the roof has been half completed as the heavens opened during the morning of the work. So once the rain stops, probably next week, the work will be completed and just maybe the flooring will have been saved.

 On the upside our builder told us that the views over the of the countryside is "stunning" when viewed from the tower scaffold, something we haven't seen as the grenier doesn't have windows at the moment. The builder said he would take some photos for us when he goes back up to complete the work. So when we get these we will post them on here. But for now we have posted what we have taken of the garden area

Plans

We have decided on a layout for the renovation works at long last. Although the property is two storey the first floor has always been used as Grenier accessible only through a door in the gable end of the house from a steel ladder. Unfortunately there is only 1.6m head room in Grenier so we are going to lift the roof to give 2.0m clearance.

This isn't a problem though as the roof needs overhauling and so it will be removed and rebuilt. We shall just build up the stonework at the wall plate level and adjust the gables to suit.

The ground floor will be open plan and shall have new door and window openings to take in the rear view of the open countryside. As there are no windows in the Grenier we shall insert roof lights where necessary. However the gable end door will be changed to a window and we shall form a new window in the rear wall for the Master Bedroom.

Fire Place

The Charantais fireplace in our French property is a little worse for wear as you might be able to see from the photograph. The stone corbel on the right hand side of the picture has crumbled away and requires replacement. I guess that it shouldn't be too difficult for a stone mason to put right and don't think getting the stone to match will be a problem. I think then the whole fireplace and mantel piece may want a light sand blasting but not quite sure about these things so we will have to seek advice from somewhere. The fire bricks definitely need replacing to the back of the hearth. We hope to fit a log burning stove into the hearth for the winter evenings. Hope to show you how we get on with this in a few months time.

Heat Losses

U values just the thing for stimulating the old grey matter. I have not worked out any of these since my college days and somehow they seemed rather alien and unnecessary back then. In a strange way I rather enjoyed the exercise and I now have some values for my brother Bob whom I have "commissioned" to work out the hot water and heating requirements for the project. I think he is up to especially as he has done this sort of thing for nearly forty years.
I have decided to insulate the existing ground floor and also the first floor walls and of course the roof space. I am not going to insulate the ground floor walls as these have stone quoins, lintels and cills and would be hidden with insulated board. The two timber windows are the best thing in the property and they look brand new. I can change the glass to double glazed units. So hopefully I think we will end up with quite energy efficient property.

At last!

At last after many years of searching the internet, sifting through countless emails from property agents we have found the perfect property in France. Like many things in life the property was the very first one we saw several years ago as a potential purchase but moved on  in the pursuit of something else. Had we only taken the time to see beyond the ivy covered facade and the overgrown Baytree covering the front of the property we would have saved a huge amount of frustration, disappointment and self-inflicted mental torture. The silly thing being that the house had not been lived in for 25 years and some time ago we actually  managed to find out the contact details of the French family that owned the property. This we scribbled on a piece of paper and  stowed it away in the kitchen drawer for the last three years. Why we waited so long before engaging an agent to value the property for us especially when friends of ours live the house opposite heavens knows.