Plastic Fantastic

 

More than ever there is a move towards the use of plastic or more accurately chlorinated polyvinyl chloride (CPVQ), polybutylene (PB), and cross- linked polyethylene (PEX) pipe and fittings for hot and cold water and heating services. Tradesmen are moving towards the use plastic pipe and fittings for several reasons including the high cost of traditional materials such as copper and steel. Also the ease of fixing is another significant factor giving companies a competitive edge on the cost of labour as well as cost of the materials. It is said that a 40% saving on labour cost can be made by using plastic pipe.

However, the most recent and most significant driver to the use of plastics is theft of fitted metal pipe purely for its scrap value. Most theft from building sites is being carried out during the small hours but increasingly over the weekend when buildings are not occupied. Incidentally it’s not just pipe work but other fixed items such as steel radiators and lead flashing that is stolen. An immense amount of damage is caused to the fabric of the building as very often the pipe work is charged and pressurised  with water and is simply cut and ripped off walls and ceiling s flooding the premises.  

   

So how good is plastic piping? Without doubt some tradesmen have reservations in its use and will not use it and can probably give you examples of where it has failed. I would say that most of the failure has been simply bad fitting and lack of knowledge of the product. For instance the care still has to be taken to ensure that the pipe is cut square and the ends prepared before pushing fully into a fitting. Fittings can also be over tightened to the point of failure. Simply because it’s faster to install doesn’t mean than the same care doesn’t have to taken in its fitting.

It cannot be denied and fittings are manufactured to BS EN ISO standard and quality... Installation standards are also governed by BS. Also manufacturers have gained acceptance from British Gas for various types of heating systems and are eligible for acceptance onto Home Care Central Heating System Cover.

Finally, I cannot solder, I don’t own a blow torch or a tin of flux, a pipe cutter or bender but I do own a saw and a file and can now take on those small plumbing jobs.

Probleme de transport de meubles

Over the last few months we have been buying one or two items of furniture for the house. We have been taking advantage of sales and so far have picked up a dining table and six chairs from Homebase , and a double bed from Dreams. Also we have bought a shower screen and tray from Victoria Plumb and we are now looking to buy a mattress.

It was never our intention to buy furniture over here and transport the goods over to France but we have found that the exchange rate hasn’t been in our favour and we are never over in France when the sales on. Also to be honest we find some of the furniture very quirky and not to our taste unless you deep pockets then some of the furniture is really is nice. Together with the other items we have bought such as crockery, cutlery, kitchen knives, bedding, duvets, etc we have collected quite alot of things. All of this leads to a problem. We need to transport these things over to France and the cheapest option is to use a trailer. We can use this time and time again as we have a lot more things to buy over a period of time such as wardrobes, chest of drawers, bedside tables, another two beds and whatever else takes our fancy which will need to transported over.

So we are in the market for a trailer, new or second hand. Something big enough to take a double mattress either laid flat or its side. A box trailer or camping type trailer would fit the bill nicely. Any one got one to sell?

Below are links to the sites we have used all of which appear to have on-line sales. Incidentally we have found that if you order beds from the Dreams high street shop they will charge you around £35 for delivery. Buy it on-line its free delivery .
www.victoriaplumb.com
http://www.homebase.co.uk/
http://www.dreams.co.uk/

Blog Upgrade

February saw a record month for visits to the site so I thought readers should be able to get more from their visits. So I have decided to ring in the changes with regards to how I present my regular blogs and that these changes should be very bold.

I hope you like the all new French Property Renovation blogsite. I really like the magazine feel together with the dynamic views that looks far more professional and are far easier to navigate. All the blogs are accessible from the front page which is great as some articles were getting lost within the archives and therefore would never see the light of day. A simple click opens up each blog in more detail.

This is the first of the changes that are being made and very soon a new and exciting development and direction of  the site will be announced - so please keep returning and look up some of the old blogs. Oh and please leave a comment and let me know what you think to the changes.

Paving

I am thinking of laying various types of exposed aggregate finished hard landscaped areas around the outside areas of the house, These can be easily achieved with a bit of experimenting, first on small areas that can be easily removed before embarking on large areas. Careful batching of materials in a hand mixer is the key to ensure consistency of colour and texture. The concrete must be placed into  form work and tamped to level and finished with a wood float and then allowed a set. The time taken to achieve this will be anything up to an hour depending on the air temperature. The surface of the concrete then needs to be sprayed with a concrete retarding agent. After a further six hours gently power wash the surface to expose the aggregate and then leave to cure. By using combinations of different natural sands and aggregates various interesting colours and textures can be achieved.

The building sand in the Charente is light grey in colour and mixing this with 5mm-10mm sized white sharp aggregate, again which is common to the area should produce a good look for a patio area to the front of the house. There's not too much you can do about the colour of the cement as this varies between different manufacturers i.e. between dark grey and light grey, but it has to be taken into consideration when you are trying to come up with a desired colour and texture.

 I am reliably informed by Philip Voice who runs a landscaping network and lives in France that the local materials I have seen is sharp sand (sablé batir) and castine (white limestone scaplings). Phil's site is well worth a visit by the way http://www.landscapejuicenetwork.com/ .

A another good source of information is the Lafarge website.  Lafarge is a major player in cements and aggregates and are leaders in engineered concrete paving solutions. They have a site that illustrates in more detail the spectacular effects that can be achieved with concrete when creating hard landscaped areas. http://www.lafarge.co.uk/wps/portal/uk/3_D-Construction_Solutions  If you have any technical issues or need advice I know they will be only to pleased help

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.