Running a Gite in Brittany

French electrics

For the last few days I have been installing all the electricity cabling upstairs in the two gites ready for plasterboarding on Monday. It's actually been a bit of a mamouth job. I'd allocated a day, which was very optimistic for doing the wiring for two three bedroomed gites.

French electrics follow the NF C 15-100 standard which details the types of cables, sizes, colour codes, regulations regarding placement, earthing, circuit breakers, specialised circuits, sockets per room, etc. etc. Most of the NF C 15-100 info is in my French Electrics book, L'installation électrique, and on the Promotelec site.

French electrics all run on a spur system (no ring main like in the UK) so there are lots of cables leaving the fuse box, especially when you take into account the specialised circuits for various appliances like the VMC, cooker, washine machine, hot water heater, etc. I think I'm up to about 20 circuits per gite each with a circuit breaker on the end and protected by three RCD devices. Thats alot of cable.

Talking of cables - they are different to the UK. The conductors all the same size and coloured thus:-

• Yellow/Green - Earth
• Blue - Neutral
• Anything else - Phase or Live (generally red, black or brown is used).

In general the cables come either as double sheathed (the black cable in the photo) or as separate wires running through flexible conduit, gaine, (the grey tube). In both cases the number, size (1.5mm, 2.5mm, 6mm, etc.), colour are all available in a multitude of combinations. You can even buy the grey conduit (gaine) empty and draw through your own wires (subject to regulations covering conduit size, wire cross section and number of wires) to create your own combinations. For example I often draw a red and orange wire through gaine for a switch (the phase and the live return to the lamp).

Having used the UK electrics system and the French electrics system I much prefer the French way. I find it much easier to use.

All ready for plasterboarding on Monday.

|   7:48:57 PM   French electrics   

Electrics, plumbing and enduit

On the gite front things have been progressing very well.

Over the last few days nearly all the metal studwork has been finished upstairs, with just a couple of bits of plasterboard added. The insulation on all the outside walls has been installed and I've started the first fit electrics in one gite. My plumbing friend Ian has started the first fit plumbing - well cut a few holes in the floor. There's been a little bit of room redesign - which slowed us up a bit - because the architect plans were not very accurate and also we have changed a few things to make the plumbing (waste pipes) a little easier. As it turns out most of the bedrooms have actually got a little bigger with our jiggling about.

The enduit (rendering) guys came on Tuesday to render the breeze block parts of the building. They came first thing in the morning with a big mixing machine, which they unloaded about 50 bags of enduit into and then pumped the enduit onto all the walls. The enduit is a lime based coloured cement render. Because it's coloured there is no need to paint it. For the older wall (pictured) they added a 'resin' to help the enduit stick. A quick skim over with a float and they left at lunchtime to leave it to go 'off' before the finish is applied. It was a very cold day and the two of them ran everywhere, partly to keep warm I think.

About 4 PM they returned and ran over the drying enduit with a 'nail board' to give it a rough textured finish. The final product has transformed the building. It looks very smart and much more like two gites now.

|   9:31:40 PM   Electrics, plumbing and enduit   

Where is the W key

I've been a bit lax with my entries for a few days because we finally got round to buying a new PC, the old PC crashed once too often. Reconfiguring, copying data, reinstalling programs, remembering passwords etc. takes ages. For some reason decided to buy a French PC, i.e. French Windows XP and French keyboard. The combination is absolutely driving me nuts. I can't type anything because all the letters are in the wrong places, you need to press the shift key to enter numbers from the top row and to cap it all I need a dictionary whenever Windows pops up a dialogue box or error message. It's really really frustrating. As an example typing http://www.google.com  comes out as http/::zzz;google;co, Bizarre.

Until I get used to the new keyboard layout my verbosity may be curtailed somewhat.
|   8:58:48 PM   Where is the W key   

Rainwater drainage

Finally finished digging the trench to take the rainwater away from the new guttering on the kitchen out into a ditch on the edge of our property. It's was not a long trench but it was heavy going clay type soil mixed with rubble and some old farm rubbish and ended up taking about a week all told (not full time!).

Part of the process involved excavating around the bottom of the building to remove the builders dropped bricks and motar and put in a French Drain and gravel. The depth of the new foundations meant that the soil , when returned, would pile up around the foot of the building and could cause a damp problem if the water is not allowed to soak away. The French seem to paint a rubber solution around the base of new building below ground level rather than use a damp proof course between bricks.

Of course at the first sign of rain I was stood out in the ditch watching the water gush out of my new pipework.
|   6:59:30 PM   Rainwater drainage   

Galette des Rois

My first Galette des Rois of the year this evening

Traditionally the French celebrate La Fête des Rois (Festival of the Kings, or Epiphany) by eating a special dessert, a Galette des Rois. Normally it's frangipan (almond paste) but we also have a version with an apple filling. I prefer the apple. The galettes are absolutely delicious, but very fattening (like everything nice).

The Galette comes with a paper crown and a small porcelain fève baked inside the pie. In our house the galette is cut up into equal (or nearly equal!) pieces and the youngest member of the family (that's Hugh) goes under the table and calls out who should have each piece. The person who finds fève the is crowned the king/queen for the day and wears the crown.

|   8:18:21 PM   Galette des Rois   

Loft hatch, what loft hatch.

After the plasterboard delivery Monday, Ian and I have been making the piles smaller by putting up the two ceilings in each of the gites. Apart from boarding straight over the first loft hatch and forgetting where it was everything went very smoothly. I didn't make the same mistake with the second hatch in the other gite. I know it sounds a bit bizarre losing a loft hatch that I only constructed a few hours earlier, but once the ceiling is up it's a bit featureless. A bit of tapping around and a small exploratory hole soon confirmed it's location.

Ian spent half a day of sterling work filling holes in the gable ends with small rocks and cement whilst I humped 15 huge rolls of 200mm glassfibre into the loft space ready to lay out once I've run the electric cabling for room lights etc. and VMC ducting. The VMC is a fan unit located in the loft to extract damp air from bathrooms, toilets and the kitchen by a network of flexible plastic ducting. It detects the humidity/mositure in the air. Caroline has started to do the internal pointing for the exposed stone walls with a sand and lime mix. It really makes the stonework come alive and look very nice indeed.

Today has been another monster shopping day for Caroline and I. We've been buying toilets, showers, internal doors, baths, and various other bits and bobs so next week we can start on the internal walls and subsequently first fit electrics and plumbing.

|   9:18:49 PM   Loft hatch, what loft hatch.   

Whilst working during the day I have the radio on listening to either M FM or Hit West. The stations seem to play a loop of random sequed songs without a DJ occasionally puncuated by the news. After a while you get the know the songs very well. One of the songs, titled 'Desormais' has entered my consciousness, but without a DJ I had no idea who the artist was. Google came to rescue revealing Charles Aznavour as the singer. Gosh, I must be getting old.

Reluctantly I visited the site, selecting the English version, then Discography (bottom left) followed by D and scrolling to Desormais. I have to say I was quite impressed with how all the albums slid across the screen with the ability to drag the slider around. Well it impressed an old fogey like me.

|   7:21:30 PM      

Plastered

We had a delivery today; a huge lorry load packed to the gunwales with stuff. It looked extremely daunting see it pull into the courtyard. We had ordered 140 sheets of plasterboard, 450 m² of glassfiber insulation (various thicknesses), wood, metalwork etc. I'm not sure I appreciated quite how much stuff there was.

Ian and I shifted all the glassfibre inside (it's a lot heavier than you think) and we were already tired out by the end of it, and we hadn't even started on the plasterboard.

Fortunately Caroline had sweet talked our local friendly farmer, Yves, to come round with hist tractor and help us lift all the plasterboard upstairs. A little improvisation with a forked hay bale lifter a few pallets and the plasterboard balanced precariously on the front was just the job. After moving 70 sheets upstairs the four of us where dead on our feet. As luck would have it it was now 12:30 and time for lunch. With a Frenchman in our midst we felt obliged to have a three course leisurely lunch with Ricard and wine.

Rejuvenated and revitalised the second instalment didn't seem quite so bad, but it's possible the soporific effects of lunchtime were blurring our judgement and numbing the aches in our limbs.

The good news is we are all systems go to do nearly all the ceilings and walls in the two gites upstairs.

 

|   7:36:03 PM   Plastered   

Windows finished

Armed with 36 tubes of silicone mastic I had the remainder of the windows in my sights. Five of them went in very easily, with just one other causing me a slight probem because the window sill wasn't level - and hence square to the walls - it wanted to twist the frame.

I ended up using just over 2 tubes of mastic per window. By the last two windows I had to use my left hand to operate the mastic gun cos my wrist was shot. Caroline also had to do a bit of surfing to find out the solvent for silicone sealant. I'd wiped my hands on my overalls so many times some of it had rubbed off onto the glass. A bit of white spirit was all that was required.

|   6:09:19 PM   Windows finished   

Some windows installed

The last few days have seen very good progress. Caroline has spent most evenings over the last week painting the doors and windows for both gites. One door - two are on order- and nine windows. In the current weather they dry much better between coats in our house and then I can fit them finished.

Three windows upstairs have been fitted, but I had to stop because I ran out of mastic. All the windows and doors are fitted to the inside of the stonework and it uses quite a bit of mastic to fill any gaps. The addition of windows to the gites makes a real difference to the appearance. Instead of a stone building with holes it's now starting to look like a house.  In the meantime Ian and I have finished the studwork for both ceilings upstairs, and all the external wall studding and sloping ceilings/walls. Once the lorry load of plasterboard and insulation arrives on Monday we should be able to start putting up some internal walls.

Tomorrow will be another mamouth shopping trip to buy more supplies; mastic, wood, metal studwork, screws ...

 

|   8:08:19 PM   Some windows installed   

Les Champs Geraux community spirit

We got presented with our flower garden prize - a bunch of flowers- and a Diplome d'Honneur last night at Les Champs Geraux village hall. There were several hundred people there with the mayor making various speeches recognising the contributions of village people, presenting prizes to other competition winners and noting the achievements of the village and it's future plans.

I thought it was really nice event which helps bring, and keep, the community together with appreciating people work and effort. Apparently every commune in France does the same thing.

|   8:18:55 PM   Les Champs Geraux community spirit   

Ceiling batons

Finished off the horizontal ceiling supports yesterday (that's the yellow wood in the photo) in both gites upstairs. While we were on a roll and to clear material off the floor we just carried on into the second gite. Just as we were about to start screwing the metal ceiling batons/hangars to the wood we remembered that it would be necessary to put some walker boards up above the ceiling to enable us to put up the insulation, wiring for lights etc. Above that yellow wood is just a void.

Putting up the ceiling batons was relatively easy once we had a level, the metal hanger brackets clip to the back of the baton and screw to the wooden support above. The metal batons are 2515mm off the floor. A wall plasterboard is 1,2m by 2,5m so we allowed 10mm for the thickness of the ceiling board + 5mm for leaway. The walling plasterboard should just slot straight in :-)

Whilst Ian and I were working upstairs the macons arrived to fit the pre-cast window sills and construct the door sills. The door sills are hand made with shuttering, concrete and smooth cement. They saved this job for the end of the day, so when Ian and I came down from upstairs we found ourselves trapped, hemmed in by wet cement and just to make our escape even more difficult the macons had fixed at knee height across each doorway a wide plank to prevent rain dripping on the sill and spoiling the smooth finish. A quick Bob Beamon secured our escape.

|   8:02:36 PM   Ceiling batons   

Supply chain problems

Didn't do much on the gites today because we used up nearly all my screws, nails and wood supplies in the last two days, so today I've been shopping all day. As well as fixings I also needed a new hand saw, new circular saw blade, another pair of slightly taller step ladders, ... The list went on and on. I did buy some materials earlier than I needed them before, but after moving the same stack of chipboards around three times I've been trying the just-in-time ordering system. The slight glitch is it's now a just-too-late system.

I think the shopping part is harder than the actual work, especially when you are keeping an eye on the cost.

Now the roofs are finished and rain proof Ian and I have resumed upstairs, finishing off laying the floor on Monday. The plan was to put in a suspended plasterboard ceiling upstairs from one end of the building to the other then erect the dividing wall between the two gites and then various walls for each of the rooms. However a search on Google for soundproofing meant building two distinct dividing walls that don't touch each other for good noise isolation. A common ceiling would transmit noise between the gites. Density + Disconnection = Sound Insulation.

As I've learnt from various websites, the problem with studding walls is one plasterboard side turns the sound into energy (vibrations) which is transmitted through the screws and studwork onto the other side where the plasterboard acts like a huge drum skin !! The solution is to have two independent walls, preferably filled with a dense media.

So now we have two skeletal stud wall stuctures from floor to above the ceiling height separating the two gites. We actually are going to extend the wall right up to the roof to help prevent any noise progressing through the roof space, and additionally it will act as a fire break should a fire start in one of the gites. With the wall in place we could lay horizontal timbers just above the finished ceiling height and have started to fix on the metal rails at right angles to which the plasterboard is screwed.

There was quite a bit of head scratching and discussion before putting up the ceiling rails. It's something neither of us have done before, and we have the added complications of an old, un-level, un-square building with portions of sloping roof to contend with. A real baptism by fire.

|   9:17:12 PM   Supply chain problems   

Happy New Year

Bonne année et bonne santé à tous apart from 3 of our chickens. Yesterday evening a fox got 3 of the chickens just after dusk. We got home just after dark after helping tidy up our New Year celebrations at our neighbours farmers house. This morning we noticed two chickens had disappeared and we found another dead near the chicken run. We have been very lucky because these are the first chickens we have lost to a fox in 2 years. We always lock them up at night and now we will need to extra vigilent over the next few days.

Tidying up, just like the APE Soiree, involves cleaning and washing-up after the previous late night, then returning at lunch to eat and drink all the left-overs, re-enacting the previous night (and morning!). I really like the logic of it all; you get two parties for the price of one, and a few hours off for a sleep in between.

|   5:41:18 PM   Happy New Year   

Gite renovation before and after with gite floorplans.

I have added before and after pictures, along with gite floorplans on the Gite Renovation blog. Hopefully it should make it easier to see progress for new visitors. |   2:05:19 PM   Gite renovation before and after with gite floorplans.