Running a Gite and Renovating in Brittany

Floor next stage

Another busy day today getting the floor ready for the concrete delivery Thursday morning.

On top of the hardcore and sand layer we finished yesterday we placed the DPC and large polystyrene sheets. The damp proof course is basically a huge plastic sheet. Each sheet of polystyrene insulation is 2cm thick and two layers are placed on top of each other at right angles to cover any gaps. It was worth the extra effort to ensure the sand layer was flat as the polystyrene sheets are very brittle and any potholes would have caused a problem whilst you are walking around over the sheets.

Unexpectedly a delivery lorry turned up during the morning with 2 3000 litre septic tanks and the various pumps, pipework and stuff for my sewage system. A week earlier than expected. Hopefully they should start on the filter beds in the garden rather than digging large holes in front of the house, otherwise the concrete mixer is going to have a real problem on Thursday. The delivery driver thought they might start installing the tanks Thursday or Friday. We'll have to see.

By the end of the afternoon we had the metal mesh laid on the insulation and I had laid out the electric cables and pipework that will be buried under the concrete. Both the electric cables and plastic water pipes are encased in a plastic conduit (gaine). The water pipes all run from point-to-point without any joints and are fed from a large manifold (nourice). Each conduit is tied to the metal grill with scrap wire to prevent it floating up to the surface of the concrete. It is also fixed to the wall with a push in plastic bracket. The idea of running cabling and pipe under the floor is mostly for convenience. You could run everything from the fuse box, or water main, above ground but getting around doorways gets a bit tricky.

So, tomorrow I've got to fix some wooden battens across the floor at the correct level for the concrete floor. With a straight edge we should be able to shuffle across the battens and get everything flat and level.

brittany renovation

|   8:17:23 PM   Floor next stage   

Floor ready for insulation and concrete

Picked up the floor compactor (plaque vibrante) this morning from the hire shop. They are doing well from me at the moment. It's just a small petrol driven machine with a vibrating plate. I've used one before for laying block paving and it's about 40 euros a day to hire.

Before starting work this morning to cover the soil pipes installed last week we had to order the concrete mixer. We ordered six cubic meters of ready mixed concrete (béton prêt à l’emploi) along with an attached conveyor belt to get the concrete to the far side of the room. The guy at the shop suggested a concrete mix with a slightly smaller gravel mix to get a better finish as I intend to tile straight on top of the concrete floor. The concrete also has a retardant to slow the drying process down to give us time to move it about and get everything level before setting. The whole lot came to 980 euros, a bit more than I expected, but I'm not mixing by hand. So, 6 m³ should be enough for 60 m² at a 10cm depth.

Concrete ordered and the rest of the day was to cover the soil pipes with the extra hardcore ordered last week. To save a delivery charge I also ordered 7 tonnes of grey unwashed sand along with the hardcore in the same lorry. As it turns out it was very lucky I did cos after running the compactor over the hardcore it compressed so much that we ended up shovelling in the extra 7 tonnes of hardcore and then added a layer of about 4 tonnes of sand on top.

We are both bushed having now shifted over 25 tonnes of sand and gravel. Tomorrow it the DPC (damp proof course) and insulation.

BTW - If you got here from google using the search terms hardcore and vibrator, then sorry.

|   7:59:32 PM   Floor ready for insulation and concrete   

Floor taking shape

Yesterday in preparation for the gravel delivery this morning I bashed a couple of openings in the walls. A hole for the soil pipes and a hole for the water connection. The man from the water company came for a site survey at the start of this week to discuss adding a new water supply for the house. After a bit of metal detecting he worked out where the water main was and suggested the best place for the water to enter the house. The blue pipe in the photo is the conduit with the plastic water pipe to be connected later. He said it should be 50cm below ground level when it exits the house, so a little more digging outside.

BTW, making holes in these stone walls is a brutal job. In the past I've tried to make a hole just big enough by carefully removing stone or using a hammer and chisel to cut my way through large stones. It isn't worth the hassle. Now I just sledgehammer away from both sides smashing the stone and taking out much much more than you think you need and then repairing the large hole later. In the long run its much quicker and easier.

The lorry with 15 tonnes of gravel/sand mix for the hardcore arrived at 8am and the two of us spent basically the whole day with a wheelbarrow each moving hardcore. By 3pm we had a fairly small pile left and realised that we where short by about 5 tonnes ! I did calculate yesterday that we needed another 3 tonnes but hoped that it might stretch. What I didn't calculate for was that in places I had dug out a little too deep, and surprisingly the hardcore mix actually compressed quite a bit, about 2cm over a 20cm depth. I was going to hire a vibrating compactor next week, but having jumped about on the stuff, I reckon it's going to compress quite a bit.

So tomorrow, at 8am, is another lorry load coming with 7 tonnes (a couple extra just in case).

brittany renovation

|   8:54:22 PM   Floor taking shape   

Hardcore

Rubble rather than movies.

We visited the local quarry at Corseul today to order the hardcore (herrison) to replace the spoil dug out last week. My original plan was to use large gravel then a layer of sand on top to protect the waterproof membrane. The guy at the quarry suggested for under a dalle beton, concrete floor, using something called 0/30 primaire. I've seen it used under roads and it's a grey stone of various sizes with sand mixed in. Once a vibrating plate machine is run over it to compact everything down there is no need for the sand layer. The good news is that it is fairly inexpensive at about 8 euros per tonne (plus delivery!).

Calculating it out meant I needed 12 cubic meters, approx 18 tonnes, (quarry man said multiply by 1.5), BUT, a lorry load is only 15 tonnes ! So, just the one lorry, and maybe I'll chuck back in some of the rubble ripped out, or more concrete. My head hurts.

|   8:05:10 PM   Hardcore   

Excavation of floors with mini-digger.

This week we have mostly been digging out the mud floors.

Hiring the digger was something I've been putting off because the whole operation seemed a bit daunting and I've never driven a mini-digger before. I was also a bit concerned about digging down too much and undermining the foundations. After clearing the two areas of the building of stored materials and rubbish, each around 35 square meters, and shopping for various bits of pipework etc, to go under the floor on Monday and Tuesday, the digger arrived on Wednesday. The day of reckoning. Along with the digger we also ordered two conveyor belts to remove the spoil.

The preparatory work involved marking a line around the walls one meter above the finished floor height so we could dig down a further 40cm. Thats for the tiles (1cm), concrete floor + iron grill (10cm), insulation (4cm), waterproof membrane + sand (5 cm) and hardcore (approx 20cm) in that order. 100mm soil pipes are buried within the hardcore at the correct fall.

The delivery guy arrived in the morning with the digger and gave me about 30 seconds instruction on how to use it, half of which was pointing out the key, where to fill up with diesel and a reminder that we only had eight engine hours per day on the counter. He was gone and I was on my own with more levers to push and pull that I knew what to do with. It took about an hour and a half to get even moderately proficient at the controls. It reminded me of learning to fly my model helicopter as a kid. Coordinating all the levers simulanteously in three dimensions was not easy.

We had only planned on hiring the equipment for one day, but with the learning curve and problems with the conveyor belts only the first section was anywhere complete. We had not even started the second room. The conveyor belts seemed like a really good idea but I'm not sure they were worth the trouble (and cost). Firstly they were very very heavy and difficult to move, so generally we made do. Secondly the mechanism around the rollers kept jamming with small stones and mud, halting progress infuriatingly often. Thirdly the spoil at the far end had to be constantly raked clear to avoid the heap building up around the end of the belt and fouling the belt. If we could have positioned the far end of the conveyor 10m up in the air it would have been great, but, see reason one. With hindsight it would have been just as good to have two or three willing volunteers with wheelbarrows.

Anyway, perseverance and a late night on Thursday got 80% of the job done and the hire shop was due to collect Friday. We had only used 14 of our 16 engine hours but crawling around on your hands and knees dismantling the jammed conveyor belt by torch light was enough for the day.

With luck the hire shop didn't turn up until after lunch on Friday so I got to use the 2 remaining engine hours and clear most of the mud from the second room and tidy up the site.

Something that was a little strange, and slowed down progress, was that one room was just compacted mud for the full 40cm, but the other room was piles and piles of stone. It looked like sometime in the past one, or possibly two, chimneys had been dismantled and all the stone buried in the floor. Digging out tonnes and tonnes of blackened stone proved really tough going and really needed a bigger mini-digger.

I haven't got the bill yet, but it's going to be about 900 euros for two days hire, so if a professional digger driver offers to do the same job for around the same money I'd take it every time. Even better if they take all the waste off-site. I've no idea what I'm going to do with 25 cubic meters (25 tonnes?) of rock and mud.

Here are a couple of movies or the mini-digger in action and the conveyor belts.

brittany renovation

|   6:57:56 PM   Excavation of floors with mini-digger.   

Progress update

I was on holiday last week so not much has changed recently. The roofers finished the roof whilst I was away, and everything looks great. I'm really pleased with the result. The downside are the piles and piles of old slate. The original quote included a price for the disposal of the rubbish, but in order to save a few bob I decided to do it myself.

That has turned out to be a bit of a false economy. So far this afternoon we have shifted 4 large trailer loads of slate to the dechetterie (rubbish tip) and we are only a quarter of the way through. I useful technique is to stomp about on the slate to break it up into smaller pieces making it easier to shovel. Fortunately the dechetterie is only 2 minutes down the road so it's just costing me time, and a little backache.

I've finished the doorway through the cob wall trimming the edges of the doorway to the correct width and squaring everything off. More rubbish to dispose off, but this time it's getting spread on the garden. It's just mud and heather mixed up.

The good news is that a man from EDF (the french electric company) came to look at my electric meter with a view to having it moved. Currently the equipment looks like it's from the 1930's, and is placed high up on the wall right next to the fireplace. This is the wall I want to keep as exposed stone, so the EDF guy came to survey the place and give me a quote for moving the meter into the proposed laundry room. I can't put the meter under the stairs because it has to be about 1.5m off the ground. I thought I would have to run cables in trenches or under the floor, but he said they could just extend the supply outside the building running a cable under the guttering at the back and drill through the outside wall. Fairly simple and inexpensive job. Whilst they are there all the Bake-A-Lite kit will be replaced and a remote meter box placed outside. He took a few photos, a couple of measurements and 'the quotes in the post'.

It looks like the rest of the week is going to be dedicated to clearing up the mess from the last month or so before I hire the mini-digger to rip up the floors ready to lay new concrete floors.

|   9:32:58 PM   Progress update