Forging ahead - Update # 24

21 December 2014

It's been all quiet on the French front in recent weeks, while Tom and Gregg (and we) waited for the concrete to dry. In the meantime, the unseasonably mild weather gave way to proper wintry conditions.  But the guys have now made some serious progress on the dépendance, as this latest series of photos will attest.

The king post truss goes up and the roof beams follow, as the sky glowers overhead. Part of the newly-strengthened walls has been pointed.

(A little, well-deserved advert...)

They've managed to raise the roof a bit, as you can see here, so as to maximise the internal head height.

Poor Gregg working away in the gloom, doing his stone-work magic and extending the 'good' gable end.

Getting there...

The king post truss faces the barn, and the gaps will be glazed in time, to bring light into the interior. We have managed to retain the original windows and the door (although it will have a higher lintel than the original). 

The new pointing is clear in this photo and you can imagine the final effect, but the stone work and concrete is 'messy' at the moment, as Tom himself admits, so he is keen to get going on it  and tidy it up in the first week of the New Year.

The photo above shows the 'concrete ladder' technique that Tom described to us in the summer.

Tom and Gregg got the roof insulation up and the counter battens completed before Christmas, so the  little building is more or less water-tight, safe, and sound. 

Looks like a happy New Year indeed. 

Buffer store enclosure, ta da! - Update # 23

24 November 2014

Attached to a typically cryptic email received yesterday, Chas sent this photo of the buffer tank enclosure. The photo was taken on 10 November. Clearly, it's a secret and G and I don't know the password.

As Chas says, it looks a little 'red', but hopefully it will weather with time. It looks OK, otherwise, as far as we can make out. Could he have got any further away, one wonders? The door mechanism, etc might as well be drawn on in permanent marker, for all we know.

The plumbing side of things is still not finished. Good thing we aren't going for Christmas this year. Do we dare hope that it will be ready for next year?

There's a crack, a crack, in everything....

19 November 2014

...that's how the light gets in. (Leonard Cohen)

Not any more, though. In an overnight missive from Tom, he explains how they repaired that pesky crack, and strengthened the wall:

"The crack I showed you had stones cemented in place on the outside where possible to hold the concrete in place, and then when the concrete was poured we opened up the crack at the top and poured concrete down. The other method we used here was to stitch the crack with reinforced steel rods placed horizontally across the crack, in the same way that you would stitch a cut, this steel bar will not be seen as it’s in the middle of the wall. It wasn’t straight-forward to do, so there may be some more making (Ed. 'good') to do once the shuttering comes off."

So, now you know.

Saving the dépendance - Update # 22

17 November 2014

As promised, Tom and Gregg began on the dépendance at the beginning of November.

Tom took delivery of the custom-built A-frame king post truss last week. He photographed it before having to dismantle it so that he could transport it to the barn. Check out the pins holding it together...

This will face the barn and we will glaze between the beams in time 

I'll let Tom describe the process for y'all:

"... we took the roof off a couple of weeks ago, and then last week we took out the beams tying the two walls together, and then quickly began the shuttering. Every single timber in the building was rotten as a pear.

Removing the timbers exposed the poor condition of the stonework. Gregg has been repairing some of the big cracks and holes in the walls, and I’m relieved to say we have now poured our steel reinforced concrete, and we didn’t lose any more stonework than was anticipated.

So, without wanting to be too dramatic about it, the building has been 'saved' and we can now put a new roof on and make it look pretty again..."

Roof off, and masonry collapsing :(

The far gable end is in good shape, though

A vertical crack appears when the timbers are removed and the walls are unsupported

The unseasonal warm weather is clearly over

Looking though the doorway into the dépendance 

Feature (but no-longer-functional) corner oak beams have been removed

There's that worrying crack - it wasn't there before

OK, OK, we get it; there's a stonking great crack in the wall

Shuttering...

...and a lovely shot of our new and G's favourite mug

The 'good' gable

Tom busy saving the dépendance!

This shows the extent of the shuttering which will result in a horseshoe- or U-shaped concrete beam, which will hold the walls 

The walls at this corner must be far off true

Concrete done! The A-frame will rest on this at this end...

"Now we must wait a couple of weeks for the concrete to dry out. Then the A-frame goes on, and then the stone gable will be repaired, (we need the A-frame to be in place to match the heights and levels of the two gables, thus making the roof nice and easy for us.)"

The photos show the dire state of the little building. G and I are so happy that we chose to get it repaired before another damaging winter set in.

Hotting up - Update # 21

6 November 2014

Not really. Chas has been characteristically silent and, only after various prompts, admitted that he is behind schedule. Tell us something new, Chas.

Anyway, he is in the process of sourcing materials (slate and larch) to match those used on the barn, and should be able to finish this week.

In the meantime, here's a photo of the little structure he has built for the expansion tank and pellets storage. Unfortunately, he had to destroy a grape vine that was happily climbing the back left corner. We discussed this in August, so we were well prepared.

And in other, happier news, things are starting to happen for the dépendance. In an email from Tom yesterday:

"...things are now moving with the dependence. I am picking up the A-frame on Monday the 10^th November, photo’s (sic) of A-frame/Demolition work/masonry work will be on their way to you by the middle of next week..."

And, as we know, Tom is a man of his word.

Little cutie

15 October 2014

During the summer, we were in discussion with Tom about the saving of the dépendance, or outbuilding, which sits close to the main barn and is starting to fail. Our tarpaulin has kept the worst excesses of the weather from getting in through the roof, but the external oak beams are rotten and the walls are in very bad shape, after years of assault by an invasive creeper and the weather.

Gingerbread house

The barn's little sister...

...gets a tarpaulin cover for protection

All wrapped up, safe and sound - for now

Tom says that if he has ever seen a sudden collapse of a stone building, it has been one with this kind of structure; one with external wooden posts at the corners, which, when rotten, give way and bring the whole structure down. Hmm, and we have a LOT of gardening stuff stored in there and G and I go in and out of the little building all the time. Hard hat time? No, I thought not - that would be very un-French.

After a lot of head scratching and to-ing and fro-ing of ideas and costings etc, it was decided that the project could be done in three phases. In Tom's words:

1. Take down all unstable masonry and remove from site the existing roof structure, and the rotten timber frame that makes up two of the four wall corners.

Cast steel reinforced concrete to rebuild the two unstable corners, and cast new wall plate on tops of walls, this will tie the whole building together. The next stage is to prepare the old stonework and point up the stone work. This serves the purpose of stabilizing the untouched stonework, and aesthetically it would hide the new concrete.

-Stage one would also involve digging along the side of the wall where the ground is high, putting in drainage pipe and putting a delta membrane against wall before backfilling.

2. Stage two consists of building a new roof on the newly consolidated walls. Slates and roofing style would be to match the barn. Roof structure would be designed to have as much useable space as possible inside.  Open gable facing the barn - a feature Oak A-frame to make up this gable - which can be glazed at a later date.   The best design for an A-frame with regards to the pitch of the roof, the span, and the intention to glaze it at a future date, is a king post truss.

An example of a king post truss

With this design roof there would be maximum head height inside, we would not need to put in collar beams or purlins on such a small roof, so there would be no restrictive timbers inside, just the rafters and the ridge beam.

3.Final stage is turning the inside into a useable space, concreting the floor, perhaps putting in a partial upper floor? Doors and windows etc. 

G and I envisage a small studio/bedroom, with a bed platform and space beneath for a sofa and/or desk. No room for a toilet or shower, but then, this isn't the Ritz, people.

Heating matters - Update # 20

23 September 2014

The heating of the barn has been a crucial part of the design from the outset, and warrants its own blog post. We wanted it to be cosy! The idea was to have underfloor heating (UFH) downstairs, under the concrete floor and radiators upstairs; the whole thing driven by the wood pellet stove in the corner of the living room. Apparently, burning wood pellets is very efficient (90-something %), and to retain the heat, we arranged for Tom to put in extra wall and ceiling insulation.

Fast forward to the day before Chas was due to install and commission the stove. Text from him to say that the stove (discussed with him a year ago and ordered by him months ago) would not be suitable for the UFH (installed by him months back), as it could not run below 65 degrees C - way too hot under-foot - and that the solution was both bulky and expensive. But not, we guessed, as expensive as jack-hammering up the concrete floor and resizing the doors and staircase.

The outcome of a very heated exchange (sorry) was an agreement to install outside a 200L buffer tank (charged with anti-freeze and suitably clad to withstand below-freezing winter temperatures), which will allow the hot water to mix with the cooled water returning from the radiators upstairs sufficiently for the UFH system. At the same time, the radiators upstairs will receive water at the higher temperatures. It could even be a more effective heating system than the earlier version. But yes, both bulky and expensive.

While waiting for calculations etc and the appropriate tank to arrive, we insisted that Chas install the stove and commission it during our last days in France. On the last day, literally as we were packing our suitcases and cleaning out the fridge, Chas got the stove to fire up. In the pics it doesn't have its red ceramic 'jacket' on, but you get the idea.

Note feet of barn co-owner and photographer extraordinaire

It's a primitive sort of pleasure, the warmth radiating from a fire. Something about a feeling of security; of hearth and home.

Once the pointing of the gable end wall was complete, Chas got going on the concrete plinth, and he had the tank delivered too. The plan is to build a larch-panelled lean-to shed with tiled roof to house the tank and extra bags of pellets (like the green/yellow bag in the photo). The whole shebang should be finished by mid-October.

But don't hold your breath, now, will you?

Pointing - Update # 19

15 September 2014

In discussions with Tom and Gregg over the summer, it became clear that we would have to bite the bullet and start the lengthy and expensive exercise of pointing the outside walls. Weather damage over the years was simply getting the better of them, and moisture penetration and ultimately, the walls' strength, was a concern. G and I took the reluctant decision to begin the pointing with the gable end that faces the teeth of the weather, the idea being that we will progress to the other walls in due course.

We were reluctant because we knew that we would lose our beloved 'look' of old stone barn. But if it will preserve said barn in the long term, clearly there was really no choice.

Tom sent through photos this morning, of la nouvelle grange. Once over the initial shock, I decided that I love it.

The photos also clearly show Chas' handiwork: the external stainless steel flue, which he fitted in the last week of August.

Stone terrace 101

6 September 2014

The stone terrace began as a pile of stone rubble that was left over from the renovation. We'd had the idea that it would be useful to build up the ground just outside the French doors, since there was quite  a drop down to the garden there and the land slopes away quite steeply.

While daughter-C and boyfriend-M tackled the French newspapers and investigated the back of their eyelids in the double hammock strung between the apple trees...











...son-C got stuck in with a pick axe and spade, and he and his cousin-F brought arm-loads of stones from another stockpile on the far side of the orchard.

But it was hot work and the beers were cold, so we didn't see a huge amount of progress, it has to be said.

Once the family had gone off in all their different directions after five happy days together, I felt as if I'd sat in the bath while the water had drained away; that unpleasant, slightly chilly, high-and-dry sensation. Perhaps that explains why I spent the next several days working like a mad woman on the stone terrace. G indulged me and brought countless wheelbarrow-loads of soil from next door, which I used to help build up the height.

I never really had A Master Plan for the terrace, being a novice, but made it up as I went along. I started out with the most massive stones right next to the French doors, thinking they would make reasonable steps. I even used the niveau Anglais on my smartphone to ensure that they were level. And then I  began to make it in a more organic way, trusting my eye for the level, and just having fun.

The weather continued to be unsettled, blistering heat alternating with cloudbursts, but I was largely oblivious, though dust in my eyes drove me indoors at one stage, where rain and mud did not. Only darkness was the complete kill-joy.

In the end, I decided to plant some rockery plants around the top edge, to provide some height (lavender, rosemary and gaura) or tumble down the slope (portulaca), but of course it remains to be seen whether they survive the neglect which we have in store for them in the coming months. The weed mat is ugly, I think we'd all agree, but will hopefully give the weeds second thoughts.

Neighbour-G suggested that a lime-sand mix spread between the stones would 'cake' and preserve the soil and possibly slow down the growth of les herbes mauvaises, but I ran out of time and had to leave it as-is.

The other thing we are leaving as-is is the meadow, below the terrace. There were so many bees and little beasties in the wildflowers that it seems madness to deprive them of their habitat, and of course, it means less maintenance for us.

Spot the real reason.