Hello everybody …. new member.
Bought a small place near La Gacilly (Morbihan) years ago; now retired and starting to do the real work !
Rear is three 200 year old barn rooms - one is done up as a living room - now extending into second room - 22 sq m (5.5m x 4m) and possible the third room 19 sq m (5.5m x 3.4m).
Dirt floors - local builder (excellent work and good references) has quoted 11000 Euros for both so probably 6000 and 5000 each.
Is this a fair price ?
All advice and comments appreciated (and probably a lot more to come….)
Thanks in advance
I’m not really able to help you, but I’m sure others who can will be along shortly. A bit more detail may also help, such as:
Is there excavation/ removal of the existing floor?
What is the detail of the new floor - reinforced concrete slab, insulation, underfloor heating, floor finish etc.
Good luck with your projects. It would be interesting to see photos the work as it progresses.
Sorry, didn’t make myself clear….
Dig out dirt floor - put sand/gravel layer, put membrane and insulation, cement truck will come and pump cement, builder will put insulated edging - all waste removed.
I’ve recently had 44m2 of concrete floor laid it cost me around 5k€
This included digging up part of the earth floor laying down a membrane etc. The concrete was mixed using a mixer.
Maybe you have already done so but I would be inclined to seek out at least 3 devis using the the same spécifications. Wrong time of the year I know but.
You local Chambre de Métiers might also be useful to interrogate regarding the rates?
Good luck anyway and yes, some photos will be lovely to see!
It’s essential to get several quotes and talk with the staff to find the one that feels right to you. In my experience, there can be huge differences in prices, but the cheapest options aren’t necessarily the best !
Price not over the top. Hope that includes reinforcement mesh to go under the concrete mix. It’s a lot of work, OH did dozens of these all over Brittany back in the day. The family home I sold up there in 2022 had a new floor laid in the big barn renovation behind the main house and the builder used concrete with insulation mixed into it rather than lay plaques of styrene
Suggestion, with all that work and expense, probably not much more to embed underfloor heating pipe even if you to see yourself using it now, give it a few years and heat pumps being the likely go to. Thats what I have done in rediness.
Maçons will have their own mixer and labour count +/- 350€ P/P P/day.
Pre mix lorry the price may double if not more, cost of buying a specialized lorry + drivers pumps etc + the silos for storage of various agrégats types of cement, adatives and all the machinery. Three chaps laid the concrete in just under two days.
Make sure they do what’s called a “Hérisson”, a ventilated slab on a bed of coarse gravel with ducting and air intakes, preferably with lime concrete. If not, rising damp will get worse as humidity won’t find a way out and will be sucked by the walls.
A while ago but I think we paid around €120 or €150 m3 delivered, and it was all done and dusted in half a day. I remember it was under €300 for than final stage. Obviously that doesn’t include the underfloor gubbins, that’s just the final chape
Your quote should include the quantity of concrete that needs to be delivered, and needs to take into account the delivery constraints - low volume orders attract a higher charge, access conditions (often challenging when it comes to barns) also affect the final price paid. An idea of costs just for concrete flooring here:
Many thanks to all for the replies….. such a lovely crowd of people on this site.
The macon that we have met did the two barns next door so we can see the quality of his work …. and he’s a lovely chap.
He gave us a totally detailed devis …. which took our breath away - but the majority of replies indicate that he’s given a reasonable quote.
With all the other work to be done we feel it may all come over-budget ….. so we face the horrible option of maybe selling and finding somewhere needing less costly work to do.
We bought our farmhouse 20 years ago and discovered masses needed doing. We employed a maitre d’oeuvre, not least because he was known and trusted by the local artisans who were very suspicious of English incomers. His fee was more than recouped in the savings he achieved, even so, we had to stop the work at an earlier point than we’d hoped.
He got 3 quotes for everything and the total came in at about 150,000 euros. He and I decided then what could be left for some future date and cut back to 100,000 euros. (This was spare capital from the house we’d sold in the UK).
Because we had bought a house, we could decide to leave a part of the house unrestored. Perhaps not so easy with a barn which is more of a blank canvas.
The “leave for later” means there is still a part of the house that is a future project for someone else, but some of the work (eg double glazing) we were able to do a few years down the line out of saved income.
It also means that it is a very easy project for someone to take over, a substantial house, much of it restored in the last 20 years, so easy to continue to live in, while something is done with the part at the back. We’ve had a wonderful 20 years here, we didn’t have to sell and now someone else can take it on a stage further.
So my suggestion is, if it’s somewhere you love, see how much you can do with your money, strip out anything that doesn’t absolutely have to be done now, and you may find that you don’t have to sell.
