Construction team from UK

Property & Home
21

As far as septics go, you take instructions from the local inspector, who will pester you on every point. You could go eco and use dry toilets.

Axa or any other french insurer might baulk at insuring your work, unless you can provide the correct translated certs, such as City and Guilds and university civil engineering etc. Don't hold your breath!

The translations have to be by a "tribunal sworn translator", and not a local secretary service. You can find out the sworn people from the court websites.

By the same token, if you have a dispute with an artisan or company, it is the court who appoints the "expert" to judge the work. You can't approach them, and employing a surveyor is a waste of money.

22

My advice on septics is if it's working do nothing until somebody forces you and then make sure you document everything. Septics are a big issue in France, the legislation (EU and French) seems to me to be unclear and the remedial options are many. I'm waiting for a knock on the door sometime and I'm ready to upgrade when I know definitively what the solution is, but I'm not going to pre-empt things. I suspect that (locally at least) it's a political hot potato and SPANC are being kept in their box. I love the people power in France :-)

23

Anyone who works out the costs of a job properly, will know that in most cases labour takes about 75% of the total. Of the remaining 25 percent you have wet and dry materials. In the case of the older houses made of clay or lime mortar, you have to use only NHLs (not to be confused with HLs and FLs), which doesn't up the cost.

In the UK and Eire, where they are imported by ship, the costs are more, but say if cement costs 20% of the remaining 25% and imported lime costs 30%, it doesn't really effect the grand total very much. Fortunately, here in France the lime is as cheap as cement. Using gypsum based plaster on top of lime renders, is also a no no. There are lime plasters, such as insulating plaster etc. You can download 10% free of my book on the subject of using lime, which is available as eBook, versions for PC and Tablet, or as hard copy.

There are numerous sites that will help you. In the UK and Eire, the lime suppliers actually give training. Here in France, you can go to the nationwide association "maisons paysannes de france" who will give you plenty of help. They also do training days in their many depots.

24

UK and Eire! Really Vincent you have to get over this "Dialann DeoraĂ­" thing (though in your case it may be appropriate) I have to say, with all due respect, I take offence to you refusing to use the Republic's official and internationally recognised name "Ireland". Once again, I'm not nationalist, in fact the contrary but vulgar rudeness annoys me.

25

John, to my knowledge, the official administration of the country only ever refers to the country as Eire (accent missing!) Nowhere is "Republic of Ireland" or "Ireland" used on coinage, stamps, government letters etc. On french TV, it is quite common to see "Eire" on the screen, when showing ball games.

Oddly enough, the on-going celebrations to do with 1916, has brought to the attention of a huge number of non Irish people, especially those in Britain, the fact that the Irish had tried to rid themselves of the colonial masters. This point was raised by a group of Brits, at a social gathering last week, who admitted that they never realized what really went on.

26

hello

what about reunification when the northern irish and Brits vote for Brexit? Gerry Adams said this!

G

27

Let's keep on topic folks, please?

28

@Vincent Flannery

"Getting a set price for a renovation on an old property is also a mistake. Problems arise that cause the builders to cut corners, so as to keep in profit."

Any builder worth his or her salt will include a clause like 'This price is subject to any unforseen costs' or similar. This is then explained to the client before the signing of the estimate.

29
I may be wrong, but I seem to think that Tim was assuming that the renovation project, he has in mind, did not take into account the difference between post and pre portland cement building, hence the idea of bringing a team from the UK.
Even if the house is of the “Villa Louise” style, the team would still find themselves in the deep end, as most of that type of house are metal framed with concrete poured into the framing.
Wooden studding and dry lining, which is the staple fix it, on the islands, is not the practice here, and rightly so. Any doublage is done with the thin vitreous panel bricks, which are also used for suspended ceilings. Internal studding partitions are done using metal framing, or in some cases, a sandwich type of double plaster boarding.
New-build doesn’t use cavity walling, and relies on a dry lining, so I can imagine the team spending a lot of their time scratching their heads, and wondering what to do next.
The renovation of the older properties (pre cement) involves careful planning, because there are set times stipulated between coats of render, so one has to make sure there is something else to do during the waiting.
Artisans here, registered in the layers of registration above the basic Auto-Entrepreneur, pay quite high cotisations towards social welfare and health, and in return, get a far superior service than that offered across the channel, which explains the seemingly high costs.
In the “old house” section of my radio programme, when interviewing a visiting UK building surveyor, who was helping some friends sort out their house, when I mentioned that the roofs were mostly made of poplar, he was virtually non-plussed: the whole concept left him speechless.
In my studio, there are two 12 meters long main beams with kingposts etc, all made of polar, supporting a massif roman tiled roof. To do that in pine, would require much heavier sections of timber. (The beams in question, were trimmed with side axes.)
30

Vincent, the official language of "the Country" is Irish so of course Eire is used. Ireland is the official name of the Country in English.

Personally I believe 1916 was a disaster but that may be the bais for another thread :-)

31

Well if they both vote to leave no issue. Northern Ireland is a basket case with thugs still ruling the roost on both sides of the divide. Without the generous funding (over 50% of jobs?) of the "mainland" it's stuffed. The South doesn't need or want the dysfunctional North. Young (southern) Irish people aren't caught up in the past, they are well educated and ambitious and the old unification thing isn't on their radar, they are Irish Europeans. One of the benefits of Brexit is that (despite what Villiers says) border controls would be introduced and the terrorists (they never went away) who live on border fuel laundering and cigarette smuggling would be put out of Business.

As for Adams, I and the vast majority believe he and his pals (e.g. Martin McGuinness) were (at least) complicit in operations that blew up women and children. Why would we pay any attention to him?

32

Would you say that at dinner party :-)

33

What about the Assurance DEcennale if the building team is not registered as a business in France? What about the building certificate when the work is finished? What about the fact that your community may well feel pissed off that you've brought in builders rather than using local craftsmen and thus deprived the local economy? How do you know if the fittings, materials etc conform to French norms? We have only ever used French workmen and bought materials in French outlets. They are not worse quality, they are not more expensive and it certainly helps relationships with our neighbours!

34

Yes but beware of switched cables. When we bought our house the electrical system had been passed by the "expert" inspector in spite of no functional earth connection anywhere, tableau failing to comply with "norms" and many of the circuits having the live and neutral transposed at the disjoncteurs. You may say that, in view of the double pole set up, this does not matter but if you have a fault on, say a washing machine, the body of it may become live and if the earth is faulty the system will not trip. "Trust but verify"

35

True but it is quite different and more flexible. How much of a job is the cost of the plaster anyway?

36

Concise and to the point (Vincent's comments above) - all sentiments endorsed. As a surveyor I regularly come across properties which have been damaged, occasionally to the point of catastrophic failure, by owners and their jolly builder 'mates' working Brit' style on French houses.... and it can be something as simple as using non-permeable masonry paint.... although this usually discolours quickly and falls off, leaving the house looking as though it has nicotine stains up to first floor level.

37
Talking about cowboy/Calais builders, you won’t believe this. I called round to a neighbour’s house to chat to the “builder” who was renovating an outhouse into a billiard room. He was playing round with some wiring, and said that when he flicked the two way switch, the lights dimmed. I immediately knew what he’d done: crossed a neutral. He and his mate were using a DIY french book, and he showed me the page for two-ways. There was a blue line going to the second switch: I had to look twice. I couldn’t believe it: the book had an error. I explained that on no account did neutral wires go near a light switch, and I rectified the problem. The two boyos were, a brickie and a former advertizing executive.
Three years ago, in response to my radio programme, I was asked to look at some supposed subsidence. When I arrived, there was a rep from Saint-Astier, the owner and the builder. I looked at the supposed problem, and told the owner that is was nothing to do with subsidence. He said it was the builder who told him.
What happened was tragic! The builder turned out to be a tiller, who had worked on the first phase of project, which had been another disaster. A Brit outfit had been contracted, but was “let go”!
The tiller, who lived in the area, got pally with the owner and gave a price for the external rendering. The building was a huge agri hangar, and one half of the interior had a complete house built inside it. The partition wall was of concrete blocks: 11 meters long, and almost 9 high, with no expansion joints. A second house was to be built for the in-laws, who changed their minds.
The top coat of the render was the Saint-Astier ready mixed NHL mortar, which was covered in fine spider cracks: it had dried too quickly. On one corner of the hangar, there were stress cracks in the render, but not in the clay/rubble stone wall. I asked what had been used for the bottom coats, and was told by the builder that he had used a cement mortar with added lime. I asked what lime? The stuff off the shelf at the merchants, was the reply, which I had expected. He thought he’d bought plain hydrated, but had got hydraulic.
Besides the fact that no cement should have been used, he had done the opposite to what he thought he was doing, i.e, making the mortar weaker. The stress between the cement render and the older wall had caused the render to crack, hence the subsidence malarkey. (I visited the property on several occasions and using levels, monitored the subsidence, which, of course didn’t exist.)
The builder did a bunk back to Blighty, the following week, still claiming it was subsidence. (He had just sold his house)
38

we had another disaster of this kind re fosse septique in dordogne. The cow boy built the exit of the pipe onto clay and the garage flooded through the aperture in the wall which was badly seaked. 15 cm of water everywhere to evacuate manually. We had an huissier verifying the mayhem. Court case and expert followed. Legal aid with a barrister who was not interested. Eventually we had to pay as the expert said our house was too old

39

Well you seem to know your stuff on this subject Vincent. How did you get interested in it?

40
John,
As a clockmaker and dial painter, I joined a craft guild, which encompassed several crafts. I got talking to a fresco painter, who explained the difference between cement and lime mortars, as he knew I had bought an old house. I found a semi retired plasterer, who showed me different skills.
I was contracted to work on friend’s houses, and instead of sitting in an office, I worked as assistant to all the artisans I was employing. Then a friend of mine in around 1990, became the Irish agent for Saint-Astier limes, which introduced me to a whole new world of building. I had come across marl buildings in Eire: East Wexford and North-East Dublin, but coming to France was a real eye-opener.
I put the book together in 2014, because there was so much bull shit and confusion. The subject needed to be brought down to the ordinary person level, and not shrouded in techno speak.
I even admit that when I was told about “hydraulic” lime, I didn’t notice the subtle difference between that word and “hydrated”: it didn’t take too long for the penny to drop. I was at a conference on limes, and an architect asked me what the difference was with the limes: he, like me, hadn’t copped on to the “draul” and “drate”. When I explained the difference, he told me he was dyslexic, and went away, a happy man.
A friend of mine was a Brit Gas instructor, and after a tutorial on down-draft, one of the tradesmen asked him why you couldn’t have a gas fire, if you had dandruff. This wasn’t a joke!