Makita tools for home repairs.

For those of you who are thinking about buying a decapitated palace and renovating it, it is worth factoring the cost of tools and equipment required. (If you're in the building game, then you'll be exempt from this advise!)



(Slate and Stone French Property)



I have seen over the years many renovation project fail, or take a very long time due to the lack of knowledge of what's fully required when renovating.

From a tool point of view, realistically I would recommend budgeting for a decent set of tool if you are thinking about buying an old ruin, especially if you are thinking about buying a Cottage in Brittany France.

Tools in France are very expensive, even the cheep DIY stuff like a common Black and Decker Drill. 5000Euros worth of tools (purchased in the UK) may seen excessive, but think about it this way; it will save you time in the long run when doing up your stone and slate cottage in the middle of the French country side. Also, if you buy a quality brand, like Makita, if they break, they are very easy to fix, and resell once you have finished your building project.

Just a note about some of my tools, in particular the cordless combi drills. My Makita BHP451 has technically died, (though I did manage to revive it back to life). In fairness the amount of abuse that baby has received in the last 4 years is quite astonishing. I now understand why Makita tools are coloured black and blue, it matches the colour of most things if you beat it hard enough!

Anyway, as I stated before, good quality tools can be fixed and spare part available online, for example, replacement parts for my combi drill can be found here - http://www.powertoolspares.com/tool/makita/spares-and-accessories-for-bga452/bga452/spares/, though my repair just required a loose wire to be replaced.



(Makita combi drill BHP451 - stripped and serviced)



However, I have invested in a replacement; Makita DHP458 Body only, (I have loads of spare batteries.) I chose to get a replacement as my tools are my bread and butter. When something plays up, I can't afford to waste time.

There is a big difference between both the Makita BHP451 and the DHP458, though not obvious straight away. The main highlights are length, DHP458 is shorter, power; 10% more; has a better hook and has reduce the speed options from 3 to 2. (Having 3 speeds on the 451 required a larger gear box, thus making it longer and not really a usful feature!)



(Comparing Cordless Drills -  Makita BHP451 and DHP 458)

 

Brittany Cottages Couetilliec - Week 2 renovation.

Cottages and Holiday Gites in Brittany are all similar in design, usually consisting of stone wall structures with traditional black slated roofs. When it comes to interior renovations, the one thing that's nice to preserve is the available original features. They are simple constructions using a lot hardwood timber.




(Brittany Cottages Couetilliec)


Hardwood maybe obvious building material but often I have seen this overlooked when highlighting the original features of your property. The current project in Brittany Cottages Couetilliec has a beautiful chestnut flooring and timber roof frame. This will be made into a feature by removing all the paint, tile adhesive and anything else the previous owner chose to add and reveal wood in its original state.

Week 2 was a simple week, stud out the ceiling, set at the new height of 2.4m (this being possible after raising the Collar beams) and sanding the floors and common rafters.

Studding out the ceiling was the easy part, mostly it's just banging sticks together, (setting out every stud at 400mm centres. However sanding the floor was a real pain in the ass which was a first!

Usually, sanding the floors before you install walls is a straight forward exercise. Having a large space going along the wood grain, is slow but rewarding, seeing the natural wood reveal itself is very satisfying, especially if it's a pine wood floor.

When it's a chestnut wood flooring, which is a hardwood, that has never been loved since the day it was laid (some 50 plus years ago) and to add insult to injury having at some point in its life lino glued to an inch of its life, this took some time to sand. 3 LONG days to get 50m2 to a reasonable state.

We hired a drum sander for the main area of the floor, from Kiloutou, which are good well-kept machines. The cost of the sander is reasonable; though remember the costs starts to spiral when adding the sand paper, and dust sack. However if you break down the cost of sanding a floor compared with tile/carpet/laminate flooring, per square meter, sanding is the cheapest option as well as the best looking (in my opinion!).

Finishing off the edges, you use an orbital edging sander. As with the drum sander, start with 24 grit, working your way up to a 120, using a 40 and 80 grit on the way. Just be careful when using an industrial orbital sander as it has a tendency to bite into the floor is you don't keep it moving or if you put too much pressure on the edge.



(Sanding the Floor with hires Kiloutou hired drum sander.)




Floors and ceiling done, in week 3 we can build the walls and install the first fix of electrics/plumbing.

 

SparrowLegs Renovates holiday Gite, Collar Beam - End of week 1.

By the middle of the week one, the first floor had been gutted. This gave us a clean canvas to translate the design done on Sweethome 3D to the first floor. This was a rough translation as the real world environment highlighted faults with the CAD design and the inaccuracies with the original measurement plotted on the CAD program. (Actually, this was only out be 30mm max.)



(SweetHome 3D CAD Software)

The existing Ergonomics of ceiling height was to low, sitting at 2.15 meters. Increasing the height was possible, but governed by the Collar beam.

The Collar Beam in this project is under compression rather than tension as it keeps the Common rafters from sagging. If the Collar Beam was a around a third up from the base of Common rafter, then this would have been under tension, preventing the weight of the roof pushing the walls out of possition or the Header Beam (Wall Plate) from detatching from the outer wall. This is also called a Collar tie, generally a misused name for Collar beams under Compression.

(Collar Tie)

 

(Collar Beam)
 

Also another point particular to this project and a factor regarding any decisions moving the Collar beam was the understanding of traditional roofing techniques in rural France. This roof spreads the load on the Wall plate by using a Hammerpost (or internal Sprocket) scarf jointed to the Common rafter. These where both then held into position using a Hammerbeam and some bolts.

(A - Common Rafter, B - Hammerpost, C - Bolt, D - Hammerbeam.)

By measuring the distance between the Ridge beam and the Hammerpost and knowing that the Collar beam in under compression, I was able to increase the ceiling height by 250mm by moving the Collar beam. This wouldn't cause any issues and increases the ceiling height to become standard. (Well, standard in the UK! - In the uk, the standard ceiling height is 2.4 meters, or 8ft - 38mm difference. This height is why plasterboard in the UK 2400mm * 1200mm.

Collar beams raised ready for the new ceiling studwork to be installed on week 2.

Brittany holiday Gites & cottage Renovations - Week 1

SparrowLegs first week!

Week one has been and passed. In fairness this is the easiest part of any renovations, its to knockdown, remove and clean the existing internal structure.

(Walls Removed - Sorting of materials)



Before anything was removed, for example -Walls, a few things needed to be ascertained and carried out. Disconnecting the electrics and powering of the master Fuse (RCD). I usually disconnect everything, just to be sure that there is no possibility of electrocution when taking down the walls.

Second item to ascertain is working out where you are going to take the waste. This may sound silly but it is important to know this. In France, especially Brittany we don't have the luxury of skips. Not to say they don't exist, but at 600+ Euros per skip, this is expensive and generally difficult to hire.

I have a crap old van, so this gets used and abused, but it does force me to think about wheatI'm disposing of (dues to size and will it fit tin the old girl) and whether anything can be recycled?

Once you have located you nearest dump (dechetterie), its worth popping in and finding out what if any are the weight limits and if materials have to be separated.

Last thing not to forget is disconnecting the water and plugging up any exposed evat (waste pipes.) Working around the smell of shit really doesn't appeal to me, especially the clients! ;)


Removing walls, door and generally anything that isn't holding the house up was done in a day of two. To the inexperienced renovator, this doesn't mean that it's a frenzied attack! You will miss a trick if it were.

When renovating, there is an order to assembling, ceilings, studs, doors, electrics, plumbing, plasterboard etc etc. By removing these items in reverse order you'll be able to stockpile materials such as doors, metal/wood stud and recycle. (This method does take a little longer, but it can pay for itself in reducing the number of trip to the local dump, as well as saving money on buying new materials.



(Clean and tidy workspace)

 

 

Items needed:

 

Safety gear - Gloves, Glasses, dust mask, etc.

Something to ferry rubbish to the tip - Van/Trailer

Rubble sacks

Hammer, Crowbar (Wrecking bar) Impact Drivers and basic general tools.

MANPOWER!!!

 



 

 

 





Central Brittany Holiday Gite Renovation - 10 Week Challenge

The 10 week Challenge!

What's the challenge I hear you say? Renovate 100m2 Gite Cottage in 10 weeks. And when the word renovation is used, I mean complete and utter remodelling of the abortion which was erected 20 plus years ago.

Two guys, a boat load of tools, to rip out and replace everything but the exterior walls and roof. To start off you need to DESIGN!

For a successful build it is important to have some sort of design work finalised, it will never end well if you try and make it up as you go along.

If you're on a budget and can't afford an interior architect, I recommend Sweet Home  3D - http://www.sweethome3d.com/. It can be used in conjunction with other software such as Sketchup, or solely for just mapping out the interior layout.

One key point about designing a layout for a future renovations is it will allow you to estimate to some accuracy the amount of materials one might require.

 (New Layout proposed.)

 

Condensation on inside of windows

Great post by Oberon on  - http://www.doityourself.com/forum/doors-skylights-windows/362701-condensation-inside-windows.html

Okay, it is that time of year - here is the really long version!

You have interior condensation on your windows simply because the surface temperature of the window is below the dew point temperature of the air in your home…that’s it…a very simple explanation.

Unfortunately, as to why the surface temperature of your window (glass) is below the dew point temperature of the air in your home may be a bit more complex – so I am going to offer a few thoughts and maybe even throw in a few numbers that I hope might help your situation.

In the summer, when you pull something cold and refreshing out of the refrigerator, and the air is warm and humid, that cold and refreshing beverage container suddenly and quite magically becomes instantly wet – just as soon as it is exposed to the air. What has happened is that the temperature of the container fresh from the refrigerator is below the dew point temperature of the air – which has caused condensation on the outside of that container.

What happens to your windows in the fall and winter is that the surface of the glass is below the dew point temperature of the air in your home – which is causing condensation on the surface of that glass.

Dew point is defined as saturation vapor density...or put in simpler terms, when the air reaches 100% relative humidity and can hold no more moisture.

Relative humidity is, well, relative.

Relative humidity is a comparison of the actual vapor density versus the saturation vapor density at a particular temperature. Put a bit more simply, dew point is 100% relative humidity or the point where the air - at that temperature - is no longer able to hold any more moisture. If the air has reached vapor saturation (100% relative humidity), then the air will release moisture...be it on the outside of that cold beverage container in the summer time, or be it on the interior glass surface of your windows in the winter time, it makes no difference. If the surface temperature happens to be below freezing, then that moisture becomes frost or even ice.

In order to stop condensation from forming on the surface of a window, you either have to lower the dew point temperature of the air in your home to a level below the dew point temperature of the window surface, or you have to warm up the window surface to a temperature above the dew point temperature of your home, or a combination of both.

Lowering the relative humidity of the air in your home may have absolutely no effect on controlling window condensation or it may completely solve your problem – depends on how you lower the relative humidity and what affect the “how” has on both the moisture level of your air and the temperature of your windows. All this because there are two ways to lower relative humidity – first, you can increase the air temperature in your home or second, you can decrease the moisture content of the air in your home.

By increasing the air temperature in your home you will lower the relative humidity but you will not change the dew point – which is based on the amount of water vapor in the air and is not based on the temperature of the air. So, while the RH is lower with higher air temperature, it may not effect condensation on window surfaces at all – unless the rise in air temperature also caused a corresponding rise in window glass temperature to a level above the dew point temperature.

But, lowering the amount of water vapor or moisture in your air will lower the dew point temperature as well. And if it lowers the dew point temperature sufficiently to drop it below the temperature of your window glass – no more condensation issues.

The amount of moisture in the air is measured in grams per cubic meter, which is kind of nice for our metric folks but not so nice for our non-metric folks; but the metric version is much easier on the calculator than the English version. However, in the interest of making this stuff easier to understand for all of us non-metric types, I am going to use Fahrenheit rather than Celsius temperatures in the calculations.

Okay – consider your home at 65 degrees F and with a relative humidity reading of 40%. There are 6.25 grams of water in a cubic meter of air in your home in that particular scenario - which then equates to a dew point temperature of 38 degrees F. So at 38 degrees the air will be at 100% relative humidity or at saturation vapor density.

Now, if your neighbor keeps her house at 75 degrees, but she also has 6.25 grams of water per cubic meter in her air, then the relative humidity in her home is 29% - versus your 40%. But, and here’s the kicker, the dew point temperature in her home is still 38 degrees.

While the relative humidity in her home is much lower than is the relative humidity in yours; if the surface temperature of the windows in her home is 35 degrees she will have condensation on those windows…yet if the surface temperature of your windows is 40 degrees – only five degrees warmer – you will not have condensation on your windows.

So, while her handy humidity gauge reads (correctly) only 29% RH – she has a condensation problem.
While your handy humidity gauge reads (correctly) 40% RH – you don’t have a condensation problem…SWEET…well, for you anyway, not her.

If your home hygrometer measures the relative humidity in your home at 60% while the temperature of your home is 70 degrees, you will have a dew point temperature of about 51 degrees – meaning that if the temperature of the window surface is below 51 degrees then you will have condensation - so now we talk a little more specifically about windows.

The interior surface temperature of a single lite of glass, when the temperature outside is 0 degrees F and the inside air temperature is 70 degrees, will be about 16 degrees.

Add a storm window on the outside and the surface temperature of the inside lite jumps up to about 43 degrees – a huge improvement.

But these are center-of-glass readings and not the temperature readings at the edge of the window where condensation usually forms. A typical clear glass dual pane window is going to have center-of-glass temperature reading pretty much the same as a single pane with a storm – however, if that dual pane has a LowE coating and an argon gas infill then the center-of-glass temperature will be about 57 degrees – a 14 degree improvement over a clear glass dual pane or a single pane with storm window – but again, and more importantly, there will be a comparable edge of glass improvement as well, particularly if the IGU (Insulating Glass Unit) was manufactured using a warm edge spacer system. Also, the dual pane is going to have desiccant between the glass layers. Desiccant absorbs moisture keeping the inside of the dual pane system very dry.

The advantage? If it gets cold enough outside, the temperature in the airspace between the lites can get very low. By keeping that space dry, it helps to keep the dew point temperature very low as well; something not always possible when using a single pane and storm window.

Oddly enough, a single pane with a good and tight frame and sash assembly may be more prone to condensation than will a less tight single pane window simply because air (and moisture) will leak out of the looser window while the tighter window may be more likely to trap the moisture inside the home. And, while a tight storm window can help the interior lite to avoid condensation (when compared with a single lite and no storm), the storm window itself may frost up when the temperature is low enough – at a temperature usually well above the temperature that will cause the dual pane to ice up. It is unavoidable given the right circumstances

So what does a window temperature of 57 degrees mean? Well, as I mentioned earlier a home kept at 70 degrees with a 60% relative humidity has a dew point temperature of 51 degrees so it is much less likely that there will be condensation problem on those particular windows than there would be with a less energy efficient window - despite the relatively high relative humidity in the home.

But, there is always a "but"…

Again, that 57 degree glass temperature is still a center-of-glass reading and the edge of glass temperature will be lower - actual temperature is dependent on both the spacer system used in the IG unit construction and on the material used to construct the sash. So even with a "57 degree" center-of-glass temperature it is still possible to get window condensation if there is enough moisture in the air.

And consider that the interior glass temperatures are based on the fact that moving, warmer, indoor air is actually in contact with the glass at a given time. Curtains, shades, other obstructions can cause problems by blocking airflow across the glass – airflow that can have a huge effect on the condition of the window relating to condensation. Also, bay and bow windows can be more prone to condensation – again because of the possibility of decreased airflow over the glass.

And finally, what can happen to the dew point if you keep your home at 70 degrees and you have a 65% relative humidity? Well, for one thing the dew point has jumped up to 57 degrees which we have already noted is the same as the window temperature. For another thing, anyone with 65% relative humidity in a home at 70 degrees has way too much moisture in their air and they are in serious need of some sort of ventilation system – or at least several good exhaust fans!

Read more: http://www.doityourself.com/forum/doors-skylights-windows/362701-condensation-inside-windows.html#ixzz3MHiQZZ5x

Scarf joint rotten floor joist ends in Finistere, Brittany.

How to scarf joint rotten floor joist ends?

In the process of renovating our new home, we noticed one of the gable walls was suffering from Damp. After tracing back, looking for the cause I came across a few joists which had rotten ends. The damp patch on the wall was due to a leaky gutter, allowing water to penetrate down the wall on 2 levels and working its way round the corner stones, thus the damp patch.

After rectifying the gutters, next on the game plan was to fix our rotten floor joists ends.

This subject is as broad as it is wide. Online, you'll find many options as well as different methods of resolving this problem. I'll explain which method of resolution we chose as well as how I executed the fix. This job will not be for everyone but worth being aware of.

In our scenario, the floor joist reside in a street level, north facing room. The room below  is basement level, no windows, and granite dry stone walls. The basement room does suffer from severe humidity which is another topic to talk about in the future.

The street level room has a thin cut solid chestnut tongue and groove flooring. With these environmental ingredients, I knew I didn't want to remove the flooring, experience has told me that French chestnut floors are a pain to remove due to their secret nails and expensive to replace. Using metal hangers with nails would encourage condensation and cause further damage in the future.


As the property is of a traditional build, not wanting to use anything metal and wanting to carry out the fix on the cheap (one after another unexpencted gremlins all mounts up), I chose to go the old school route and use a nibbed scarf joint.

What is a nibbed scarf joint I hear you cry what were the alternatives?

A Scarf joint is; "Over to you Wiki" -

A scarf joint (also known as a scarph joint) is a method of joining two members end to end in woodworking or metalworking.[1] The scarf joint is used when the material being joined is not available in the length required. It is an alternative to other joints such as the butt joint and the splice joint and is often favored over these in joinery because it yields a barely visible glue line.
 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarf_joint

For this incidience the rotten joist end were cut off and an angle cut is made to bottom of the beam to allow a new part to be bolted (or dowled) on a good distance from the fulcrum point. As stated before it’s a traditional repair, low cost and can be finished to match the original joist.

The alternative methods are -

Joist Repair Plates

Basically using two "L" section steel, slide in the the joist footing well and farsen to the good part of the joist.


Resin Slice Joist

The rotten end of the beam / joist is cut off.  A vertical slot is machined in the joist.  A new joist end is drilled to so two or more steel bars can be glued (Resined) in.  The new end is then fitted with the bars going in to slot. Resin is then poured in to the slot to secure the new beam end. (This looks to be a pain in the ass!)


Replace the whole joist. hmm, I wouldn't want to do this on my tod!


Last option is only viable if you have a run of end joists to repair - Using Hangers.

This picture says a thousand words, though I have noticed they used screws. This is not advisable as the screw heads can and will rip off!



Positives with using a scarf join (Nibbed/Vee'd ends) -
Its cheap
Looks good
Can be done without the use of metal.
The finished flooring doesn't have to be removed in you have access from the underside.

Negatives -
Difficult to cut in situ, up a ladder upside down. Difficult to set out and accurate craftsmanship required.
Quite a few tools required compared with the other methods


How is it done and the method I followed.
Obviously for the benefit of this project I have simplified the procedure... But not by much! It really is an uncomplicated breakthrough allowing new, treated timbers to be installed with the minimum of fuss and disturbance.
Timbers are not all accessible from the same place. While you may be able to get to a floor joist from the top by lifting a section of the floor, it is far easier to access a rafter from underneath.

In the below sequence of images I  have shown the most basic, repairing a floor joist that is accessible from the basement level. 

(Setting out the cut.)

 

(Cut Vertically to the diagonal line.)

(Cut along the setting up lines.) 

 (Chisel, plane & sand till its perfectly flat.)

 (Make a left & right template and map out onto replacement timber.)

(Position, fix using dowel, 90degrees from the diagonal.)

 

Conclusion:

In fairness, this isn't the easiest of jobs. I would've preferred using hangers from an ease point of view. Though more material would have been required, all you would have needed is a saw, and a hammer.

 

"NEXT!"