Insulation and other renovation things

As well as coming to fix the hole in the wall M.Cibat was here to discuss and measure for giving us a quote to insulate the roof and walls. In France you don't seem to get general builders, there are 'artisans' who all have a particular craft eg plumber, electrician etc. I am not sure who people hire to bring all the work together. In the UK both times we have had anything much done on a house we had a builder who we communicated with who then bought in other craftsmen where he could not do the job, he managed and paid them. M. Cibat (not sure if we know him well enough to call him Stephane yet as people are more formal in France) is a mason, but this also includes insulation work and laying concrete. It is sometimes a bit confusing to work out which type of artisan you need for a job. We want the chimney repointing and it doesn't seem to be the masons job or the roofers. One day we will find someone to do it I hope.

Anyway back to the insulation... with old stone walls you need to let them breathe so you should not paint them with anything waterproof or have anything waterproof right up against them, there needs to be an air gap to let them breathe. So to avoid damp between the wall and the insulation, the insulation needs to be breathable or far enough from the wall to leave a gap for ventilation . Reading english DIY sites it seems that in the UK people put wooden batons on the wall and then insulate between with something breathable and then put plasterboard on the front of the batons. Then they can skim and paint or wallpaper the wall. In France they either do this or more often they put insulation and then a thin wall of bricks like this. They call it 'doublage'

Looking around at new buildings, it appears that they build everything from these. The external walls - although I think actually the structure of the wall is 'agglos' which I think is breeze block - but they clad it inside and out with bricks like these for insulation - I presume there might be something more insulating between the agglos and the bricks. Our extension where the bedroom will be is probably constructed like this. They also use something that looks similar to build internal walls. I can't say I know much about wall construction in the UK - but it does seem to me that it is different here.
The roof construction and insulation is also a bit different. In the UK there is usually some kind of 'felt' or membrane between the slates and the batons on the roof. Whereas in France the slates are directly on the batons. The argument for having the felt is that if there is a leak in the slates the water is channeled off the roof. The argument for no felt is that the roof can breathe better and circulating air will dry it out (you will know about a leak through the tiles by it coming through the ceiling).


We spent more than two hours discussing (in French) the pros and cons firstly of internal vs expernal insulation for the walls. Then having decided on internal, of wood fiber vs rock wool (fibre de bois et laine de roche) and plaster board vs skinny bricks. We also discussed the finish of the walls. In France they don't have the concept of a plaster skim which is what we have had in our flats in London and then just painted. M. Cibat proposed one finish which would be something like the existing walls here

we asked if something smoother was possible. He showed us the smoothest finish which is something like this (and comes in a variety of very attractive colours)

when we said we wanted even smoother he said we needed 'stuc' but that it was very expensive. It seems that this is a plaster skim but almost noone in France does it. Someone has recommended a plasterer to us so we are going to get M. Cibat to finish the wall roughly and get a quote from the British plasterer.

So he has now gone off to do us a quote for

1. 20 cm of wood fiber insulation covered with plasterboard on the inside of the roof
2. Wood fiber with bricks on the walls covering the downstairs walls and right past the floor and covering the little bit of wall before the roof upstairs. This is except on the south ie front wall which will be 'pierres apparentes' (exposed stonework) and have no insulation.
3. Concreting the garage floor (with insulation under)
4. Making the hole for the new window

We also discussed with him what order the work would need to happen in.
This is a rough first version. I am sure there is lots of work we have yet to discover (Some tasks overlap)

1. Treat for woodworm etc any currently exposed wood and clean up beams (The Dream Team - that's us)
2. Lay concrete in garage (M. Cibat)
3. Install the wood burning stove, water tank and controls in the garage  (M. Dabat)
4. Demolition (The Dream Team)
5. Treat other wood for woodworm (The Dream Team)
6. Electrics and Plumbing first fix (M. Jeanson, M. Dabat)
7. The new window hole (M. Cibat, Mr Bennett)
8. The floor downstairs with the underfloor heating in it and insulation under it (M. Dabat)
9. New windows installed, velux etc (Mr Bennett)
10. Insulation of walls and roof (M.Cibat)
11. Internal walls (The Dream Team)
12. Electric points etc (M. Jeanson)
13. Finish plumbing (M. Dabat)
14. Plaster skim (??)
15. Tiling, painting etc (The Dream Team)
16. Install stoves in kitchen and living room (Simon Carmouze)
17. Remove and replace concrete render outside

This is quite different to what we have been thinking, as we had been hoping to do the upstairs and then the downstairs so we would have somewhere to live throughout. The change is that the new window will affect upstairs and downstairs and the insulation on the walls needs to be continuous from downstairs to upstairs which means the ceiling downstairs and the floor upstairs both need to be removed that the same time. The underfloor heating also comes earlier in the process as it comes before the roof insulation.

So we need to think of a new plan of how we are going to live while it is all being done.
My idea -

A Yurt

but it would be cheaper to rent somewhere unless we could rent it out afterwards as holiday accomodation. Some minor details how we would get water, electricity and waste disposal to it...