Better picture of house plans

I posted a hand drawn version a little while ago, but it was a bit difficult to read.

Work on the house

No we haven't actually started yet. But we are really close. Honest!
We are happy with the plans, we don't have permission from the Mairie yet (it got delayed because there were some photos missing so the month started again once they were submitted - darn) but we hope we will soon.
We have spent the time since submitting the plans working out more details about how we are going to do some things. Such as insulation, heating, hot water etc. It is a slow process as we need to read a lot about different options and understand in detail how we would do it to make sure it will all fit together and work for us.
The following we have decided - although there are still various outstanding questions

Heating/Hot water
We are keen to use 'free' resources as much as we can so wood and sun make sense. We have been struggling with the cost of some solutions to install which is why we have gone off the wood gasification boiler idea and replaced it with a back boiler on the range cooker.

Wood burning range cooker with back boiler

Our current favorite stove with a back boiler (Themo Suprema)

Solar Thermal
Immersion heater (for back up)
Grey water heat recovery (in bathroom)
Underfloor heating (upstairs above the floor and downstairs in screed on the existing floor)
2 towel rails (1 in each bathroom) - these are heat dumps for the back boiler and will be hot whenever it is on
The accumulator needs to have sufficient inputs to add something like an air source heat pump if we find chopping all the wood too much.

Questions - 1 accumulator tank providing both hot water and heating or a smaller hot water tank and an accumulator for the heating.

Insulation
The insulation needs to be breathable throughout and also to seal the house well from drafts.
Hemp and lime for the walls (also known as hempcrete). 100mm thick with lime plaster (or possibly earthern plaster) painted with lime paint.
Wood fiber for the roof (with vapour barrier and plasterboard on top). 260mm total depth in 2 layers at 90° to each other.

Ventilation
In an old house that has been insulated and sealed from drafts it is important to have good ventilation otherwise the fabric of the building suffers.
6 individual balanced heat recovery (HRV) units (bathroom x2, main bedroom, upstairs corridor, kitchen, living room)
Simple extractor in garage (it will be unheated in there but there and there will be the washing machine)
Recycling cooker hood
Roof vents (high and low on the roof as there are no soffit vents) to ventilate above the insulation

Beams
Angle grind to improve surface
Treat with xylophene for woodworm, beetles etc
Finish with some kind of smooth finish to make dusting easy (TBD)

Floor in garage and outdoor kitchen
Despite the floor in the house being concrete and non breathable we are going to go with a breathable lime floor for any new floors we put down. The concern with a non breathable floor is that any moisture coming up under the floor goes sideways and ends up rising up the walls. We can't really do anything about the floor in the house as it would be a humongous job to take up the existing floor, but we can not make the problem worse at least.

Internal wall construction
The pantry and downstairs toilet will be hempcrete on stud (for good insulation) and upstairs will be plasterboard on stud with some kind of phonic insulation (TBD)

Plus de chantier collectif

Last week we went and helped our architect with some building work on his house, we went again this week. Last week the 'paille et terre' (straw and earth) work was just starting, this week it was nearing completion. Two weeks will have seen two walls insulated. There was a lot of the mix ready, so we spent the day packing it in to the walls. I did remember to take photos this time!

The wall we worked on last week (near the bottom!)

Doug at work

Close up of the finished (but not dry product)

Lunch (with wine!)

The bit of the wall we worked on this week

Although we don't want to insulate with this method, it was a good chance to ask him questions about what he thinks we should do plus to meet some interesting people. Last week we worked with an English guy who had done a lot of 'eco' building work so that was interesting (as we could understand all of what he was telling us!), this week was all French people so we got a good chance to practice our French, particularly with the very nice guy we were working alongside. He was very patient and asked us nice simple questions. As it is a bank holiday in France lots of their friends turned up at lunch time (v yummy cake) too. We enjoyed it a lot.
Our favorite insulation method at the moment is chanvre chaux (lime and hemp or 'hempcrete') and we are reading a lot about air to water heat pumps, under floor heating, ground source heat pumps, solar thermal and solar pv. Thrilling stuff!

More on central heating and hot water

Ages ago I rambled on about our thoughts for central heating and hot water. It is an expensive part of the rennovation, plus it will make life expensive, hard work and uncomfortable if we get it wrong. Oh the pressure!
Since then we have read even more on the internet. It seems that a lot of systems like we are thinking about have two water tanks, an accumulator for the heat from the wood burner, which is used for central heating, and a smaller tank for DHW (domestic hot water - got to speak the lingo you know) that is heated by the solar thermal panels. The DHW tank also has an electric emersion heater for when the sun doesn't shine enough. We are keen to have free heating and hot water so this arrangement doesn't exactly suit us. It is not clear whether we could heat the DHW tank with heat from the accumulator in the summer. It is possible to do as I described before and have the solar and wood burner feed the accumulator and not have the other tank, however because the accumulator is something like 2000l (the DHW tank is smaller at maybe 200l) the solar panels are unlikely to heat it hot enough so you have to burn wood all summer. This isn't terribly efficient for just hot water as you are heating a much larger volume than you need. Another alternative is to use solar to heat the accumulator as much as possible (which is likely lukewarm) then have further heating as you use the water, called 'on demand' or 'in line' - this can be electric or gas.
While reading about all this I came across people who, rather than use solar thermal for their DHW, use solar pv. The solar pv generates electricity and this is used to heat water either via a heat pump (ground or air source) or via an immersion heater - or more likely a combination  of the two. There are a lot of discussions about whether solar pv used like this is in fact more cost effective now (as it gets cheaper to install) than solar thermal. This is interesting to us because it would mean we could harness the effort free energy from the sun rather than the effortful energy from wood and it could provide the heating as well as DHW. However of course these systems have their complexities (and costs). In general heat pumps are better suited to creating warm rather than hot water, which means they are well suited to underfloor heating (which we have assessed to be too expensive) but not so much to radiators or DHW. It seems though that they can do higher temperatures as the systems get more sophisticated so we are investigating further.
My head is spinning after reading so much on the internet. It is hard to find people in the same position as us. Most people are happy to use some electricity, as the system will still work out cheaper than gas or electric heating. However for us our most basic heating is wood which is free, so the other solutions aren't saving us money - only effort. But that is important too, as there is only so much work it is realistic to think we can do each year with the animals, the growing things, the maintaining the property, perhaps the earning some money, and hopefully the having some time off and enjoying ourselves! There are of course people out there doing similar things (I am not a beautiful or unique snowflake) but I haven't managed to find any very detailed descriptions of the systems they have settled on.
I am sure you will be hearing more on this subject.

So much fencing

We seem to spend half our time moving animals around and cobbling together fences.
We now have a grand plan for what we would like the fencing to be. However at the moment we are trying to get something less sophisticated that will work for all the animals this year, then hopefully we will have time to do a more permenant job next year (or maybe the year after!!).

This is the Grand Plan.

We will have 5 proper fields and a big one that contains most of the woodland (if we can find the edges of it). In addition there are 2 orchards, the potager and the hayfield (obviously we hope to make hay here - it will have to be by hand as it is rather steep - we have an idea of asking a local farmer to see if they can manage on the bottom of the bottom field where it is a bit less steep - but that is all for another time)

One of the proper fields and the woodland field don't have water in them. The others are provided for either by the runoff from the house spring, or by a second spring that comes out below the drive. Our plan for the fields without water is that one will get water collected from the roof of the stables (when we get them) and the other will have a 'run in shelter' and we will collect rainwater from the roof of that. We are not quite sure what the monthly rainfall is, but it seems to be a lot!

We plan on having 3 strands of electric fence round everything at something like 25cm 50cm and 100cm. The intention is that this will keep horses, sheep and cows in. We need to experiment by fencing the currently unfenced part of the orchard like this before commiting to it everywhere as we are not 100% sure it will keep the sheep in.

When we arrived there were 2 fields only (Top - 1, 2, woodland and Bottom - 3, 4, 5). When Daisy arrived we repaired part of the top field and added an extra bit so we have very rough and ready fencing round what will become field 1. The 4 horses are in there now.
We are now working on repairing the fence round the bottom field with a view to putting the cows in there and perhaps the horses later in the summer if the eat all the food in the field they are in. This is quite a big job as the fence is broken in places, overgrown with holly and brambles in others and too high at certain points for such little cows.
Col and his 3 ewes and their 3 lambs have been in the 2nd orchard for quite some time and it is grazed right down, we moved them on to the driveway today so they can graze that on their way to the orchard which is quite lush. Until the bottom field is finished the cows are living with them. The other flock of sheep are currently in the bottom field contained with electric sheep fencing. We will move them perhaps every 3 weeks or 4 weeks around the field, we plan on them remaining there when the cows move as the field is huge for the cows and they won't eat all the grass.

What a lot of animals! What a lot of fences! What a lot of work!
 

Déclaration Préalable (plans submitted to the Mairie)

We asked at the Mairie what we needed to do to get permission for the work we want to do, they said we don't need a Permis de Construire (planning permission) just a Déclaration Préalable (declaration of works). This is good as less documentation is required and the time taken to recieve an answer (hopefully permisson) is less.
We have (finally FINALLY finally) finalised the plans with the architect and submitted them to the Mairie. Apparently they should respond in a month. Hopefully with permission. It seems it is likely to be accepted, partially because we are so far from the village and cannot be seen from it, but mainly because we are not asking for anything extreme.

Downstairs

Upstairs

Before going to the Mairie we went to the architect's office (ie his kitchen) to sign and initial all the plans. We had an interesting chat with him and his girl friend (and his 2 month old baby) about work they doing on their house in Bagenere de Bigorre. There is some information here. They live in a flat while the work is being done, the walls there were plastered with earthern plaster - it looked really nice, rustic and appropriate for an old house. They had it painted ('chalk paint', I guess that is limewash in english) white in places and just the natural colour of the earth in others. We have volunteered to go and be part of a work party doing some 'cob' work on their house. We think it will be a good way to meet some french people who are doing interesting rennovations as well as meaning we won't feel guilty about asking the architect stupid questions about various things. The earthern plaster is an interesting idea. It is important apparently for the walls on an old stone house to breath, lime plaster would also allow this but we are interested in the idea of being able to use something really local. It is harder of course to get the right mix as all mud is different so you can't just have a recipe for it. There seem to be some experts around locally though. Tricky in French though!

There is still much more detailed planning to be done. We need to get estimates for work we want others to do (we have ballpark figures from the architect), we need to work out how we might schedule the work to continue living here while we are doing it, we need to work out details of the heating system and we need to make more detailed plans for the electrics and plumbing to allow the quotes to be done. Plus a lot of other stuff I am sure.

Initial idea from the architect

The architect came round today with his initial 'sketch' of the plan for the house.

I will write more as we have thought about it in more detail.

The main difference to what we had been thinking about, is putting the stairs along one end, we had been thinking near to where they are now but more compact. This has the advantage of giving us a single open plan room down stairs with one side of it being kitchen/diner and the other the living room. We think we pro this idea (pending further thought) as we like the current setup where someone in the living room can chat with the person in the kitchen. Upstairs this layout has made it easier to fit two spare bedrooms of a similar size in rather than a huge one and a smaller one. The ensuite in the master bedroom is in a different place and a window has been extended which we also like the idea of. The main entrance is through a new side door which is also an interesting idea and would improve flow between our outdoors shaded kitchen and the real kitchen, this idea needs some tweaking though to give a place to hang coats and shoes that is within the heated area rather than outside in the outdoor kitchen. Shoes would be a tad chilly in winter...

He has done a guestimate of the price of the work which is interesting and has for example ruled out underfloor heating!

It has given us a lot to think about, in terms of the layout and what we feel we can do ourselves, plus what we need to scale back to keep the whole thing affordable (ish)

The Architect

We have somewhat come to expect that when people say they will come in January they really mean February or perhaps March so we were suprised when the architect (who said he would come in January) phoned and said he was coming on the 3rd of January!
He has already talked with us about our thoughts and ideas, so he came round to do detailed measurements and take photos so he can put together a number of 'sketches' for us. We have an appointment at the end of January to review these with him.
There was a bit of a technical hitch when he dropped his camera on the floor and it stopped working. He finished the job with ours and I transfered the pictures on to his memory card. Phew.

More stuff we are thinking about

I have put in a few posts with specific items we are thinking about eg the layout, the heating and finishing the beams. In addition to these there is a long list of other things we are thinking about

Upstairs floors
We plan on lifting the floor upstairs and replacing ourselves. Our thinking at the moment is that we want wood floors upstairs (except probably the bathroom). We want it to be reasonably insulated for sound so that downstairs you don't hear people clonking around upstairs. We also need the bedroom at least insulated for heat as the boiler will be downstairs from it. We have no idea what the structure of the floor should be to achieve this. presumably there needs to be space in it somewhere for pipework for the bathrooms also.
 
Septic tanks
We currently have two. One is shoddy to say the least and drains away under the house, it only has water from the kitchen in it. The other was inspected as part of us buying the house and is considered to meet regulations although it is not quite clear if it will be big enough for normal occupancy of a house with people taking showers etc. In the case that the shoddy one is unacceptable we then have to work out how we will get the kitchen water either round to the other tank or some other drain away solution.

Floor downstairs
We want to have underfloor heating downstairs. This means either digging up the existing floor and replacing with insulation and then pipework and concrete or laying the insulation, pipework and concrete on top of the existing floor. Having spoken to a few workmen about it it sounds like the 2nd option is going to be the financially viable one. However before we do this we might try to prise some of the marble out of the existing floor and reuse it perhaps in the outdoor kitchen

Wall finish
Upstairs we are planning on having exposed stonework, downstairs we would like to have what we can exposed. We know that some bits of the wall have had concrete put on them (around the windows in what are now the bedrooms for example) and we expect other bits to be less nice also. So we are thinking that we will have some exposed stonework where it is nice and lime plaster the rest. We are not quite sure how to do the wiring where the stonework is exposed. In plastered or plasterboard walls the wires to a switch for example are hidden inside the wall but what do you do where it is stone. What we have come up with so far is that you run it down in something reasonably attractive like a copper pipe and you also plan carefully where the plugs will be to facilitate this.

Stair style
A lot of this depends on the floorplan, but there are some things that feed in to what makes a sensible floor plan. For example; are we willing to put up with the inconvenience of spiral stairs, would steps with no riser (the upright bit) make sense in some locations to let light through, what can we most usefully do with the space under the stairs, do we want something snazzy and modern looking or nice traditional oak.

Kitchen Layout
This is partially dictated by what we do with the windows (and of course the rest of the floor plan) but we are keen to have a kitchen that is a sitting/living space also. So when I am sent off to cook the dinner I am not all on my own, it would be comfortable for Doug and the dog and visitors to sit in the kitchen during this time. We also need space for future activities like butchering the pigs, making cheese & jam etc, brewing and so on. I have been thinking it would be nice to have somewhere that is a good height for sitting down while doing tasks like shelling chestnuts, cutting up fruit etc. Maybe normal work surface height would be ok with a stool or something or maybe we need something breakfast bar type height.

The front door
The front door at the moment looks quite nice mainly because of the decorative iron bits from the hinges, but it is a bit knackered and not at all weather tight. For this winter we will have to try to tape up the worst gaps but we need to decide what to replace it with. We would like to keep the current hinges but this could cause some issues when the floor is raised with the under floor heating. We are not quite sure yet what to do about this but it is possible the boot room will have a slightly lower floor and no underfloor heating to allow this. But perhaps this is silly to do just for the sake of some hinges that presumably we could manage to relocate (they are concreted in to the wall)

The outside walls
Currently the front wall is rendered with concrete render. This doesn't let the stones breathe and is bad for them as well as probably increasing damp inside the house so it needs to be removed. We are not sure whether we will re-render with lime render or just re-point so that some of the stone shows. It is likely that the surround of some of the windows is not very aesthetic as the bathroom one and the kitchen door are not original and where we can see what is round the windows at the back of the house it is just concrete which has been slapped on very haphazard. The back of the house we will probably render as it is a bit of a mess where windows have been hacked in to it. Unfortunately where one of the original windows was replaced with two windows (where the bedrooms are) the original window is filled in in a very ugly way with breeze blocks and the new windows are not neatly done. We may refill the original window or we may fill in the new ones and unblock the original, not sure yet but having 2 windows is probably nice. It would look silly if we just unblocked the original one as they would not be evenly spaced and too close together.

Outside pipes
The toilet outflow from the bathrooms upstairs will have to come down the front of the house to the septic tank. We are not quite sure what to do about this as that would not be terribly attractive. One thought is to try to bring at least the one from the main bathroom down inside the house and out at the same place as outflow from the toilet downstairs. Then where we do need to have pipes outside have nicer metal ones not plastic.

I am sure there are many more things that haven't come immediately to mind...

Central heating and hot water

Yet another thing we have been thinking about is the central heating and hot water. We are keen to have something that uses wood as we have a 'free' supply (the quotes being because it takes a lot of labour, so it doesn't cost money but it does cost time and there is some investment in saws, fuel, oil etc). We are also interested in solar hot water (rather than PV) as it would reduce the amount of wood we needed to provide and it would seem a waste of a perfect south facing roof not to have it.

Our current thinking is that we will have a wood gasification boiler in the garage with an accumulation tank. The solar panel would then also feed the accumulation tank. The idea is that you burn the wood furnace very hot (which is efficient) every day or every other day and heat the water in the tank up to 90C at the top. The water in the accumulation tank is kept stratified (ie hot at the top and cool at the bottom) and the tank is very very well insulated so it can maintain close to that temperature for a couple of days.
Hot water (DHW) for showers etc is taken from the top of the tank via heat exchange (ie there is a coil of pipe in the accumulator through which your mains pressure water is run to heat it up- often there are 2 coils, one low down in the cooler part of the tank and one in the hotter part)
The heating runs using water directly from the tank. Radiators would take water from the top and return it cool to the bottom and under floor heating would take it from the middle (as it runs cooler than radiators) and return it to the bottom. We are thinking underfloor heating downstairs and radiators upstairs (although possibly underfloor in the bathroom upstairs too)

The wood furnace would provide the main amount of hot water and the solar would feed in to this to reduce the amount of wood needed. In the winter the solar wouldn't be doing much and you would need to fire the wood furnace perhaps every day. In the summer the solar would provide a higher percentage but you would still need to fire the furnace every once in a while (every few days???)

It seems that the complex thing in systems like this is keeping the tank properly stratified as you feed hot water in (from your furnace and solar panels) and take hot water out (for heating and DHW) plus feeding cooler water back in (returning from the heating system). To make this work there are also some controls outside the accumulation tank which decide whether to feed water in or not. For example if the water returning from the radiators is above a certain temperature it would be recirculated rather than being fed back in. If water that is too warm goes in to the bottom of the tank it will rise mixing the whole tank up meaning the top of the tank is no longer hot enough to work the heat exchange which is providing your DHW.

I have read a lot on the internet about this and my mind is boggled as there are so many varieties of the different components. We have also spoken (not yet at great length) with the plumber (who specialises in renewable and green heating) - as you can imagine this is a bit of a challenge in French. He is an agent for a company called De Dietrich who do provide solar panels, wood furnaces and accumulation tanks, but as far as I can understand from their very unhelpful website they don't plan on them being configured as we want. In their view the wood furnace is only for use in the winter and only provides hot water for heating not for DHW. You then need an electric immersion heater to provide the DHW when solar is not enough. I think they are a French company and we have noticed the French use electric for heating and hotwater unlike in the UK where electric is considered too expensive and the most common I suppose is gas. We are not keen on this solution, we would have an immersion heater but only for use once in a while when one had failed to run the furnace or something.

It is hard to get a vision of what such a system might cost. The wood burning furnaces are not cheap and nor is a solar hot water system, but the idea is it would then be very cheap to run. Virtually free infact. Once we have the floor plans sorted (if that ever happens) we can speak in more detail to the plumber and get an actual quote (1 million EUR perhaps).

Akvaterm seem most common accumulator in the UK

Alternatives might be to use one of the wood burning stoves in the kitchen or living room to provide hot water, this would be cheaper to install, but would leave us more dependent on electric heating for hotwater in the summer when solar wasn't enough and in the winter if we wanted hot water when we didn't want the stove lit.

More on floorplans

We had an architect round because we are thinking it would make sense to have proper plans drawn up to make working with the various different artisans easier. Plus we hope that 'professionals' would be able to spot flaws in our ideas that we lack the experience to see and make sure we don't have pipes needing to cross across windows or stairs you can't get up because there is  beam in the middle or whatever

In preperation for their visit we started chatting again about the layout of the house. We listed the concerns we have abou the existing plan/idea.

• We are not getting the most out of the amazing view as only kitchen has window of any size and even that is not enormous
• It is hard to find a good layout for the living room given the number of windows/doors and the stairs. The fire is a focal point, but there is also the window (view) and the TV needs to go somewhere too
• The bedroom above the kitchen is HUGE with no well defined use (we don't really need 2 spare bedrooms and certainly not one this big). We can find uses for it, like yoga or a pool table, but is there some layout which would make better use of this space for us
• Not sure if the bed above the stairs will be practical (kind of doesn't matter as is just an interesting idea not key part of design)
• Will the kitchen be comfortable to sit in as well as eat in as it is nice to sit there while dinner is being prepared so one of you is not sent off to do the cooking in isolation
• Will there be enough light in the house
• Will it be cool enough upstairs in the summer

From this we came up with another idea for the layout. The difference is that the living room is in the room above the kitchen with the stairs here joining to two. We thought we could put some big veluxes in the room upstairs and it would be nice and light and a pleasant room with the vaulted ceiling too. This plan does still leave us with a big space for a bedroom (downstairs now) we don't 100% need. But it also makes the layout of the living room simpler to envisage.

We then talked to the architect and were able to raise the specific concerns we have with our ideas. They suggested that we could extend the dormer windows upstairs (in quite a cunning way without changing the top of the window) as well as the window in the kitchen giving good light and views to both the kitchen and living room in this 2nd layout. They felt the cost would not be enormous but we would need to get some quotes before we believe that! Perhaps their idea of enormous and ours are different.

The wall would be removed totally between the blue lines
The roof on the dormer would be extended down until it met the roof following the red lines
The approx level of the floor upstairs is the green line
The pink lines show where there would be window downstairs and up

Downstairs this would give a window like this (can't go bigger because of the beams)

Upstairs the window would be like this (in red) the roof angle is shown in yellow. Not sure if it would be better not to extend the dormer roof all the way down to the roof or not (structurally and asthetically). Possibly we could have a little balcony outside this window which would shade the big window downstairs when the sun is high in the sky in summer.

In the room upstairs we would still probably want a velux in the back of the roof for light.
The room would be 6m x 6m approx with some space taken by stairs up from the kitchen.
The A frames would be visible (but not the other beams as they will be covered by insulation) and the ceiling high across most the room (the very edges it is too low to stand)

I like the idea of a spiral staircase between the living room and kitchen but do accept Doug's arguement that they are not practical for getting things upstairs with. But who CARES about practicality when it would LOOK nice.

The idea of having the living room upstairs and these windows is very interesting and would make a couple of very nice rooms. However cost is rather key to whether it is doable.

Downstairs

Upstairs

Which wood burning range cooker?

As part of trying to plan the house layout we have been thinking what we would like the room arrangement to be (to help visualise how we will use the 'space'). We will eventually need this also for the plumbing and wiring layouts. Particulary the kitchen is quite difficult. I want to have a wood burning range cooker and there are so many to chose from. Which one does make a difference to possible layouts as the size varies as does the gap you need round it to avoid burning the house down. The location of it in the kitchen is fairly fixed as it needs a chimney.
It makes sense to get something that can take 50cm wood minimum as this is the most common length wood comes in. I haven't seen ones that take longer, this would obviously be convenient though as it would mean less cutting up of wood.
I am not sure what heat output we need, generally more is not better as we will have central heating (under floor) and don't need a huge amount of heat pumped out although some will be nice I am sure. A lot of cookers like these can also heat water. The disadvantage of this for us is that it is in the kitchen so you could not use it in the summer for hot water. We are planning on having a wood boiler dedicated to making hot water which will live in the garage/boiler room so we can run it summer and winter (as long as we make sure insulation between that room and the bedroom is good).

Opinions welcome :)

The ESSE Ironheart (£3,695 - inc UK delivery)
Width - 900mm
Max output - 9.7kW
Efficiency - 81.8 (insert needs to be purchased to achieve that)
Log size - 50cm

This is the one I really want, but it is quite expensive relative to some other options.
It looks gorgeous though and is very solidly built (weighs a ton).

Other possibilites are
The Broseley Savrana (£1,520)
Width - 970mm
Max output - 6.5kW
Efficiency  - 87.7
Log size -

Reviews say it looks and feels much more flimsey than the Ironheart and doesn't maintain oven temperature as well. But it is less than half the price. It still has the visible flames which I like

Wamsler 900 Creative (£2,500)
Width - 848mm
Max output - 7kW
Efficiency-
Log size -

This stove is made in Germany and gets good reviews for efficiency and durability as well as controlability of the heat in the oven. I am less keen on the look of it than the ones with visible flames although it does still look pretty smart.

The Firebelly Raven (£3,395)
Width - 897mm
Max output - 10kW
Efficiency - 72%
Log size - 50cm
Very modern looking. It doesn't have hob covers as far as I can tell which is a bit of a downside. The sleek modern look is an interesting alternative, but on the whole I think a more 'ye olde' would suit the farm house better.

DeManincor Monoblocchi Combination Cooker (£6,685)
Width -
Max output -
Efficiency -
Log size -
This one is interesting because it is woodburning range cooker, electric oven and gas hob combined in to one (v expensive) unit. Looks pretty cool. Don't you think it sounds a bit dangerous having your gas and your fire so close together??? Not sure if the gas hob would run on bottled gas, most can though so probably - price might rule this option out before practicality did...

La Nordica Romantica (£1,185)
Width -
Max output -6kW
Efficiency -
Log size -

This one is a 'budget' option according to the blurb, ideal for holiday homes, cabins and yurts. I read in someones blog (can't find the entry now) about using this in their summer kitchen for wood cooking in the summer when it was to hot to have their inside (Ironheart) running.

Nectre Bakers Oven (can't find price in UK but guy we got the pigs from bought one somewhere)
Width -550mm
Max output -6kW
Efficiency -
Log size -

This is a much smaller stove. Some reviews mention problems with them sooting up but others are nothing but positive.

Staub (3500EUR)
I have heard of Staub because they make iron pots similar to Le Creuset (they are French too), apparently they also make range cookers.
I really love the look of this one. As pretty as the Ironheart. Similar price I guess.

and they do one with a visible flame too (the Vulcano Elegance) but I don't like this nearly as much.

Perhaps these would be easier to source in France :)

There are thousands more for example more traditional looking Aga's and Raeburns, or some really old ones available on 'leboncoin' (online buy/sell anything in France) Perhaps they don't have the exact same efficiency as modern ones...

Layout of the house

We have been struggling (and still are) to settle on a layout for the house that meets our requirements and seems doable, practically and budget wise.

The main stumbling points have been fitting in a mud room (given how close the door is to the existing stairs) and working out where the bathrooms/toilets/sinks can be to allow the waste to flow in to the septic tank. This second point complicated by the fact that we actually have two septic tanks at the moment, one is not really a proper official one. The guy we bought it from added it just before the sale completed after the survey which covers septic tanks had been done. I think he was trying to be helpful as the sink was just emptying outside, but it is a worry to us as it drains away under the house. It only has the kitchen sink water going into it so it could be worse.
It is also difficult to get the flow between rooms on one side of the house and the other to work well, I think this is because the house is quite long and thin.

We are still not sure if we can have a solution where the kitchen sink drains out the back of the house as it does now, but we have worked out some plans where this and whether there is enough clearance under the stairs for a corridor are the main questions we can see at the moment. They involve getting rid of the old stairs and replacing them with new, this is a bit of a shame as the stairs are original. But they are also rather woodworm eaten and would need a lot of work anyway.
Something else we are thinking about is whether to have underfloor heating upstairs - we plan on having it downstairs but would like wood floors upstairs and are not sure if under floor heating is a good solution or not.

We are thinking of getting a local architect to draw them up properly as plans so we can make sure we haven't missed anything as well as getting the plumbing and electrics included on them. I haven't found any magic program on the internet allowing us to do this ourselves yet, plus they have experience spotting things that would not work.

The idea of the bed that seems to be splatted on top of the stairs on the first floor view is that it is on a raised platform above the stairs... just an idea...

First floor

Phase One is finished

I mentioned before that we have an 'agile' planning process for our work (house and land).
It does sounds a bit sad I know. However we find that it helps us not panic about the amount of work we have to do. As well as keeping us focused on one thing and seeing it through to completion rather than dotting around as we see things that need doing.

These are the basics of our process.

• Work is divided in to phases which have a number of headline goals
• We have a backlog of work on post-its - whenever we think of something that needs doing we add a 'story' (even if it won't be done for years)
• We also have a list of 'BAU' tasks ('Business As Usual' which is a sad hangover from working in IT/banks - it just means all the normal things you have to do to keep your business running, for us cooking, mowing the lawn, cleaning the chickens, hoovering, shopping, changing the bed, etc etc)
• Each story has a size estimate (XS, S, M, L, XL) and points are allocated to each size (XS - 0.5, S - 2, M - 3, L - 5, XL - 8)
• At the start of the week we chose the top priority stories in our backlog and make sure they all have a size allocated. We have a history of how much we are likely to get done in a week (burn down rate) so we limit the number of stories to somewhere in the region of this figure.
• Daily we have a morning 'stand up' meeting to decide what we are doing that day and make sure that completed stories are marked as completed. We also discuss what things have issues or are blocked and what we should do about them.
• At the end of the week we have a review of the week (good, bad, ideas, questions) and add up the total number of points achieved.
• BAU tasks don't have points allocated because there is an approx steady amount of that to be done leaving the rest of the time free for 'project work'. The purpose of the points system is to allow us to select only the number of stories we will have time to fit in around the BAU work. Sometimes there are bigger than normal tasks such as strimming the drive which although they are a regular part of 'running the farm' get points allocated otherwise they skew the results.

After the arrival of the sheep we are now ready to declare Phase One complete (they are part of 'a stitch in time').
Phase One had the following goals:
Fit for human habitation - eg getting water and then hot water
A stitch in time - Fixing a number of urgent things that were going to become bigger problems, mainly around keeping the land under control eg getting cattle and sheep to graze bits of it plus getting strimmer and lawn mowers and using them
First cultivation - This was about getting some things planted this year even though we didn't hope to become self sufficient so soon we have a lot to learn and the sooner we got on with it the better.

This is all the end of week reviews stuck on the wall with the stories done in that week on the paper along with our thoughts about what went well and badly and ideas/questions for improving going forward.

We can see that our run rate (or burn down rate) reduced massively in the period after getting Poppy to less than half what it was before her. It is now up near the previous rate.


We have now progressed on to planning what Phase Two means. Having completed Phase One doesn't mean we have finished all the stories we have on the backlog which include things we might not get round to for years. This is the backlog off the board and the current week on the board (not everything is on the backlog yet and many of the stories on there will be broken down in to multiple more managable stories or tasks when the time comes.

One of the goals for the next phase is going to be getting some of the boxes moved upstairs. This will involve getting some initial work upstairs done such as insulation (which has dependencies because we need to have any veluxes and venting done before the insulation as well as some of the electrics) before we move them as they would get in the way otherwise.
We will also have things about planting some more things (that need to be got in before winter) and protecting the pump (which means installing a new larger tank at the spring with a detector to turn off the pump when it is empty)

Fshhh (noise of workman sucking air through teeth)

The stone mason came to look at the house to check out various things we were worried about. He confirmed we would at some point need to remove the render from the front of the house as it is concrete and therefore unsuitable for an old stone house due to it's lack of breathability. He looked at the fireplace in the living room/kitchen which I think I have mentioned before due to the rather excessive slope of the mantlepiece. After some examination he made fshhhh sucking of breath through teeth noise that builders/workmen/artisans make when they are about to tell you that something is a disaster and probably expensive to fix. After full investigation including removing the protective panelling and sticking his head up the chimney (we didn't tell him about the snakes that live up there) his diagnosis was that the best thing to do is remove the whole wall structure that creates the fireplace. This would leave only the brick chimney stack at the top and we would need to make a box around the metal pipe we need for the wood burning stove. On the whole it will be an improvement as the chimney is pretty big and we only use a small part of it for the wood burning stove. It is going to create an almighty mess though and it is hard to know when we should plan this in.
I braved the snakes to take a photo up the chimney but it doesn't really show very clearly the problem. The outside of the wall has plasterboard on it so we don't see any issues but on the inside you can see that the stones are falling apart from each other and the whole wall is slumping down - which is why the mantlepiece is sloping so much as it is being pushed down by the weight of the collapsing wall above.

You can see though how little of the space the chimney for the wood stove takes.

Life isn't like fiction

There are endless films and books where people make a drastic lifestyle change, often a city dweller ends up living in the country(sometimes deliberately and sometimes for reasons out of their control). There is always some kind of bleak period where they hate the change, can't settle in and don't know how they are going to earn money. Then through some amazing good luck they manage to make their millions (and often meet the partner of their dreams)
The film that always comes to my mind is Baby Boom - with Diane Keeton, she inherits a baby which makes her lose her job, then for some reason I can't remember she moves to the country and has a nightmare, then makes baby food from the excess apples in her garden and becomes a millionaire (plus meets the man of her dreams of course). There are LOADS of others but I can't remember the names as they are too annoying as it is not like that in real life.
A lot of people have suggested that I need to write a book to make our fortunes. Probably they are inspired by there being quite a few funny books published with people moving to France and having a hilarious time with the locals, French red tape etc. I started to blog to try a bit of writing (as well as to let family and friends know what we are up to) but how does one take the next step? Books are very long with a lot of words, how does anyone manage to write that much (in such a way that people don't give up in boredom reading it)? Quite a few of the stories I am complaining about above feature people we are writing books and magically they manage to write masterpieces despite never having put pen to paper before in their lives. I just don't see that happening in real life. Although perhaps it happened for the Eat Pray Love woman - but a.) she cheated by being a professional writer and b.) I can't understand why her book was so popular anyway, I found it very annoying. With an extra twist to the annoyingness because she must have made so much money from it (bah humbug etc)

According to the Sunday Times, this blog (whatkatiewore) was/is massively popular and she has now gone on to do a blog about decorating their house (whatkatiewallpapered), apparently DIY and home renovation blogs are very 'now', 'hip', 'happening', 'zeitgeist-y' etc . How one wonders, does one get the Sunday Times to mention ones blog? Presumably it has to be popular already as well as 'now', 'hip', 'happening', 'zeitgeist-y' etc? Chicken and egg, how does it get popular without mention? If I was a character in a book there would be no problems as it would happen by amusing stroke of luck, I would write a related book and be a multi millionaire.

Outdoors kitchen

Between doing other things (buying sheep, strimming, bbqing etc) we have been beavering away on the woodshed.
At the start of today it looked like this

Which looks like nothing, particularly compared with what was there to start off with

But it took much of the day to clear it out and burn about 30 wheel barrow loads of twigs and rubble that were at the bottom.

It was a bit hot for having a huge fire but the cows seemed to enjoy it, I think the smoke kept the flies away. It was worth the heat though to get to this

The concept is to have an 'outdoor kitchen' here with perhaps a fridge and some way of cooking and comfy seating for eating in the shade in the summer. It is well ventilated as the roof has been designed to ensure this (I believe pigs and chickens would have been kept here originally). Initially we will just have table and chairs here.

The view is lovely - if the giant hedge is cut down (Ruth and Huw maybe it will still be waiting to be done when you are here...!!!)

So what's the plan?

We obviously have a lot of work to do and we need to organise and plan it somehow.
We have been talking to a number of different artisans (plumber, electrician, carpenter/roofer) and we have some more to go (insulation expert for old houses, metalworker - to strengthen some beams, stone mason, septic tank, barn demolition).
From this we are trying to come up with a view what we will do to the house and how to go about it (what can we do ourselves, what order do things happen in, what do we need experts to do).
In parallel with this we have a lot we are trying to do now (get control of the grass, rid the house of vermin, plant some veg, acquire more animals, get health care, make the drive more usable, integrate by visiting people)
We found we were dotting around a lot and not finishing tasks because something else came up and we were having problems getting to our longer term goals.
So we decided to take some of what we learnt running IT projects and apply that (knew it would come in useful sometime)
It is work in progress at the moment, but we have introduced week long 'sprints', a morning 'stand up' meeting and 'retrosoectives'. You can see the concept here

The board

Things waiting on the left - things in progress on the board

Done items (filled in retrospectively)

Easing in to self sufficiency

We keen to grow as much of our own food as possible. Both meat and veg.
We have the pigs and Doug is currently working out at current rate of progress when they are likely to reach slaugher weight. A few months is likely. It will be a wrench sending them off as we are fond of them and they are great fun, but we are looking forward to the resulting pork and other pig products such as bacon, ham, sausages, saucisson etc and it is not part of the plan to end up with expensive pets.

We plan on getting some other animals too. Ideally things that can turn grass in to meat. The pigs should result in a great product, but they will have been fed almost exclusively on bought food to achieve this.
We will get chickens and hopefully if they free range they will manage to feed themselves a lot of what they need from insects and plants (ideally not the veg patch) and avoid becoming themselves food for the fox.

Rabbits are a good animal for turning grass in to meat (apparently) so we are considering them. However I have some qualms about whether I could look Thumper in his fluffy cute little face and kill him. Doug thinks he can, so that is the first bit dealt with - but then Thumper needs to be gutted, skinned and chopped in to pieces. I like to think I can do this, as it seems a bit hypocritical being able to eat meat but being squeamish when you consider some of the process of preparing it. In the supermarket here they sell a lot of whole but skinned rabbit, I was going to buy one but the eyes are still there and they were freakishly boggling out of the packet at me, so I wimped out and bought the deheaded and chopped in to pieces one.

Oh no! I am not cut out to be a country folk who can kill animals with a twist of my wrist etc - I will progress next time to the one with the boggly eyes and from there to one that needs gutting and skinning perhaps.
The resulting stew was very tasty and I don't want to turn vegetarian!

So what's the dream?

For reasons I won't go in to here we both found ourselves without jobs in January, so we decided to go to Chamonix for the winter and then move in to the farm in May. The theory being that our first impressions of living there would be good rather than how cold it was. Plus we just wanted to go skiing and see various friends who were in Chamonix for the winter too... You can see what we got up to in Chamonix here.

The plan now is to move in in May and to get a number of animals and become as self sufficent as we can. The wedding we are going to in June will hopefully only cause a minor hiccup in progress (surely pigs, chickens etc can feed themselves for a few days??)

• Initial plans for animals include pigs (on order), chickens, rabbits, a cat, a dog and horses. Other possibilities are bees, ducks, sheep, goats and cows...
• The list of fruit and veg is too long to include here but we plan on growing for ourselves as well as for the animal and barley and hops for brewing beer.
• Water currently comes from a spring and we would like to be able to keep it like that.
• Heating and hot water we are thinking of solar tubes and a wood gasification boiler as there is a lot of sun and wood on the property.
• We will consider solar PV as well although it is perhaps too expensive to install.
• We would like to develop cheesemaking, brewing, baking and conserving skills
• Along with all this we have hobbies we would like to start or develop such as knitting, spinning, playing the piano (Doug), horse riding, skiing, hill walking, wood turning or carving (we have so much wood)
• We hope to be able to sell excess fruit, veg and animals but need to understand the practicalities of this in red tape entangled France where the tax system appears to be comprehensible by noone, not even the tax man.
  
• We would also like to convert the sheep barn (by which I mean two walls of stones in danger of collapsing at any moment) in to a small rental cottage and cater for cyclests and perhaps horse riders in the future.
• Any other ideas for saving/earning money greatly appreciated

Watch this space to see what actually happens...

Doug in his natural habitat