Restoration of a 150 year old Barn.

[clockmanFRA]

Restoration of a 150 year old Barn.

If okay Mods, ? I will post this here, it might interest some folks.

This Oak framed barn on our Old small Farm here in Normandy France is to be restored at last.




 Ten years ago I put some metal work inside to support the roof as the North brick wall that supports the Oak frame and ‘torche'  (Mud & straw) filled walls, was falling over. The locals remarked, “knock it down and put a modern one up”.
 
Restoration will leave the interior to Passive House standards on the insulation.

The 10m x 6m, 7m high, (33ft x 20ft x 23ft) building will stay a barn, with 2 full size barn doors especially made lightweight structure with very good insulation, and these doors will have a normal front door installed in them for pedestrian access.

 I will reopen 2 windows on the north side wall, and install a service door at the back with a room for  a WC and a small kitchen room etc, and this barn can then be used as a Lecture Theatre, but I can still get my old tractor inside  .

The metal roof on the south side of the barn will be removed and that area will become a small court yard with two small animal stables suitable for a dozen sheep or so, and a freezer room building.

Concept.
I will build a building within a building, this way the new does not put any loading/strain on the old and I can keep the new dry and insulated.
First to get the old structure stabilised, here we are digging out the old rubble footings of the wall and gone sufficiently deep to find hard stable sub soil conditions. Saved  the bricks for re-laying the wall.




As you can see there are already some serious brick support pillars that are concrete filled to save the rest of the leaning wall.

Next we will dig out around the inside of the building a 3oomm, 12 inch deep trench that is about 24 inches, 600mm wide, then we will lay a plastic membrane and then a steel reinforced concrete Raft Foundation with 12cubic meters of concrete. 12 is about the best minimum I can use with the ground conditions.

Materials are sourced locally, sand from up the road,' Bayuex', bricks from the brickworks kilns at ‘Lisuex', thermal blocks from a little farther away but re-constituted blown cinderash , insulation from a little further away, re-constituted old glass bottles into fibre. Wood oak etc local. The old roof slates are now weathered down to paper thin, so new will be re-constituted slate that is pressure forced into new slates with a fibre mix, again done in this Country.

Photo shows what we have done on all our other buildings around our old Farm, this one is in the 90ft long Medieval Old barn, the 2 storey Bunk Gite with Raft foundation, Thermal blocks etc etc.
 

[Bruce S]

Clockman;
As someone who has helped our Family's farm "down home" which is a mere 197mi (~320Km) rebuild a centuries old building, I welcome posts of this beauty!!
Best of luck!!
PS>>> Those bricks looks just like they came from Missouri!
Bruce S
In Moderator Mode, we would say " The diary section is open to almost anything" post away 

[clockmanFRA]

Here You are Bruce S, just for you ..... a photo of our just up the road Brick works.




Me and my old Toyota collecting another pallet of 600 hand made's.



Its been here centuries, family run generation after generation, has its own clay pits and mini railway for bringing the clay.

Slightly distracted at present with Insulating and panelling the walls in the Main Salon in the House, and now painting.



 

[Bruce S]

Nice!! Very Nice!
The blue tones nearly match our formal dining room that just got upgraded to (3) 120Vac 40W LED bulbs rated at 850 lumens each ( this of course to ward off cabin fever through winter) shining through a re-purposed (meaning we found during bulk pickup day) Alabaster lamp.
I'll post a pick of our house's back wall, those bricks of yours match!!
Just goes to show that somethings are hard to improve on.
Cheers!!

[David HK]

Any prospect of a photograph of the railway engine at the brick works?

Dave

[clockmanFRA]

Hi David,

I have seen a photo of a loco somewhere, just a diesel job.

500mm gauge, they have 500 to 1km of permanent way and lift and re-lay when required.

Next time I will try and find the loco.

http://guilloteau.free.fr/extraits/lagrivepresentation.htm

http://briqueterielagrive.com/

[clockmanFRA]

A bit more...

Seems this loco was made by SEBASTRASSE.

[oztules]

That be a fair weather locomotive

....................oztules

[David HK]

Thank you for the time and effort to post the railway engine photographs. The 'engine' seems very similar (design concept)  to those used on narrow gauge lines of the Allies in France during WWI.

By the way, well done with, your project and the ever useful contribution by Oztules. I have enjoyed following it.

Dave

[dnix71]

You get a lot of snow there? I noticed the steep slope of the roof. Too much snow or ice could easily bring down a weak roof.

[clockmanFRA]

We get enough snow each year to stop the tractors getting about for a couple of weeks.

Actually that barn roof is not that steep,  compared to the standard Normandy Barn.

Here's are 100 footer long barn, 'The old House', the oldest bit inside is 1700's, the west side is now brick as the Oak just rotted out 150 years ago.



I did the roof in 2006, 7,000 slates, here is Frank a local guy who helped me out labouring.



East side, the weather does not beat up this side.

[Bruce S]

Clockman;
As promised, here is a pic of our home's brick

This is the North side of the house. Pay no attention to the mail slot being redone. I'm trying to make sure the patina isn't removed while re-insulating the contact with the wall. BUT the bricks could be ones straight from your supplier.

Here is the dinning room wall color.

Compare that to your pic of your formal room :-).

Is that a what we call a 12/12 pitch roof on the barn?

Bruce S

[clockmanFRA]

Love your bricks, laid to line, excellent.

12/12 pitch?

Here's the barn roof I will be re-slating......... my pitch is shown as 48 degrees, so that's about a 75mm lap.



Finished the Salon, re-wired the Old chandelier and electric-ed it, re-strung the cut glass dangly bits.
The wall light mounts are an old Italian Gesso wood candle chandelier, split and converted to electric.



The nice thing about the new panelling is the fact that its 4 inches of Insulation behind it.

[DamonHD]

10cm insulation?  Yum!

My house is so small that I've been using aerogel to get away with less (3cm or 4cm depending).

Rgds

Damon

[Bruce S]

Our country is not old enough to have the wooden candle stick lights  , otherwise I would've done the same as you. However I am very happy with the new dim-able LEDs behind our alabaster chandelier. For winter we swap the soft-white lights our for ultra-white lights to ward off cabin fever during the winter doldrums.
 
I like the ladder with all the paint drips , shows a well used item.
Is that fireplace insert a working unit?

Damon,
I'd be curious about using the areogel, but the costs are currently prohibitive.
AND what do you consider small?
I've seen other people's WCs bigger than our kitchen  .
AND trying to get salesmen to understand WE don't want a ubber-sized dishwasher or stove or fridge 'cause it won't fit anyway is maddening at times.

NOW back to the barn;
ClockmanFRA
Is that slate as in rock type slate? if so how does it attach?

[DamonHD]

Bruce: our house is 76m^2 (~800sqft) heated space, on two floors.  It has 5m x 8m ground footprint in a plot about twice that size.  In silly London prices our not-very-pretty place has a "market value" of something like US$500k.

Actually our house is pretty much exactly the average UK new-build size, but I've seen multiple people in the UK and US (who should know better) describe our size of building as some kind of torture or even cruelty to our children which makes me rather angry.  The compact form does enable me to cover all our energy bills and carbon footprint from solar PV on the roof.  Actually, if the family would allow I'd like a "tiny" house, but that ain't gonna happen!

I have been working round the house with IWI (Internal Wall Insulation) of 3cm or 4cm thickness, and have the upstairs north wall to complete.

Rgds

Damon

http://www.superhomes.org.uk/119

http://www.earth.org.uk/superinsulating-our-living-room.html

[clockmanFRA]

"Is that fireplace insert a working unit?"

Yes Bruce, every room in this 1870's French house has a working marble fireplace, although only this one is open/register plate clamp on the stainless steel 6 inch flue pipe, the others are boarded up.

10 year old, 65kg of cast Iron Wood Burning stove, French.

Here's a pic of my last year's flue/chimney cleaning mess, before works commenced on the walls. I take out all the baffle plates of the stove for a good clean......

 

[clockmanFRA]

Back to the 'Old Barn'.

540 off, 625mm x 250mm x 200mm, Thermal blocks and 2,200 slates arrived yesterday.



The Original slates, from Brittany, have seen better days, as they easily brake/fracture, but the holding nails have corroded/rust away to nothing.



The slate at the front is a new broken one and comes as 400mm long by 240mm wide, its made up from re-constituted slate and fibre. I like the new type as they are consistent and be easily worked with diamond/tile cutter or drilled on a jig setting.

The other natural slate tiles are the French size and cut. I keep these for patching up and will use this old tiles on the 2 storey Oak Framed double garage, that I must put back up sometime.



Tools and the French way.
Just about all buildings that get a slate roof see the roofers using these stainless steel hooks/crouche that hook on to the roof wood batten and the centre of the tile, and that's all they use.

Me, I use the English way and the French way. Each tile gets 2 copper clout/nails into the tile supporting wood pressure treated batten, and also a stainless steel Crouche. In this day and age if the French do not see a crouche they think the roof is not on properly.......

The Long arm tool is a copper clout ripper, it has a sharp edge on the nose and hook bits. Slide it up under the tile, find the clout/nail and pull hard down or push, and hay presto it cuts the copper clout/nail and out slides the Tile.

The hammer is a roofing hammer long point is for putting a hole in a slate at the right spot for the clout/nail.

   

[clockmanFRA]

Bruce, Here's another shot of one of my roofs with the stainless steel hooks/crouche showing....

[Bruce S]

DamonHD;
 There is a very large (pun intended) group of communities here in the USA that are into "tiny houses".
I got a chance to look inside one. I don't think it was much over 200sq ft, but very roomy!
A lot has to do with how things are built and placed. What gets me; if I go to an appliance store and ask for "mobile home" sized appliances , they are much more expensive than regular sized stuff  . without them being as efficient.

[Bruce S]

ClockmanFRA;
The cost of that amount of slate is more than my house is worth!! IF I were to try and purchase it locally.
The tools you show and the English/French way of installing looks similar to the tools here. On our East cost, the have weather codes they must comply with , and those stainless steel "hooks" look the very same.

[clockmanFRA]

2,200 slates cost me Total, the equivalent of $1600.

With new under felt, main joist repairs/replace, tile battens, Zink gutters etc, clips and other bits, I expect a total total cost of a New Roof about $3000.

I have my own UK type scaffolding, as the French stuff hangs on ladders and the building and scares the c..rap out of me.

See photo of a local French Roofing guy......

[clockmanFRA]

The 10 meters by 5 meters, 33ft x 16ft, Barn gets a new floor.

Concrete is not particular envoirmently friendly, but I try to use as little as possible.
The barn has been excavated by hand, me a couple of hours each day, if nothing else it keeps me fit and keeps my weight down.

Using the hand spade and shovel you get a feel for the ground and done properly the ground comes up cleanly, and more importantly you can see good sub soil, ie hard, and see soft back fill from those 150 years ago, so excavation is minimal.

Yes I can operate JCB mini diggers etc, but here everything is incredibly expensive to Hire, and stuff is far away, and the ground is not easy to judge when your in a cab.

This pic shows the side trenches of the Raft Foundation and these go down to the bottom of the original wall foundations. The ground will dry hard and then crumble so the concrete needs to go in within 2 weeks.



The black 1000 guage DPM goes in and the steel reinforcement starts to be sorted out.



The concrete is in.

Centre of the raft is about 200mm, 7 to 9 inches thick, with the side trenches about 500mm, 19 to 22 inches thick, and 400mm, 16 to 20 inches wide.
I used about 11 cubic meters, that was 2off 14 wheeler mixer lorries as around here the max each lorry can take is 8 cubic meters. Total cost about $1600.

The first managed to get his shoot in to about half way in the barn, but it stilled needed shovelling about.
The second lorry was a pump lorry but the driver was not going to get his pump dirty. A row ensued with my good friend 'Ali', who is very French but several generations from Morocco. The pump lorry only had 3 shoot sections so me and 'Ali' were well k.nackered at the end of the day.

Levelling was done with 8 wooden stakes hammered into the ground and these were levelled to each other, then wellington boots on, and a 15ft long wood Tamper Board, up and down a few times and it levels out.

I will let the concrete rest for about 2 weeks.   



My grateful thanks to Ali.


 

[Bruce S]

Nice!!


Did you leave it as one huge slab? or are there what I call "control cracks" which is what the pros here do so if there is a weak point it will crack there instead of just anywhere?
 

[Mary B]

I have a new garage going up in a few weeks, going to be pouring a 30x24 foot slab. I am leaving it to the pros!

[clockmanFRA]

Hi Bruce,
The concrete slab we just laid is generally called a Mass Slab Foundation, as its a raft foundation for the new building that I will put up inside the Old building. The new walls etc will have no direct connection with the old fabric and the cavity between the 2 walls, 200mm will be fiberglass type insulation from old glass.

The new walls are lightweight 200mm thick thermal blocks at 490ks per linear meter loading on to the raft foundation.

There will be a concrete screed, under floor heating running from the 5kW PV on the roof, and then tiles put on top of what you can see at present.

Thermal expansion joints in concrete that are used normally where the concrete is subject to weather, on  off pressure, movement and heat.

Normally my Raft foundations are in the ground and subject to other coverings, so the environment is very stable.

What I do not want to happen is that the Building foundations breaks it back, and putting a deliberate thermal joint on this particular small Raft foundation should not be necessary and unwarranted.

Like all things there is a lot to consider here, ground and sub soil loadings, size, positioning the re-enforcing steel, eventual loadings, concrete type, and very important for me....... is minimum use of concrete and materials.  

Here's a couple of Photos of another Extension and Raft Foundation I designed and built here. Traditional local hand made brick, and yes, I laid each brick at a rate of 300 a day, laid to line and profiles, (my bricklayer friend gave me grief on a few things, but helped with sage advice). The fancy brickwork matches the old buildings brickwork.







It took me 3 years, on and off.

MaryB, have fun.

[dnix71]

Minimum use of wood makes for less work in the long run, it looks like. Bricks and concrete don't rot. I'm guessing those brick walls are designed to support themselves only. The roof must be supported by pillars and beams.

In the US most structures are tied together so the outside walls carry some of the roof load. That means hollow brick with rebar and concrete. Foundation is everything. Here we would have torn it to the ground, built a new foundation and then used the old bricks and whatever else could be salvaged to rebuild a historical structure. Sometimes building of historical value get dismantled to numbered pieces and relocated for reassembly.

It also looks like you don't get earthquakes in France very often. There must be an interlocking brick design for places that shake that does not require rebar.

[clockmanFRA]

The falling down wall, is now all re-built and a new lump of Oak bolted into place.



 The Barn gets its scaffolding, English stuff, (I have my own) and its free standing so no stress on the original fabric, but I must be getting old?  as I ache all over putting that stuff up............ .

Help is handy?...............

 



Now to get on with the New roof.........

[oztules]

I'm feeling aches and pains just looking at the scaffolding......


................oztules

[clockmanFRA]

Scaffolding is ridged, no swaying..

Roof stripped of the old slate tiles.

Wood repairs, with a couple of up joists/beams supported with new ones along side, and sorting out that collapsed end with new close boarding. I also fit metal angle brackets to lock the up joists to the wall plate, as some have their rusty nails corroded away, or the wood pins have rotted out.



New gutter clips where the up joists are. I normally fix them with a slight slop so the water drains nicely. Here the building itself drops 4 inches at the far end........ so no deliberate slope required.

I use a breathable membrane felt,  then up lats fixed to the up joist underneath, these will take the cross tile lats.

Yikes, ! I got through 1,400 off, 5mm x 45mm, long screws in 2 days,....... its nice to have good battery/electric screw drivers. 

 

It rained, and I got wet twice today, yuk.

[clockmanFRA]

Half term school holidays, so the boys are helping on the roof.

[ruddycrazy]

G'day Clockman,
                           Eh mate to say it is enjoying to read this thread is like I use to do finding that oyster bar 2K off the coast when I lived in Port Hedand.....

                          Now if the mod's don't mind me hijacking this thread I would like to ask a question.


                         I have just started a new job as what I privately call a 'slave driver' but my title is a work for the Dole supervisor, today I went onto a new project where one of the jobs is re-pointing a heritage listed grandstand where there is a fair amount of work to be done. Now I've never done a project of this nature and I am expected to get long term unemployed people to do this. So if you can provide some info or links into this repointing of stonework I will have a place to start from.
                       

Regards Bryan
                           

[clockmanFRA]

Hi ruddycrazy.

Yes I noticed your last post mentioned your new role. Good luck.

15 years ago I could have sent you some links, today the old traditional skills us older generation took for granted, are as rare as roking horse poo!.

For instance, 16 years ago the British Slate Roofers Association had info, all the different types of slate roof and the lap gauges on the Web. But not now.

Re, pointing, depends on the original mortar and the original Bricks. Lime or Cement ?. The mortar should not be to strong and should bind with the original.

Here is a vid that's about right........  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFzG9jwu_yw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRKcAW1OTnk

But be very careful not to damage the brick edges when raking out the old mortar. I use a 900W angle grinder with a 40mm long carbide cutter that has a diameter just under the mortar width, do not use a angle grinder as you have very little accurate control. And raking out to a good depth is important.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mortar-rake-4-flute-tungsten-carbide-reversible-8-x-30mm-with-M14-adaptor-/131627051434?hash=item1ea59569aa:m:mNEkW-3kl0ElMKdzGcRfHXw  or ......   http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-Turptech-Professional-Rotary-TCT-Chisel-Mortar-Rake-Choice-of-5-Sizes/371402883136?_trksid=p2045573.c100034.m2102&_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIC.MBE%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D33828%26meid%3Dd1f9ad46bdce4d1083ba57df9d24a1ca%26pid%3D100034%26rk%3D2%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D400758907603

And I do not trowel I use this type of special fine mortar...   http://www.forsterindustrial.co.uk/files/Products/Parex/Streetscaping/Parex_Easipoint_Standard_paving.pdf

Where I use a an injection gun, its a big diameter gun like....      http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mortar-Gun-for-Brick-Pointing-and-Tile-Grouting-Cement-Applicator-Tool-794339-/351514295875

And you will need some re-pointing tools with different radius's like....... http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Marshalltown-M505D-Tuck-Pointing-Trowel-Durasoft-Handle-3-8-/171846273062?hash=item2802d60826:g:mEsAAOxydgZTGbf0     or .......  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brick-Jointer-3-8-5-8-1-2-Laying-Builders-Mortar-Double-Pointing-Trowel-Tool-/252093421461?var=&hash=item3ab1f05795:m:mqqfL0cKZtcru33Yct7XpBQ

Trust the above helps.