April 2014 – Playing catch up

Hey Folks,

Nope, I haven’t buried myself under a pile of rubble, nor had I got lost on the wreckage of the crap in the garden, just been busy with real life stuff and not a lot of it related to the house.

My last posting was back in December 2013 when my Brother and Mum came over for a week to help with some work. Dec 17th I took them back to the UK intending to stay over there for Christmas and New Years and return mid Jan. Well, it didn’t quite go as planned and I ended up staying on longer to attend the funeral of my Uncle Fred. His cancer came back in a big way and this time it got the better of him. RIP Freddy. Sincere condolences to Linda and Vincent and my Mum of course.

Onto a less sad subject eh?

I got back home from the UK late Feb and found the house perfectly fine. My friend Jean-Pierre had been keeping an eye on the place and though the UK had been plagued with floods, and in some areas of Normandy too, my place was untouched. Living on a hill has its advantages. I must admit I was worried something might happen, but my fears were just that – fears, not reality.

I walked in through the gate to find Christian my neighbour had delivered 3 cubic metres of firewood for me it was neatly stacked in the garden and under cover too. But any hopes of having a nice fire were dashed because the winter was so mild, it hardly warranted it. However, I wasn’t going to let stop me so after a week of itching and hoping for a drop in the temperature and it not happening I said “Sod it!” and lit the woodburner for a proper fire. It worked perfectly! The temperature in the room went up and up and up, warm enough to take off my sweatshirt. And still it got warmer and warmer. Pretty soon I was in my shorts and I had the curtain to the kitchen open and the doorway from that to the shower open too.

Talk about efficient! Obviously the insulation I put in worked a treat and the 4kw woodburner was more than enough for heating the place. I have since learnt to just light small fires in there and ignore the temperature gauge I bought off eBay that fits via a magnet 2 foot above the burner on the stove pipe. Now I have the fire hovering at the lowest end of the best operation burn.

it’s worth noting that after the first few days after I first got the fire going I was flopped in my comfy chair watching a DVD enjoying the heat of the fire which had been going on for well over 2 hours. I stood up to get a drink from the kitchen and went straight into the really hot layer up near the ceiling, it was very warm! … but more of that later.

Whilst in the UK Mum gave me a card with a fancy schmancy gauge embedded in it as a guide for ideal room temperatures. This is how it was reading 12 foot from the fire and placed 6 foot up the wall.

After a few days of rain I found out my cunning plan for a chimney wasn’t as successful as I had hoped. The 90 degree elbow bend outside directed water down inside the house (despite the drip wire I’d fitted to it, enlarge the photo and you’ll just about see them) and when the fire wasn’t in use water was collecting in the woodburner. Adding to the problem was the cap on the top of the pipe, it was basically a flat plate and wasn’t directing the rain away. Here’s a reminder for how it was:

Here’s how it is now.

Basically there’s a cup with a hole in it at the bottom of the T shaped piece that’s turned on its side. The idea is if any rain water goes inside the pipe it bypasses going indoors and drips out of the lower part of the pipe. We had some heavy rain the other day and it worked fine. I also sealed where it came through the concrete wall with high temperature mastic. Finished it off with a decorative cover ring. I also made myself a new cap for the top of the pipe. This is more domed shaped and casts the rain water off much better. I’m not even sure what the piece of aluminium was for, I found it in a box at a boot fair and figured I could adapt it to use as a chimney cap.

So here’s the woodburner all in place and working rather too well. You can see the black streaks down the plasterboard wall from the leak I had. Eventually the plan is to build a hearth at the same height as those brown bricks under it and also clad the walls in some natural stone tiles.

Interesting little factoid for you. That bent aluminium plate under the woodburner is cold to the touch when the fire’s on full burn. I was sure the underneath of it would get hot from radiating heat, not so.

Just in case you’re wondering when the woodburner’s lit I put a piece of plasterboard as a heat shield between it and that DVD cabinet, I do the same for the TV.

***************************************

My “Bedroom.”

The West corner of the room got a major upgrade too.

Back in November it was like this:

And after I screwed the plasterboard to the studding it was like this:

And this is how it it looks as of April 2014… actually it’s been like this for a while now.

When I got back from the UK in February things were rather cramped in the room to say the least. Not helped by the fact I’d bought two large pine chests of drawers I’d seen on an ex-pat website and the seller was only 15 miles away. I got them BOTH for £80. I was sooo lucky nabbing those! Anyway, with all the other stuff in the room, including my bed, it was difficult to not feel constricted in there. (The cat I borrowed didn’t enjoy being banged into so much stuff when I gave it several test swings.) So I gave it some thought and with a bit of lateral thinking came up with this solution. As kids my brother and I had a bunkbed and I had the top bunk, so this is really no different to that set up.

It works fine. The ladder is an old loft ladder I had from my first house with Alison (see Alison? It finally got used for something LOL!!)

I can sit on the side of the bed and my head doesn’t touch the ceiling so getting in and out of bed is easy. I have the bookcase I made right beside me and a reading lamp and bedside cabinet too. Plus I have storage under the bed, at least until I shift it elsewhere.

BUT the only downside of this set up is I’m right in the “lava layer” of the heat from the woodburner. As I said before, sat in my low chair the temperature’s fine, but if you stand up you’re in a much hotter layer. I’ve even resorted to opening a window to bleed off the excess heat overnight when I go to bed! I hate the fact I’m wasting heat like that but I justify it by knowing it’s not like I’m using gas or electricity to heat my place, that would be a criminal waste. But logs are a renewable energy source and feeding a few bits of 3 x 2 off cuts is enough to keep the woodburner ticking over nicely. The logs I got from Christian will last me about 4 winters at the rate I’m going through them, I’ve barely made a dent in the stack.

**************************************

The “Office.”

Lastly when I’m not sawing wood into smaller bits as a carpenter I work as an artist so I need a dedicated place for doing my drawings and for the computer. I had been using my gorgeous antique bureau for a workstation and that was fine, but at the same time I felt cramped and it was always cluttered.

So this is how it was as seen from where I’m sat on the bed:

(Excuse the corner and all those wires, that corner is where the fuse board is and I need access to the conduits for a while yet. So I’ve left that area safe, just unfinished.)

To this is how it is as seen when standing beside the wood burner. I have my lovely big desk all set up. My mate David and I collected it from the loft I was renting before I moved into the house.

Since getting back from the UK I’ve been ticking over really, just settling into the house and really enjoying just having it. Yes, I could have blasted on with the work, but I want to take my time over this and do it right. There are so many plans I have for the place and I don’t want to do the work with a knee jerk reaction and find I hate the end result. Slow and steady is my motto at the moment.

With the Spring well under way now I’m back carpentering again on jobs elsewhere for customers, so the work on the house has slowed even more, but I have no regrets about that. I’m just enjoying being in my own place. I still find myself just looking around the room and garden with a sense of wonderment that this is now my home. Every day I realise just how lucky I am!

Thanks for reading. Hope it’s been of interest. Any questions of comments? Post ’em below. Thanks.

Aaron. aka “Biker”