Tag Archives: damp proof membrane

Monday 10th November 2014 – I COULD HAVE STAYED IN BED …

… today. It’s a Bank Holiday here tomorrow and I owe myself a couple of days off.

However instead I went downstairs and made a start on enlarging the battery box. And by the time I knocked off, the base had been finished and all concreted in.

I had to rake out the under-floor next to where the existing battery box finishes. And once I had done that, I needed to level it off. Next job was to make up a framework for the extension and lay that into position.

You can’t simply concrete within the framework as the damp will be through there in minutes. Remember that this is the original problem with the flooring that led to me digging it out. There has to be a damp-proof membrane underneath and that can’t be laid flat on the floor as the rough surface will puncture it. I sifted some of the rubble that I had dug up and ended up with a pile of soft damp sand. That made a good cover over the rough surface and then I could put dow

The damp-proof membrane needs a layer of sand on it too. Putting stones onto it for a base might puncture the membrane from above otherwise. And so I sifted another load of rubble to produce more damp sand and that all went over the membrane.

All of the stone that I had removed made a good hardcore base, and then I mixed four or five buckets of concrete which filled it all up nicely. Even nice was that I finished just five minutes before knocking-off time too.

But to give you some idea of the kind of dampness with which we are dealing here, I had to remove part of the framework for the floor of the old battery box. And that was rotten as a pear in places.

This floor really is damp and that’s the reason that I’m going for the suspended flooring here.

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Wednesday 11th January 2012 – GOSH, IT WAS HARD THIS MORNING …

… just as I predicted.

but that’s enough about my personal life. Let’s talk about me trying to get out of bed.

And that was hard too.

And I now know what it means in these old novels when they say that “so-and-so walked gingerly to the door” because that’s just how I was moving this morning.

waterproof plywood damp membrane lean to les guis virlet puy de dome franceSo to change the subject, here’s another photo of the lean-to and its roof.

What you can’t see in this photo are any slates. And that’s a shame – I’ll have to buy an infra-red lens for that because by the time that I had knocked off work (18:10 if you are wondering) the first row was already in place.

And in the dark too, so I shudder to think what it might look like in the cold light of day, but I was determined to put the first row on, no matter what.

What else you can’t see are the three cut pieces of plywood to make the final length, and the screws that are holding down the roof sheets onto the chevrons, because it’s all now covered by a plastic membrane – the type that stops water passing through but allows water vapour to escape.

Yes, it’s all looking good on the lean-to roof and it can chuck it down now for all I care because at least it’s all weathertight.

It’ll be even better when all of the slates are on, whenever that might be. I can’t count on the weather holding off indefinitely – it did well to hold off for these last three days while I managed to do this much. Not like the Auvergne at all, is it?

I’m impressed by the way with the Ryobi one-plus drill that I’ve been using to screw the roof sheets on. Twice now it’s fallen off the roof all the way to the ground and when I’ve picked it up each time, it’s worked fine and carried on fixing the screws.

I reckon that if I had fallen off the roof twice, all the way to the ground, I wouldn’t be able to carry on screwing, that’s for sure.

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Monday 16th August 2010 – We start off today …

roofing inside lean-to lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome france… with a couple of photos that features the inside of the roof, by way of a change.

Don’t mind the loose lath that is on top of the wall just there – we will be moving that in due course. But the rest of it looks pretty impressive.

You’ll also notice the black damp-proof membrane up there. That’s to stop the snow drifting in underneath the tiles and falling inside, something that’s a real problem around here in winter.

roofing inside lean-to lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome franceYou can see that we have extended the walls by mounting breeze blocks all the way up and we’ve put chevrons on there.

You will also notice the cross-beam that we fitted to the wall of the house the other day. The chevrons are supported on that. The cross-beam goes all the way across the wall of the house and it’s a good job that there were three of us to lift it as I remember it being flaming heavy.

roofing tiles lean-to lieneke les guis virlet puy de dome franceFrom the outside, however, it looks even more impressive. We had quite a few tiles left over from when we did the roof of the house and so we nailed the laths to the chevrons and popped the tiles onto the roof of the lean-to.

We didn’t have quite enough as you can see if you look at the top left-hand corner, and so we’ll have to go and pick up some more tomorrow. But we aren’t ‘arf cracking on with the job and we can be proud of this.

So my day has been spent in non-stop cement mixing – load after load after load, with a slight break to go to the quarry for more sand. So I’ve mixed a ton and a half of sand since the other day. No wonder I’m exhausted.

And so when we knocked off I went round the garden, weeded the carrot patch, pulled up some carrots, beans, spinach and a courgette, and sowed some lettuce and parsnips.

After crashing out I made tea – lentil courgette and split pea curry, with carrots spinach and beans. All followed by fresh strawberries. And it was gorgeous.

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Friday 14th August 2009 – WE HAD A GOOD DAY TODAY.

kwikstage scaffolding damp proof membrane plywood les guis virlet puy de dome france Firstly we dismantled the scaffolding that was in the roof space.
Secondly we fitted the rafters.
Thirdly we took one of the rafters out and replaced it with another new one that we xylophened and painted
Fourthly we cemented the rafters in position
Fifthly we fitted some of the hardboard on the roof
Sixthly we went to Montlucon to get some more hardboard, the guttering (and why have they run out of guttering joints AGAIN? Tons of everything else but no blasted joints for the second time) and a few other bits and pieces
Seventhly we fitted the rest of the hardboard
Eighthly we fitted the damp-proof membrane (white this time as we’ve run out of black)

Terry piddled off after that (who can blame him? He’s worked hard) and I measured up, cut, xlophened and put the first coat of paint on the fascia boards.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the fascia boards, loosely attaching the guttering (in the absence of joints) and then starting the tiling. And in between all that I need to go to St Eloy for shopping.

And talking of Terry, I want you all to know how well I treat my workforce. Hottest day of the year so far (38.6 degrees and almost 84 amp-hours from the solar panels on the roof of the house). And so I treated him to a bottle of ice-cold coke. Yes, none of your 22 cents on a bottle of water – a whole 1 Euro 50 cents I spent today.

My generosity knows no bounds.

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Tuesday 11th August 2009 – I’VE BEEN PAINTING FOR MOST OF THE DAY.

With all of the slates off the roof, it seemed like the right thing to do. All of the beams and rafters that are still up there have had two coats of xylophene and one coat of LIDL wood treatment.

And they needed the xylophene too. One or two of them have some pretty big bug holes and galleries so they have been well-soaked in the stuff. They aren’t too badly damaged so it’s not worth replacing them. The xylophrene should do the job.

But it was pretty awkward painting them as they are too long to paint in one go, too short to do in two goes, there’s a central beam right where I want to put my chest when I’m lying full-length and a scaffolding just above my head. So I’ve been in some awkward positions and I’ve got aches in some places I didn’t even realise I had.

Three rafters are pretty bad though – the two outer ones and one of the inners. But I have about 20 here so I cut three to size and gave them two coats of xylophene and two coats of LIDL wood treatment.

All in all I used about 8 litres of xylophrene (good job Brico Depot had some 35-litre drums the other day) and 5 litres of the LIDL stuff. I always buy a few tins of it when I see it on offer and I’m glad I had a stock. I’m now down to just three so I’m hoping they’ll have some more pretty soon.

Tomorrow I’ll be fitting the new beams and cementing them in place ready to fit the plywood over the top. Then the damp-proof membrane and then the slates. No insulation and no laths either.

In other news, my potential customer came round. I thought that I could talk, but I’m an amateur by comparison. Still, we have to be nice to our potential customers (something that a certain UK company might wish to take on board) and I’ll go round to inspect his premises once my roof is done.

And in other other news, I see that Aung San Sun Kyi is to continue in detention, much to the chagrin of the entire western world. Now I’m not going to get involved in the rights and wrongs of her case (although followers of my organ from many years back will recall my involvement with the myserious and exotic War War Soe who came dramatically into my life for a while in Belgium and who tried to get me to help her escape Burmese justice) but one thing that I have noticed is that not one single western source has mentioned exactly WHY it is that Aung San Sun Kyi is so detested by the Burmese Authorities.

And so I hasten to put the matter straight for the record, so that in the words of the late, great FE Smith,even if you are none-the-wiser, you will certainly be better-informed.

The fact is that Aung San’s father was a former Burmese general prior to World War II. He mysteriously disappeared and later fetched up in, of all places, Japan, where the Japanese feted him and honoured him, lavished loads of money on him and so on. He then went back to Burma.

In 1941 when the Japanese colonial expansion got into top gear there was a revolution in Burma. And who should be leading this revolution, but Aung San’s father. He invited the Japanese into Burma to help with the “liberation” and of course it is no surprise that they duly obliged.

I’m not going into the horrors of the Japanese “liberation” (see “occupation” or “colonialisation”) of Burma as they are fully-recorded in all kinds of other places, but most people lay them fairly and squarely at the feet of Aung San’s father.

it’s no surprise therefore that the establishment of Burma is deeply suspicious of Aung San’s motives and cannot understand why it should be that she is calling herself as a “true democrat”. To give you some idea, just imagine what westerners would say if a child of Adolf Hitler were to stand for election as a Communist in Germany.

LIke I say, I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of what is happening in Burma right now, but it’s important that both sides have an equal opportunity to have their views aired, something that is sadly lacking in the west these days.

And on the same day that a 90 year old German is convicted of war crimes dating from World War II and jailed for life, the hypocrisy of the western world in criticising Burma for dealing with its own World War II legacy in its own fashion is quite simply staggering.

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Monday 27th July 2009 – WE’RE CRACKING ON WITH THIS ROOF!

kwikstage scaffolding spire plastic recycled slates roof les guis virlet puy de dome franceIf you look very closely you will see that we’ve put on all of the plywood, the damp-proof membrane and we’ve fitted the windows in the roof.

Terry came round for 09:00 and we cracked straight on with it. A brief pause for lunch after we’d done the plywood, which was awkward getting around the chimney and it’s a good job I can wield a hammer with my left hand as well as I can with my right … "that’s not difficult" – ed …

Putting the membrane on was easier than I would have thought, and the windows were comparatively straightforward.

It was grey and overcast for all of the day so I remember telling Terry “as soon as we’ve put this last screw in the final window I reckon it’s going to p155 down”.

I was wrong. We had to wait about 20 seconds for the downpour. And quite pleasant it was too, watching the rain stream off the membrane and off the windows. But it was clear that there would be no more work done outside today so even though it was only about 15:30 (I told you we’d worked hard) Terry went home.

I had a coffee and then swept up inside the house and piled all the broken slates onto a tarpaulin. You might womder why I’m keeping them, but in fact I’m moving my vegetable plots this winter and there will be some permanent pathways. Slugs don’t like sliding on slate, so I’m told, and seeing as they are decimating my crops right now, I’m going to have to do something to stop them next year. So slate it is.

All we have to do now is
1) slate the front of the house
2 fit the brackets for the solar panels and mount them (that will be exciting – I should sell tickets for that) and wire them up
3) bend the ridge tiles to shape and fit them
4)move part of the scaffolding round to the side to extend that which is already there.
5) bend the edging tiles to shape and fit them
6) fix the wind turbine to the wall and wire it in
7) remove the tiles from the lean-to where I live, put the scaffolding on the flat roof underneath there and then bend the edging tiles to shape and fit them
8) dismantle the scaffolding.
9 replace all of the wood and the tiles on the lean-to.

When that’s done we can start on the barn.

In other news, the annual game of “10 Green Bottles” is now under way as a member of the Open University Students Association Executive Committee hands in his hat.
“Ill-health”, we are told.
“That’s right” he replied. “I’m sick of the b*gg*rs”

We are going to start a sweepstake for the name of the next EC member to depart.

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Thursday 23rd July 2009 – THERE’S NO PICTURE TODAY, FOLKS.

We woke up at about 08.30 today to torrential (and I DO mean torrential) rain and thunderstorms. You should have seen the water cascading down the road – it was impressive.

well, not so impressive for working on a roof so we had something of a leisurely morning.

And just as we were settling down for the day the weather dramatically cleared so we went chaud-pied round to my place and the roof.

Chez moi, the weather wasn’t so nice – grey and windy. But that’s the beauty of living round here. The Combrailles is the junction of three different climatic zones (the Mediterranean, The Atlantic and the Continental European). Followers of my outpourings in all its previous guises will recall my discussions about the constantly-changing (and sometimes dramatically so) weather as the fronts collide above my head.

Added to that, the area is an old rocky plateau that is riven by deep valleys and gorges so that each valley has its own little micro-climate and that can often be confusing.

But anyway ….. we trimmed the plywood on the roof and then put on the covering sheet of damp-proof membrane. And that was no fun either, fitting a 10-metre square sheet on a roof in a howling gale.

After lunch I dangled over the roof fitting the tiles with the aid of Terry’s home-made tile hod. I built up the right-hand corner all the way to the top (this is the bit that takes the time – the rest is just quick nailing-on) but then we were driven off the roof and into Caliburn by a torrential downpour (hence the lack of photos).

Back here, it was bright sunshine and totally dry, which just proves my point about the different climates.

We had another marvellous lunch though thanks to Liz. And in the middle Terry announced
“Forget eBay – forget the lottery. If I could clone Liz I would be a millionaire”
“Yes, I would have a Liz clone” I offered
“Forget it, Eric. You’d be trampled to death in the stampede”

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Wednesday 22nd July 2009 – DESPITE THE RAGING HEAT THIS MORNING …

plywood damp proof membrane aspire recycled plastic slates space blanket insulation les guis virlet puy de dome france… we’ve covered all of the back of the roof now.

All of the insulation is on and you can see that the waterproof plywood is on there covering it up. Most of the waterproof membrane is on too, and half of the slating is done.

It was hard work mauling everything over the top of the roof and with the weather the way it was, it called for frequent pauses that at one stage had us both dozing off.

Terry, having worked on the insulation which reflected brightly with the sun, developed a bit of a headache and asked if I could produce any tablets. Nothing like that round at my place so I wandered off to the Dutch neighbours’

Not a big choice in the medicine cupboard but some unidentified pills looked hopeful.
“They look like Tera’s “Morning After” pills” suggested Tijas, casting aspertions on his sister’s character.
“Actually, I think they might be stuff that Tera keeps for her horses”added Guus.
“Take them anyway” suggested Lieneke. “They might work”

But judging by the way that Terry was running up and down the ladder and swinging from the rafters in the afternoon, I’m sorely tempted to go round tomorrow to see if Guus and Lieneke have any more.

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Tuesday 21st July 2009 – WE’VE DONE OVER HALF …

… of the back of the roof now.

Yesterday we put on another row of insulation plywood and damp-proof membrane and then went off to Brico Depot to spend another 400 Euros. This roof is becoming expensive 🙁

We did it that way round because the weather forecast predicted a boiling hot day so we did the heavy work in the morning. Mind you it was still pretty uncomfortable in the heat that we had. And to show you just how concerned I am about my workforce I spent a whole 22 centimes on a bottle of water for Terry. copulatum expensium, as we Pompeiians say

And excitement at the Anglo-French conversation group where Antoine revealed that he had been approached by a Dutch TV company that wants to film one of our meetings. This should drag out of the woodwork a few of the star-struck lurkers of our group. But of course when you have talent like yours truly, dear reader, who needs a makeover?

kwikstage scaffolding plywood space blanket insulation damp proof membrane aspire recycled plastic slates les guis virlet puy de dome franceToday we tiled over the plywood that we fitted yesterday and then started to fit another row. This time we are boarding vertically as we have reached the top row at the back. Tiling was much more easy with the safety harness that Terry persuaded me to buy. I felt like Peter Pan, swinging over the roof like that. But I couldn’t find Peter Pan anywhere so I gave up that idea. When Terry had a go in the safety harness, complete with the wet tea-towel on his head, I told him that he looked like Ena Sharples’ granma.
“Who’s helping you finish the roof?” was his response.

My retort was that I dunno why he was complaining. In Soho and places like that people pay good money to be swung from a safety harness from the roof of a building (not that I have any first-hand experience of that sort of thing of course) and if he wasn’t careful I’ll knock the money’s worth off his bill.

Now we are having torrential rain, thunder and lightning. I hope it clears for tomorrow.

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Sunday 19th July 2009 – WE STARTED PUTTING …

fitting aspire recycled plastic slates on roof les guis virlet puy de dome france… the tiles back on the roof today as you can see in the pic, if it ever decides to load itself.

What you will also see is an overhanging ladder. The ground at the back of the house doesn’t belong to me so we can’t put a scaffolding up. This meant that yours truly had to sit perched on the bottom of that ladder hanging over a bottomless void while he built up the bottom few rows of the tiling.

Those of you who know me will know that I have a thing about ladders and heights, and so a photo of me on the end would have been priceless, But Terry, who was up on the roof, had his eyes closed while I was doing it.

And so did I.

How we are doing the roof is that we are putting the insulation on – this space-blanket stuff that’s hellishly expensive but brilliant, and then putting counter battens on top of the insulation. The third layer is some waterproof plywood, with the counter-battens making the air gap that the insulation needs, and then a damp-proof membrane and then finally the recycled plastic tiles.

As Terry was leaving he told me to put on the rest of the tiles for the first row of plywood, and make sure I do them straight. Well, I did my best, but in years to come people will be coming up here, looking at the tiles and going “I wish I had a pint of whatever it was that he was on when he was putting all those tiles on”

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