Isolation de la maison (interior insulation)

I have started the process of insulating from the inside of the house on the ground floor.  I have tried several methods and after much experimentation I think I have settled on a method:  chaux 1, sable 1, pouzzolane 3 (lime, sand and volcanic stone) for the inside of the lower walls and terre paille banché (straw and slip compacted) for the rest.  I have chosen pouzzolane as it is water resistant for the lower part of the house which could have rising humidity (as there is no vapour barrier).

 

Above/au dessus:  Rez de chaussée - hérisson de pierres 20cm - poutres mis à niveau.  On peut voir le soubbassement que j'ai enduit avec la chaux.

Above/dessus:  Je pose des anciens planches de chataigné que j'ai trouvé dans une grange ici.  On peut voir le soubassement de l'intérieur que j'ai enduit à la chaux.  Je vais faire la reste du sol en terre coulé (deux couches) - il reste 15 cm pour le faire donc isolant + deux couches de terre/sable ...

 

 

 







Above; Mélangé à la bétonnière - chaux hydraulique 3,5 (3), sable reconstitué (1) et pouzzolane (3) de bricomarché banché entre des montants en bois en utilisant un système de banchage pour le partie intérieur contre le soubbassement en pierre.

Volcanic rock, lime NHL 3,5 and builders sand mixed with water in the concrete mixer, compacted against the lower wall inside the house on the ground floor using planks screwed to wooden uprights and left in place for a day or two.

Le seul inconvénient - que ca n'isole pas  bien donc j'ai essayé un système de remplissage des sacs de pouzzolane en vrac empilé parce que pouzzolane en vrac est 4 fois plus isolant qu'en béton .  Mais ca laisse des trous entre sacs ( que peut etre je peux remplir avec le béton?)

 

 

 

 

 

 

I tried using hemp and lime for one part of the insulation of the lower wall but worry about the possible humidity that could rot the hemp.

 

J'ai utilisé chenovotte et chaux NHL 3,5 aussi contre le soubbassement en pierre à l'intérieur mais je m'inquiéte parce que peut etre il n'est pas une bonne idée d'utiliser le végetale ici??

 

Preparing the straw and slip for insulating against the torchis walls (terre paille)

 

After much experimentation, I now use a mixture of one to one clay earth to water mixed in the concrete mixer, poured through a sieve into a plastic container full of straw (un mélange de terre eau 1:1 dans la bétonnière est versé par un tamis dans un grand bac plastique pleine de paille)

Mix the slip with the straw with a curve pronged fork or by treading it around the bucket. (Mélangez la barbotine avec la paille avec une fourche ou les pieds)

Transferring the slip and straw to a wheelbarrow (On transfère la terre paille par brouette)

Tipping the straw and slip onto wooden pallettes to drain for 24 hours before packing into prepared boarding against the walls in the house (on verse la terre paille sur pallettes pour drainer pendant 24 heures et puis après on le met dans un coffrage dans la maison.)

 

 

 

 

 



 



Greywater oasis or 'pedoepuration'

After nearly two years of toing and froing about how to deal with the grey water leaving the house I finally decided on what is known in France as 'pedoepuration' - a system whereby greywater leaves the house, either by collection plumbing or from individual outlets and is piped to plants that are surrounded by a wood mulch which filters and cleans the water.  A sieve full of straw acts as a grease trap and care is taken to use organic biodegradable products when washing or washing up.

I referred to a book called 'Create an oasis with Greywater' by Art Ludwig which I have had for some years and never read until now.

In France there is currently no legal system for greywater outlets and dry toilets - the permitted systems are for grey and black water combined - all very expensive.  Pedoepuration can be extremely simple to install and very low cost.

 Right:  Digging a circular basin to take the wood chip and
fruit tree.  You can see the greywater channel from the house in the foreground

Left:  Testing the perk rate by digging a hole, pushing a graduated stick into it, filling it with water then noting how long it takes for the water level to go down a given amount.  A very fast or slow perk rate is not good for this system.  Fortunately here, although the ground is heavy clay, the perk rate is not too slow.
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Below:  You can see the pvc collection grey water pipe coming out of the house.  We built a 'regard' using boards to shape concrete with a sloping base and with an outlet for a smaller pvc pipe to go to the fruit tree basin with a slope of 2%

 

below;  John checks the levels of the pvc pipes

 

 

Below:  I found a plastic container, cut off the base and drilled holes around the bottom .  The pvc pipe will go through the wall of the container and water will percolate out of the holes into the surrounding wood chip which cleans it and makes it available to the fruit tree roots.

 

Below: The pear tree in position - 'Pyrus communis' General LeKlerc - I was a little perturbed to have bought such a military sounding tree but ... the hole will be filled with wood chip ... and in the future when there are more people at the house I will design and install a branch to go to another wood chip basin perhaps filled with bamboo or willow to be used for basketry.

 

 

 

 

The grant

I managed to obtain a grant for some of the work on condition that it was done by artisans and that it would result in an energy gain of 25%.  After months and months of paper work, visits, quotes and research the roof, roof insulation and double glazed doors and windows were done.

fitting the windows

The roof is re-slated and veluxes put in

Recycled paper is blasted between breathable membranes

The ground floor of the house

The ground floor of the house had been partially covered in concrete ( a no no as this forces humidity to travel sideways up the walls of the house - concrete doesn't let water vapour through and holds on to humidity - the other part was wooden beams with chestnut floorboards that had seen better days.  I broke up the concrete with a breaker and took up the floorboards and supporting beams and hired a digger to dig down 35cm.  20cm of 20/40 stones were then painstakingly wheelbarrowed in to create 'un hérisson' into which was placed an agricultural pipe with holes in it to air the stones.  The water evacuation pipes were laid into this with sand around them for protection.

The concrete floor broken up

 



Digging out 35cm depth of earth

 

The ventilated agricultural pipe laid to aerate the stones

The stones arrive

Barrowing in the stones



Building a straw bale wall

In November last year I worked with a couple of friends to build a straw bale wall for the house - the last bit of the downstairs to fill in.  I had already replaced the rotten lower beam and put in uprights thinking that I would do a torchis wall.  I sourced some straw bales from neighbouring farmers and then set to re-sizing the bales to make them bigger to fit the gaps.  It was a case of trial and error - adding bits of wood and beams here and there to create a supporting structure for them.

John, a neighbour who lives off grid helps

 

The method  is called 'Cellule sous tension' - the bales are compressed with straps and then forced between two uprights.  Narrow strips of wood are then screwed into the uprights and positioned in  grooves made with a chainsaw in the centre of the top of each bale - this holds them in place.

 







 

A third of the wall done

 

In March/April I will render the bales with earth and lime.



 

The first Wooffers

Yesterday I welcomed my first wooffers - actually I borrowed them for a day as I am not yet set up to host having no functioning bathroom, kitchen or accommodation to speak of.  I called on Pierre, a local young organic dairy farmer for help with the exterior earth rendering of the house as it was proving rather physically demanding to do it myself what with hauling heavy buckets of earth mixture up a three story scaffolding with just a one wheel pulley.  He offered to come for the day with two young woofers who are currently staying with him.

For those unfamiliar with the term WWoof - it means 'Worldwide Opportunities of organic farms'.  It is a system of exchange whereby volunteers offer commonly 4 to 5 hours of work a day in exchange for accommodation and food.

Sophie and Gina, two young English woofers, were great company and heroically tackled the tasks of mixing up slip and treading a mixture of clay earth, sand and chopped up straw to make the render that we then applied by hand to the east wall of the house.

 Above:  Gina using the drill with bit to mix up a slip of earth and water to apply to the wall before rendering to help it stick.

 Above:  Pierre and Sophie preparing the render of clay earth, sand and chopped straw.

 Above:  Sophie and Pierre brave the rickety scaffolding to apply the render

 Above:  Sophie and Gina putting the finishing touches to the render

 Above:  I think they enjoyed themselves

Above:  The east wall with its lovely new earth render

Above:  Sophie inspects the render

Above:  Sophie quickly mastered the technique of applying the render by hand.

 

Thank you Pierre, Sophie and Gina.

The dry toilet

So this house has no toilet or sewage system at the moment.  I have fabricated a temporary dry toilet using one of the old wooden barrels that was originally used as a bird cage.   I got the idea from a neighbour who is an organic cow farmer. I bought a decorative plastic cover to go over the metal grating that is the door and used an old chair that was here, lifted off the seat and bought a plastic bucket that miraculously fitted exactly into it and popped a wooden toilet seat on top.  The roof is covered with a sheet of plastic nailed around the rim:

Above:  Dry toilet in a barrel.

 

Above:  Laura proudly posing next to the dry toilet in a barrel.  The first visitor to happily use it.

 

I initially used sawdust donated by a local saw mill to add to the little gifts left in the bucket but a visiting carpenter pointed out that there was a strong smell of petrol emanating from it.  He explained that there is lot of oil/petrol that would have leaked into it during the sawing process.  What a shame - I had already filled two pallet bays with my contributions and was looking forward to spreading the end result around fruit trees in a few years.  I now get sawdust shavings from this carpenter that has no oil/petrol in it.

 

As a temporary mesure it is quite a novelty but I still haven't got used to emptying the contents into the compost bays (constructed out of palletes stuffed with straw to keep curious animals at bay).  I like the idea of recycling the waste but there must be a more pleasant way of dealing with this .... research to be done ... to be continued.