The weather the last few days has been scorchio! Clear blue skys and wall to wall sunshine. It’s so warm, a Red Admiral butterfly was spotted sitting on the heather outside the patio door. The bumble bees have been hard at it too but it’s still only January and this is just a taste of things to come.
As always when the weather warms up so does the number of insects but it’s nice to have the windows open and circulate some of that lovely fresh air. The answer – Fly Screens.

I bought some fly screens for all the bedroom windows. Fortunately the width fits our windows exactly and although Steve had to do a little bit of trimming and fitting here and there, after a couple of hours the first one was in.

Once they are all fitted, we can relax with the windows open and not have to worry about those little critters. It will be especially good in the summer when you want the cooler air of the evening in but not the mozzy’s!

Wood is such a fantastic material. It grows in a huge variety of shapes, sizes and colours. It looks magnificant as a tree and has a multitude of uses. Since coming here to the Limousin, we have learned so much about the value of wood. As a building material for houses, beautiful furniture or most importantly for us, the use of wood for heating our house. When we first bought Noisetieres in 2003, it had an old insert with a false chimney breast built around it. The fire chamber itself was made of glass which didn’t radiate much heat at all. Also you didn’t benefit from the hot chimney because it was covered with so much cladding.

So, in February this year, we had a new wood burner installed – the Godin Jurassien.

It’s a complete cast iron box with a small glass viewing window. It uses a process called “double combustion” which means it reaches temperatures at which most of the substances in the smoke are burnt making it clean to use. Now winter has well and truly arrived, we have been using it in earnest every day. When the fire is going, the wood burner itself and chimney get very hot and radiate a huge amount of heat. So much so, it warms the whole house. Not only that, it’s so efficient, we are only burning about 3 logs in an evening. I have discovered that lighting a fire is a bit of an art and it helps to understand the process of how wood burns to get your wood burner working most efficiently.

The basic principle is that you need to get the flu nice and hot as this gives a good draw. Therefore, lighting the fire with fast burning small pieces of wood to get a good bed of hot coals is the best way to start. After that add slightly larger pieces and when it’s really going well, put the big ones on! We can put up to 55cm long pieces into the burn chamber of our Jurassien, which means we don’t have to worry too much about cutting the wood into really small pieces. So what type of wood is best? The choice is quite broad, but each wood has it’s own properties. Though it goes without saying that all wood used should be seasoned i.e. cut last winter or even the winter before and left to dry.

Fast burn woods useful for starting the fire are softwoods or light hardwoods such as pine, beech, or ash. When the fire is going well, it’s good to add some slow burning wood such as Oak. Oak can cost more than other wood and needs good seasoning but it is the best. However, there are lots of other woods you can use and you will find more information here.

If you are eating your dinner right now, I’d finish it first before reading further! As with a lot of French houses, we send all of our waste to a location outside of the house and it has to be collected by someone called a “Vindager”. All toilet waste is sent to a big tank which is sunk into the ground in the garden, then the bathroom water is sent down a separate pipe and finally the kitchen water is sent to a grease trap. All the water eventually passes through a filter and then finally back into the water system – in our case the Pond.

When you have a waste system like this, it makes you think about exactly what you are putting down the “plug hole” or “toilet”. The fosse works on the basis that bacteria break down the solids and eventually the waste liquid filters through and out. The grease trap is exactly that. The water arrives into a solid concrete chamber which fills over a period of time up to an outlet pipe. During this time, any fat or grease in the water, floats to the top and solidifies, allowing only the water to pass through. The water from the bathroom is sent directly to the filter. Eventually the fosse will need emptying which is what happened recently. We had noticed a problem with the water not draining from the bathroom properly and then one night, we had air venting back up through the toilet! When we lifted the lid of the fosse, it was FULL. We arranged for the vindagers to arrive with their trusty tanker. It is sort of an industrial vacum cleaner and they empty out the fosse and grease trap then give everything a good clean with water. On this occasion, he told us that the filter is blocked probably with roots from a nearby bush. The water is getting through but not as it should and he has told us to either dig down to the filter and clear it, or put a pipe directly from the grease trap to the outlet where the water flows. We haven’t decided which action to take yet but when we do, it’s going to be a smelly job. In the meantime, everything is working fine and of course I will report on the job when it is done …..

The Vindager pumping our waste to his tanker.

The grease trap after it’s been emptied – yuk.

By the way, I couldn’t post a picture of the Fosse as I couldn’t get close enough cos of the smell !!!

Back in May you may remember I bought a ladder. Well I have been putting it to good use all year and one of the main jobs that needed finishing before winter was painting the eaves at the highest end of the house. With safety in mind, I asked Steve to give me a hand by standing at the bottom of the ladder. To add to my security he had this idea of getting one of his old climbing ropes and tying me to the ladder! As I progressed, I got higher and higher, until I reached the top. I got quite accustomed to being up there not that I’d want to take it up as a living! Eventually I got it all done ready for the wet cold winter months. Here is a picture of just how high I got …

Click to open big picture

After all the trouble we went to buying the new loo, we couldn’t leave the room in that old state could we? When I started to strip what I thought was wallpaper, I had a bit of a surprise – it’s cork! To be expected really. After pulling it all off, I was left with a wall covered in a very thick glue, almost as thick as the cork itself. It wasn’t coming off easily so with a very sharp scraper I spent a day scraping. After I had finished the walls were in a terrible state and you certainly couldn’t paint onto them. Steve showed me the art of skimming and sanding a skill that Paul the painter had shown him when he was working on the house in Rochechouart. It took days of skimming, sanding, skimming sanding but I finally got it done. After giving it a new flush of colour, we have a nice new office!

The old room with cork covered in brown wallpaper

Nice new Office!

Well after the sorry tale of the evacuation of the bedroom, there is a happy ending. I stripped the wallpaper and removed the old “fitted wardrobe”. Taking that wardrobe out took some doing – it was screwed, glued and nailed in hard! It then took 3 washes of the walls to remove all the old glue and grime and then to be on the safe side I bleached them too. Horrible stuff to use but I wanted to make sure that mold was gone. Lots of skimming, filling and sanding to do on all the old holes and marks left by the wardrobe. Then to the painting. It’s a big room but it’s all done and dusted. What a difference. Here is the before and after pics for you to wow at ….

Old wardrobe turned black! Where did it go?
Mouldy wallpaper – yuk! What a difference!

Well it’s been a hectic week. We had to evacuate the bedroom due to mould growth everywhere! Over the years we have had the house, it has often been shut up for long periods of time and a combination of stale air, damp and cold have given way to mould growth. Since we moved in, it has become worse due to the warm humid conditions and in the last week, it must have been perfect! The walls were black with it, and most of the clothes and shoes in the wardrobe were covered in it. We had to move everything lock stock and barrel out. I spent 3 days washing clothes and Steve sort out the shoes. The paper has been stripped together with the old built in wardrobe which was also riddled with the stuff. The walls were washed down with sugar soap and then bleach. I’ve filled all the holes from where the wardrobe was and the floors has been washed. It is now ready for a lick of paint. It has been very hard work but the end is in site and we will have a nice fresh bedroom. Only another 2 bedrooms, plus hallway, bathroom, living room, kitchen …… to go.

Another job done on the road to re-decoration. We took out the old smelly toilet.

As with all things DIY it’s not quite as simple as going out and picking the loo you like. Our ‘exit’ hole is through the floor and we didn’t want to move it! After looking at various loos and measuring just about all 20 of them, we finally found one that would fit the measurements. It happens to be a very nice loo and comes with a 10 year guarantee. But seriously, the main reason for replacement as well as getting rid of the old one which was pretty ‘orrible, is that we pay for our water here by the m3. The old loo didn’t have a dual flush. Our new one does and it means we can use the small flush which is only 3L of water as opposed to about 6L. It smells better too!

      
Out with the old                         In with the Loo

I bought a ladder today.  As usual, there are all types and sizes and it’s hard work trying to decide which one you need.  There are a lot of jobs we need a ladder for, so we wanted to buy one which would do most of what we wanted.  Decided to buy a 3 piece one which can be used in all sorts of ways.  You can use it as a standard step ladder, 3 separate ladders, a step ladder with extra extension over the top and finally a very long 7.9m ladder.  It’s very light weight and has wide feet on the first section for stability.

First job is painting the eves of the house.  They’ve been looking a bit desparate for the last few years and in need of some weather protection.  I started at the end of the house and made good progress, moving along higher and higher to top roof level.  As I got closer to the top, I could hear some loud scratching and shuffling going on.  A huge hornet flew out from underneath the roof tiles and I thought maybe that was making all the noise.  It got louder and then I heard another sound, like a high pitch squeak.  It suddenly dawned on me that there were bats roosting and I must have disturbed them with my paint brushing.  Suddenly one flew out from the roofspace and nearly knocked me off my ladder.  Then another and another.  All in all about 5 flew out.  I felt a bit guilty for disturbing them but I didn’t know they were there.  Someone pointed out that there are plenty of old barns and buildings for them to find another home if they didn’t come back.  We have seen the bats flying since then, so they are still around.  Maybe they will come back and roost there as I’ve finsihed that end.