Property Renovation

This website has been born from a series of renovation projects that we have undertaken in the south west of France during the past four years. During the course of our own projects - two house renovations and a barn conversion - we spent a lot of time researching methods and practices, and found several sources of information. These tended to be insufficiently detailed and sometimes inaccurate.

Most of the best guides to good practice in renovating property in France are written in French which makes them inaccessible to many people. UK sourced guides usually follow UK practice rather than French practice, and ignore local techniques and materials. This can cause costly mistakes and result in a property that is out of character with its region, or difficult to sell or get maintained. If for example you are importing plumbing materials or a new kitchen from the UK to install in your French property there is a very high chance that you are not taking the cheapest or the best approach to your renovation project.

During our own renovations I kept a diary of one of our projects on our gite rental website. This eventually attracted more visitors than the rental site itself, and generated a lot of interest and queries. However, the diary was written in a very informal and unstructured manner, making it difficult to navigate and to search for specific information. I drifted away from the subject matter rather often. It was also all in one page, which had become excessively long. In this site I have grouped things in a more structured way, and filled in the gaps in information that I had inevitably left in an informal diary. In principle all aspects of renovation in France either are, or will eventually be, covered here.

The ‘renovation factsheets’ contain a great deal of information about the reality of renovation projects in France. If there is an additional subject that you would like to see covered please let us know.

The property discussed in this site can be found in Lot et Garonne if you choose to come here for a holiday!

I have tried to be as informative and accurate as possible through this site, but items do reflect my personal opinions and experiences. I can not under any circumstances be held responsible for any omissions or errors in the site. If you have any doubts at all about any aspects of your project you must always seek expert advice or employ a professional.

Here I will provide some selected useful contact information. If you have a site that you would like included here (on subject matter related to the content of this website only) please let me know.

Renovation, home improvement and real estate resources

All French Services Advertising portal for agents and private sellers of French properties, rentals, property management, and caretaking services.

Canvas Holiday Homes Canvas Holiday Homes is a Mobile Home dealership. We sell un-sited new and ex-rental mobile homes in France from £2995 - £35,000.

J-C CORDIEZ ARCHITECTE EXPERT French bilingual Building Surveyor in SE France

Buying or renovating property in South Eastern France?
Before jumping in with both feet, talk to us. We will investigate it inside out for you:
- Technical building surveys.
- Real Estate market valuation.
- Overall advice and assistance.
- Project design and site management.

We’re ON YOUR SIDE to secure your purchase.

The Languedoc Page a comprehensive guide to visiting and living in Languedoc, France

Vacation Rental Management, Vacation Rental Services Vacation Rental Management, Vacation Rental Services for vacation rental property owners and vacation rental site owners

Preparing the wall

First you will need to remove any existing pointing or render. This is best done with a pneumatic hammer and an air compressor which is approximately 50 times faster and easier than doing the job manually, and doesn’t leave you with terrible wrist problems. The hammer and air compressor can be hired or bought.

Next, your stone wall will need cleaning. Even if the wall looks clean you should do this, otherwise you will be pointing onto a dusty surface. There are two main methods available to clean a stone wall - sandblasting and high pressure washing.

Sandblasting is very effective, but also time consuming and dirty, requiring a mask and protective gear to be worn because of the large amounts of dust and sand flying around. It is a very good way of removing decades and centuries of grime from the surface of the rock. You will need an air compressor and a sand-blasting attachment, and some ’sand blasting sand’ - your building suppplier will understand if you ask for ’sable pour faire le sablage’.

Sandblasting has the other advantage that it can be used indoors where high-pressure water washing may be impractical. Read more

See also articles on specific techniques for repointing stone walls, and materials - lime, sand etc - to use.

A pointed wall is dry, naturally well insulated, and provides protection against the insects and small animals that will otherwise enter your house through the walls. Old unpointed walls can look nice and rustic, but that doesn’t make them funny to live with when you have an invasion of flies in the house and a heating bill twice as high as it should be. They are also dusty and grimy, and impossible to keep clear of cobwebs etc. So I assume that you will at some point want to tackle the task of pointing them.

Specific techniques will vary according to your location since the type of stone available locally determines the building process used. The broad principles will always be the same however. Read more

The need for a separate utility room is often neglected when redesigning a property or doing a renovation. Yet this is one of the most useful, if least frequented, rooms in the house. Much more than just somewhere to put the washing machine, a well thought out utility room will prove invaluable.

What goes in a utility room / wetroom / mudroom

Every house has lots of things that take up lots of room, are messy or dirty, but need to be part of the house rather than stuck in a shed in the garden. Read more

It is commonly suggested that you should live in a house for six months without making any changes before starting work. That enables you to get a feel for the building, think about how the space could best be organised, and clarify your requirements, and avoids making expensive mistakes.

The principal is the same even if the building is not currently habitable. It is difficult for most people to look at a large empty space and visualise how this space would best be used. Read more

You will already have had a good look around the property yourself. If the walls and roof look straight from all angles and there is no sign that water is entering the house through missing tiles, that eliminates the majority of possible problems straight away. It is also quite hard to conceal ancient electrical and plumbing systems - look at the fuse board and behind the sink for a good idea if these systems are in need of replacing (not at the sockets - it is easy to put a new plug socket on old wiring).

None of these things are necessarily problems that will stop you buying a house, but you need to be aware of them before you buy or agree a price. Read more

All enterprises registered in France will obtain a SIRET number at the time of registration. This is a number that you can check to be sure that an enterprise is correctly registered and authorised to work on your property.

An enterprise must be not just registered, but registered to do the kind of work that you are asking them to do. The SIRET number must appear on the devis as well as the final invoices - so you can check before accepting a devis whether the company is authorised.

Officially it should also appear on any publicity from the enterprise, but I think this happens rather less often.

Read more

A subject that all of us undertaking renovation work come to know and love sooner or later is septic tanks, or ‘fosse septique’ as they are known in France. As someone who has paid for two at the same property, I recommend you budget for this in your initial calculations.

During the last few years the rules about septic tanks in France have been changing alarmingly frequently, and it has been the responsibility of the property owner to ensure compliance. From the end of 2005, in principle it is the local mairie who must ensure that properties comply, although indications are that some are more ready to act than others. The majority of old properties do not currently conform.

This compliance is to ensure that environmental standards are met.

All very interesting, but what does that mean for you the householder. It means that if you do not have a septic tank system that meets current standards and regulations, and most old properties do not, you will almost certainly need to get one sooner or later. More importantly, if you are getting a new septic tank sytem anyway, you should get one that complies with the regulations.
Read more

Roofs are big and expensive, but you knew that already. The roof will almost certainly be the largest single expense in a building or renovation project. This is largely simply because of the size - roughly 20 - 50% more than the ‘habitable space’ area of one floor of the interior.

First consideration is - do you need a new roof? Barns and other old buildings usually have a roof of some description, so ideally you would like to retain it.

When we bought our barn we were told it had a ‘new roof’ and, being not very bright, we took that to be a good thing. That should make renovation cheap then, we thought. But a barn roof is not a house roof. It had been tiled with cheap, mechanical type tiles, with no structural work being done on the carpentry beneath. Of course, it had no insulation. End result - all the mechanical tiles had to be removed and disposed of, the woodwork underneath repaired and strengthened, and the roof relaid with insulation and canal tiles. Total cost - more or less the same as if the roof had not been redone at some point.

Before adding a new roof or roof tiles you should always verify that the supporting structure can support any extra weight you are adding.
Read more