The roof is beginning to go on!  For the first couple of days this week the builders fitted the purlins on the north and south elevations.  Then today they started to fit the Pavatex and waterproof membrane to the north side of the house.  Pavatex is a high-quality insulation made from renewable raw material wood.  It also gives better protection against cold, heat, noise and fire.

The builders are confident that the north elevation will be finished by the end of the week, but have warned us that the south side will be a lot more complicated because they can’t get the manitou to this side of the house.  Therefore, they have to get the materials to this side of the house and on to the roof some other way.

The roof will be clad in timber, but below that there are a number of other materials.  Underneath the timber there is lightweight metal roof (crinkly tin ‘in the trade’) to help keep the rain out.  Below this is a waterproof membrane (to also help keep the rain out), then woodfibre board (Pavatex), then the purlins with more woodfibre in between.  Below this would be our ceiling.  I am told this is a fairly standard roof style, but if it keeps the rain out, that is fine with me.

New French words I have learnt  (I will expand on this as the weeks go by);

There are some particularly interesting ones this week…..

Placo – Plasterboard
Placo feu – Fireboard
Placo phonique – Acoustic plasterboard
Ossature metal – Studwork

Poêle à bois – Log stove
Parpaings – Blockwork
Concrete – Béton
J’ai  une faim de loup – I’m a hungry Wolf.   I’m reading (or attempting to read) ‘Tintin au Tibet’, in the hope it will improve my French.  (From this you can read that I am just doing it as an excuse to read Tintin)
Hors d’eau – Water tight
Hors d’ait – Air tight
La poute – beam
Poussez les dents – teeth coming through!
Baies coulissantes – Siding doors
Casque de chantier – hard hat.
Sous-sol – basement
La Renouée du Japon – Japanese knotweed