Services. Electrics, Water and Waste.
In these pieces I will give an overview and general hints related to the organisation of the services within our barn. It is not my intention to tell others how they should wire-up or plumb their house. Just pass on some things I learnt while doing it for myself.
Part 2. Water and Waste
The amount of damage water can do should not be underestimated. Plumbing is a specialised activity and if you are unsure of your level of aptitude or lack confidence with this aspect of renovation/conversion work, call in an expert.
In theory water enters a house cold via a pipe from a meter. How you get it there and how its use is organised is up to you. Everything after the meter is your responsibility. It is possible you may have the option of using mains or a well as a supply. We have access to both. This has led us to have a dual-system running into the house. Mains water in France may be of a higher pressure than you are used to. We have run ours through an adjustable pressure regulator. This prevents all sorts of problems re water heater overflow, tap leakage and cistern “running-on“. We have also incorporated a filter system just after the entry point into the house and both systems can be run together or independently. Watering the garden and loo flushing are two expensive uses of mains water.
Once the supply is in the building how it’s dealt with is subject to individual requirements. In order to make life easier for ourselves we dedicated supplies to the hot water heaters (X2), and then to the areas that we wanted hot and cold water to; Kitchen, Utility room, Bathroom. Shower/wet-room and En-suite for master bedroom.
We installed two 200 litre water heaters. They are completely independent from each other. The idea is that when the house is full both tanks can be heated overnight (heures creuse) and when not we only need the one tank of hot water, works so far. The image shows the central distribution point for hot and cold supplies to the various areas in the house. Each supply, both hot and cold, can be isolated from this point. The toilet cisterns all have individual stop taps on them. This makes plumbing, working on the system a lot easier.
The system for treating waste water involves the use of a Fosse Septique. Ours was a 3000 litre coupled with a soak away created in the garden. The regulations, specifications and control of this piece of equipment is a chapter all to itself. Suffice to say these rules are strictly applied and recommendations must be followed.
Our fosse was installed by a local enterprise and the control of the system carried out by the local authority.
All wastes are standard sizes all over Europe. The various diameters of pipe-work from each. sink, shower bath and WC is standard. To make water,(and other material) flow it makes sense to have it running down hill. The level of gradient has to be at least 1 in a 100. I also converted, upwards in size, as quickly as possible from the smaller diameter wastes to make sure air could flow back over the contents of the pipes to prevent U bends and wastes being emptied by suction.
There is a certain logic to plumbing and it can be a rewarding DIY process.
I would suggest that if you are in any doubt re ability or confidence with this sort of activity get in a professional.