Coup de coeur #7: Filature

(A series of "Pierre, what do they not have" posts)

Here is the loveliest house that we did visit. And really lovely it is. That is why it has the label "coup de coeur", eh.

I had been mainly looking for properties labeled "moulin" or "mill", but realised there are more types of building that are old, have big blocks of land, are situated on a river, and used water power: the filature (de soie). Spinning factories! Where silk was spun into thread.

This is (it is still for sale) a lovely place. Asking price over our budget, but the house had been for sale a number of years already. I found on old advert with nearly double the price it has today. So what is wrong with this one, one wonders.

It is roughly 11x6 meter, so about 60 m2 per floor. Cellar, first floor, second floor: 165m2 in total. Plus an external garage. Not bad. The first floor is one big open space, with a giant salon, and an open kitchen. Huge windows overlooking the river on one side, the garden on the other. The second floor has 2 bedrooms, two office rooms, a bathroom and a master bedroom+ensuite. No attic.

And a cellar, containing the oil fired heating and the septic tank. What is not to be liked.

Well. The estate agent was worried about the vendor from the start. The owner is an old lady whose husband had died. She herself was getting too old to live in this house, so her children had told her to come and live with them, and sell the house. But, she was convinced the house was really worth a very high price. That is why it had not been sold. Her children had lowered the price so it came into my email filter view. But still, the estate agent had to deal with her. And clearly that was not an easy task for her, judging her rolling up her eyes.

So here we were.

No, the oil fired heating was no longer functioning. There had been a really exceptional flood the year before, and the water had destroyed the heating. See how high the water was, on the upper door of the machine?

And the septic tank. If you look carefully you can see how high the water has been, about 20 cm under the underside of the windows...

And yes, that is the septic tank, that apparently started floating and broke off it's pipes.

That is not as bad news as you might think, as septic tanks are no longer allowed in situations like here, next to a river. There was good news actually, a mains sewer had been constructed the year prior, and was even at the edge of the property, only about 20 meters from the house. It would have been very easy to connect up to that. And not a great cost too, I presume.

The bad news was that the cellar as is is completely useless. I would not have kept the oil fired heating anyway, but would have installed a heat pump system. Very good if you're next to a river! Water-water heat pumps are very efficient, and can generate lots of heat with little power, relatively speaking. The cellar would have been the location for that, but not now. I have calculated how big a heat pump this house needs, and it's between 20kW and 25kW, so it is not a small one. And, consequently, expensive. Not to be placed in a cellar that floods like this about every 20-25 years.

The house does not really have other rooms where you can install a heating system, apart from a big wood stove in the living room. Or, two. I like wood stoves a lot. But, only if you can source the wood eco-friendly. Preferably from your own wood. However, this property is only 2400 m2, not big enough for your own firewood. And this house is in the Cevennes. Very nice in summer, but winters here can be harsh. So, a powerful heating system is necessary. And, heating a house like this may break your bank. Really.

It may be possible to protect the cellar against the water. It would require closing off the path that runs onder the entrance, along the house. There used to be a wall there, that the current owners removed. Had that wall still been there the flood may not have been that bad. Anyway, that path is a "chemin communal", and thus cannot be closed off, unless the community allows it. The estate agent has been so kind as to ask the mairie, and the counsel if closing the chemin would be allowed. A few weeks later: non.

Well. That did it. We don't like flooding, we don't like people walking over our property, along our house. And, we don't like to pay a price that is not reasonable for a house that now lacks 1/3 of it's usable space, no sanitation, and no heating.

I could have lived with a flooded cellar now and then, the living floors are probably safe, but this house definitely is in a zone rouge (inundation danger zones), and that influences insurances, or even prevents you rebuilding your house after a fire, or flood.

The house is not far from another house (20 meters), where they have an outside terrace. I think that was the final "non" for us. If there are nice people there that behave themselves, all is well, but if there'd be an a-social bunch of people we'd be totally annoyed. Currently that house is owned by an elderly man who does not live there, and everything is locked up. All in all: non.

But, still the house is absolutely lovely. And there's a magnolia grandiflora tree, that I love.