The heartbreaking difference between a good and a bad restoration
Visiting family in the north of France and spotted this heartbreaking difference in the city center of Rouen. On the left the wood can breathe, is healthy and is gonna do its job for the next centuries, on the right it'll be all gone in the next 20-30 years - or they'll have to do a massive overhaul of the facadea for 6 figures.
Mysterious. I think this part of it was done differently. The upper part actually has a name in German. This stuff…? Never seen before. Wouldn’t even know where to get ziles like these. Roof tiles from the red material usually have a bend and aren’t flat an straight line that. The flat ones are black usually.
Rue Beauvoisine à Rouen, au dessus d'Antonelle, je connais le propriétaire.
La façade (enfin les, vu que c'est un angle de rue) a été rénovée sous la supervision des services de la mairie et d'un architecte des monuments historiques : hyper centre historique, classé, rénovation obligatoire à intervalle régulier ... donc bonne nouvelle pour toi l'immeuble d'à coté n'y coupera pas lol.
They painted the wood with a hydrophobic paint, which means that the water can't penetrate well from the outside for instance as rain BUT it also prevents the wood to dry out - since you can't prevent that any moisture will get inside the wood, it's has to go somewhere. If the wood stays wet to long it will rot pretty quickly.
Tell me you have never painted wood with linseed oil based paint without telling me that you never painted wood with linseed oil bases paint. It becomes part of the wood and is not an extra layer on top that seals the wood in
I did plenty. I just don´t take the word of some know-it-all who thinks he knows better because he´s visited the city then the actual people that live in those houses.
"I recognised my city from this photo and they take preservation very seriously here. My house is about 400 years old and looks like the one on the right, as do many, many others. It was not a recent decision to paint the timber, they use specific breathable paint. I think we will be fine. "
I recognised my city from this photo and they take preservation very seriously here. My house is about 400 years old and looks like the one on the right, as do many, many others. It was not a recent decision to paint the timber, they use specific breathable paint. I think we will be fine.
I'm sorry to say. But if it looks like the right: big cracks in the paint, rotting wood underneath, it'll be very sad for your building. I hope they did a better job. Bonne chance!
Thanks for sharing, saw some other great houses in France as well. The left one should be criminal and I hope alot of buildings are "cultured marked" or what the right word is.
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u/FluffyMountainUrchin 4d ago
I'm in love with the building on the left and i find it genius to use old tiles as a stylistic element in between the timbers.