Articles by Argile

A barn becomes a dwelling the day it meets three thresholds, not the day it is insulated: 9 m² and 2.20 m of headroom for the main room under the French decency decree, 1.80 m of height before floor area counts as habitable at all, and 1.5 kN/m² of imposed load on a floor nobody ever designed for it. Everything else on the job follows from those three figures.

5 min read

On energy retrofit job sites, every unfilled position quickly translates into lost weeks, and customers left waiting. For you, as a tradesperson, the challenge is simple: attract the right profiles and help them build skills without slowing down production. With a clear method, you can secure your teams, your deadlines, and your margin.

5 min read

When a home still has old windows, every draught turns into discomfort, and your clients notice it right away. Adding a second pane of glass on the inside often improves insulation without replacing the whole window frame, handy in an occupied retrofit or on a tight job. You keep control of the budget, the schedule and a visible result from the first few days.

5 min read

Between a room that stays cool and another that heats up fast, the floor covering often makes all the difference. In a retrofit, you can influence the sense of comfort and temperature stability without necessarily touching the whole building envelope. By choosing the right materials and the right installation, you get better results, and your clients feel it from the first few days.

5 min read

On a heat pump, the thermostat does not create efficiency, it creates a temperature control class. Delegated Regulation (EU) No 811/2013 defines eight of them, each with its own seasonal efficiency bonus, and that is the figure that stands up on paper. Then comes the question that decides the job: volt-free contact, manufacturer bus, or the original controller.

5 min read

On site, this type of joinery often acts as an arbiter between comfort and constraints at the bottom of the opening. Well chosen and well installed, it limits the feeling of a cold wall and parasitic air entry, without complicating your layout. Here's a rundown of the right reflexes to gain thermal performance, without getting lost in the fog.

5 min read

Cover the top only. A sheet taken down to the ground kills the through-draught that drying depends on and holds the wood at the moisture of the trapped air instead of taking it below 20%. Here are the protection arrangements that work, the drying times by species, and what you put in writing for the customer.

5 min read

The same load reads 20% or 25% moisture depending on whether the meter works on a wet or a dry basis. That is the first thing to settle before rejecting a delivery. Then come the figures that count: at 20% on a wet basis a log delivers about 4.0 kWh/kg, against 2.2 kWh/kg at 50%.

5 min read

An extensive green roof weighs 60 to 180 daN/m² at maximum water capacity, for a growing layer of 4 to 15 cm, and applies only to roofs pitched at 20% or less. Those three figures from the professional rules, not the planting effect, decide whether the existing structure can take the build-up.

5 min read

The hot water demand used by the French EPC calculation method is not derived from the number of occupants but from the floor area, at 56 litres at 40 °C per equivalent adult per day. Regulation (EU) No 814/2013 separately sets minimum mixed water volumes by load profile. Here are both tables, the gap between conventional demand and real peak, and what oversizing costs in losses.

6 min read

Between PVC, aluminium, wood, or composite, you're not just buying a frame. You're weighing insulation, durability, maintenance, lead times, and job-site margin. With a few simple benchmarks on performance and use cases, you can make a confident choice and sell a clear solution, without pointless back-and-forth once the installation is done.

5 min read

A heat pump that keeps tripping the breaker is often a job that drags on for nothing. With the right circuit breaker and the right residual current device (RCD), you secure the installation, avoid nuisance tripping and leave the customer with a clean commissioning, no stress. We review the key points to choose and wire correctly, from the very first visit.

5 min read