STONEMASON LOOKING FOR WORK

[JP]

YEAH HI, IM AN ENGLISH STONEMASON WITH 15 YEARS EXPERIENCE IN RESTORATION AND NEW BUILD!!!

AM CURRENTLY WORKING IN BIRMINGHAM BUT WOULD LIKE TO WORK ON RENOVATION PROJECTS IN FRANCE!!

COULD ANYBODY TELL ME OF ANY BRITISH COMPANYS THAT CARRY OUT WORK IN FRANCE!!

[Dick Smith]

Please don't shout!

Most Brits working in France seem to be self-employed, although some have started renovation businesses. Charges and taxes are fierce - I suggest you search through previous posts, of which there are thousands on the subject.

Some regions (Haute Normandie) probably won't have much extra work, after all there are plenty of French maçons and the houses are usually colombage, in Basse Normandie more houses are stone-built so may have more opportunities. This will be repeated across France.

I also think that in France there is not such a distinction between stonemasons and brickies - am I correct?

[Petebrown]

Dick - Stone masons are very difficult to get hold of particularly around Southern Brittany where I live. Ive been looking for months!!! Ive got and old farm house with a barn attached- (Longere) which I am converting into gites. I have a few weeks work if you interested and we can aggree costs.

Regards Peter Brown

[Petebrown]

Stone masons are very difficult to get hold of particularly around Southern Brittany where I live. Ive been looking for months!!! Ive got and old farm house with a barn attached- (Longere) which I am converting into gites. I have a few weeks work if you interested and we can agree costs.

Regards Peter Brown

 

[Dick Smith]

I guess the style must be like ours, then, rather than Haute Normande longeres? They tend to be colombage.

There was a guy building (very slowly) a nice stone wall round the mairie at Bion, and he was a general builder. Not sure what the demand for pure stonemasons is - and one customer doesn't make a career or a general statement invalid! I would still counsel a lot of research, especially into social costs.

[chris pp]

There are, around here at any rate, some highly trained stone masons, but they work on serious projects, historical buildings, cathedrals and the like, they don't do houses! Otherwise a maçon is really not much more in most cases than a general builder, and when you see some of their work, you wonder if they really qualify for that. Basically, they do roofs, walls, concrete and if you are lucky some of the better ones can do some decent stonework.

Chris

[WJT]

There are quite a few around here in the Dordogne and they are very very busy, not to mention expensive. It looks as if we have finally come to an arrangement with one that is also involved in roofs. The ones here will do anything that involves stonework, for example, creating openings in stone walls for windows and doors, building stone stairs and stone walls as well as doing floors and restoration of old stonework.

We did receive devis from a few English builders and all seemed to be not as clued up on the local building methods of using reclaimed stone as the local French stone macons even though they were French registered as a stone macons. In fact the English ones tried to convince me on creating openings for windows and doors that the surrounds should be made of wood not stone coins and in the end were still more expensive. Therefore, I would imagine that if you are a good stone macon and understood about local building methods and could become registered as such in France, you may well have a lot of work. At least, I for one would have liked to have met you. [:)]