Block paved patio

Finished laying the block pavers for the patio of one of the gites today. I made the mistake of trying to brush damp ordinary building sand into the joints between the pavers, contrary to the instructions. After sweeping and sweeping for ages, even after it dried out, I still can't get enough into the cracks. Time to buy some fine sand.

 6:06:06 PM   Block paved patio   

Groundhog week

It's felt like Groundhog Day so far this week. Everything we did last week in the gite on the right we have repeated in the gite on the left. On Monday we prepared for the chape, on Tuesday we laid the chape and today did the patio edging for the other gite.

The only difference is that this week it was much much harder and I've ended up with a huge blister/cement burn on one knee after spending hours and hours crawling about in damp sand and cement. This week the chape seemed a little more moist - and so heavier - and I ordered just over 0.5m³ too much which meant barrowing too much into the gite in the first place then having to move nearly a tonne of surplus chape around before finally throwing it all back out the door.

It's quite tricky getting the amount just right. Last week we were about 4 wheelbarrow loads short so I think I over compensated not wanting to be short again. A half-centimeter difference in thickness over the area we were covering makes a difference of about 0.25 m³, or 5 big wheelbarrow loads.

The patio for the gite on the left is a little bigger and had a deceptively back breaking slope of old farmyard compacted yard. I spent most of the afternoon with a pickaxe breaking up the ground to get a level for my friend Ian to lay the granite sets for the patio edging. Note to self, next time hire a mini-digger.

 9:03:08 PM   Groundhog week   

Patio edging

As if we hadn't abused our bodies enough yesterday, Ian and I decided to lay the granite edging stones ready for a patio. With the chape finished in the gite and the electricity trench dug and filled it meant we could sort out the front of one gite. No more lorries to churn everything up.

We slightly under estimated the amount of work involved and by the end of the day after mixing the umpteenth load of concrete we hit the pub toute suite. Beer always tastes fantastic immediately after a hard days labour. Don't get changed, just go to the nearest bar and order two cold beers. Reminds me of the closing scene in Ice-Cold in Alex although we've got a few more mountains to climb.

 6:10:17 PM   Patio edging   

Chape

07:45, yes, 07:45 the concrete mixer arrived with our 4 cubic metres of chape. It's really strange stuff. A very dry mix, almost like slightly sticky damp grey sand. The first job was to barrow in the chape into approximately the right positions in the gite and the adjacent kitchen.

With the wood strips resting on the mortar beds for levels you can rake it out and tamp it down firmly to an approximate level. After that it's a series of dragging and shuffling a long straight edge across the wood. Once the chape is flat the wood can be slid back and the holes filled, then the whole area smoothed with a flat trowel. On the larger areas it took all three of us to manage the straight edges. Once you get a build up on the leading edge it starts to get very heavy.

The downstairs of the gite is over 40 m2 and when you can only work at an arms length at a time, it takes a long time. Thank goodness for the 8 hour retardant, otherwise it would have all gone solid on us before lunch.

After yesterday and today Caroline and I were absolutely wacked and in bed by 9pm. Unfortunately we've got to do it all again next week for the other gite!

 8:08:07 PM   Chape   

Preparation for chape

We spent the whole day setting out levels using pieces of wood ready for the chape tomorrow. The technique we used was to lay a bed of mortar on the concrete floor then place a long length on top of the bed such that the top of the wood is the intended floor level. The thickness of the chape was about 6cm.

The photo shows a small section of the mortar bed with the wood removed. Once the wood is placed on top, the chape is barrowed into the space and then levelled with a straight edge. The white stuff round the edge of the room is a polystryrene barrier for expansion and damp insulation.

 7:05:58 PM   Preparation for chape   

More mud

Albert our duck went missing Tuesday night when Caroline went to shut up the animals. She still hasn't reappeared. A search around hasn't revealed any feathers so we can only assume she has gone to make a nest somewhere. Lucy has started laying again, which might be a co-incidence.

Yesterday I spent all day cleaning out both the gites ready for the chape. I'm not sure what the English translation is but the closest guess would be a concrete screed. We've got a concrete mixer coming next Tuesday with enough chape to do the kitchen in one gite and the whole ground floor in the other gite. The chape is about 6cm thick to bring the floor level up to the correct height and it should provide a smooth flat base for the floor tiles. None of us done it before so wellies and tamping sticks at the ready we'll have to see. Caroline did ask for an 8 hour retardant to be added to give us time to phaff about. Full report Tuesday ( or Wednesday).

The digger men (boys) returned to collect the diggers today. Before they had a chance to load up and be gone we got them to dig a trench for the main electric feed from the house to the two new gites. As you can see the courtyard is a bit of a mess. Yes, that is a box of wine on the doorstep. I find it's helps the day pass a little quicker, especially when your back is aching from digging out the excess mud to try to level up the ground for the new gravel. The electric cable is thread inside gaine rouge, red conduit, which is buried in the trench. Once the boys had finished digging Caroline and I quickly threw the gaine in the trench, she fluttered her eye lashes and got them to fill it all back in again.

Finally got around to fitting the Garde du Corps, safety barrier, across the window in Poire this afternoon as an interluded to digging and shifting gravel. Since we re-arranged the walls and stairs to incorporate the floor level window into the bedroom it has needed a barrier.

Caroline has ordered the pavers (6 tonnes, so another delivery truck I think), I've ordered 10 cubic meters of sand to go under them, and the floor tiles Caroline ordered last week for the downstairs rooms in the gites have arrived, ready for collection.

The next week is going to be tiring as well.

 9:57:13 PM   More mud   

French fuse box installation

After last week being cold and slow this week has been busy and very tiring. I've been too tired to blog even.

The digger men came on Tuesday to cover the septic tank and soakaway. Well digger boys actually, the pair of them didn't look old enough to drive, but that is most probably just a reflection of my age. The two of them did an excellent job after the inspector had been to check the tank and soakaway were satisfactory. Once they had left I noticed a solitary daffodil growing out of the flat sea of mud left behind. They must have gone out of their way to leave just one plant standing.

Still plodding along wiring up the electics. I've moved onto the the two fuse boxes, one in each gite. The photo shows a French fuse box installation almost complete. The grey and black cables are the supplies to each circuit fed from a disjoncteur , overload/short circuit protection. They are the modules in the photo with black switches and are usually 10A, 16A; 20A, 32A etc. The disjoncteurs are arranged into three banks, each one additionallly protected by an interrupteur differential, an MCB with a 30mA RCD protection. Those are the larger three modules to the left of each bank and that's the trip that stops you getting killed if you stick your fingers in the sockets. We have three per fuse box, each 30mA protection, but with different sensitivities. One of them is designed, for example, to provide additional protection for a washing machine, or cooker, because of a potential DC component and/or water hazard.

I've got the added complication of our house having a 3 phase supply and, as in normal in France, a limit on your supply power. At the moment we are on 15 KVA, (15,000 watts). If you draw more juice than that the trip kicks in. You can increase your supply, but you pay a higher standing charge, and more per unit of electric. For most people choosing a lower rating (9 KVA is normally sufficient) is advantageous financially.

In our situation we need quite a bit of power for our house plus all the gites. The problem is we only need max power for short periods when we are full. The worse time is Easter when we are full and it's a bit chilly so people have the heating on. Summer is less of a problem. Three phase complicates matters further because if one phase exceeds one third of our maximum, it trips. Eg, 15 KVA gives us 75 amps in total or 25 amps per phase. If any phases draws more than 25 amps then the lights go out. Therefore it's crucial to 'balance' the phases. You can't just put one gite on one phase and another gite on a different phase. If a gite is unoccupied then it could cause an imbalance. What I have done is try to ensure that the ovens in different gites are spread amongst the phases, the 'kettle' kitchen sockets, the heating circuits, the lighting etc, all spread evenly, so if one gite is occupied it draws current from all three phases, and a second gite draws from all three phases, but different phases. It's complicated.

 9:43:20 PM   French fuse box installation   

Pass the blowlamp

Progress has been a bit slow recently because it's been so cold. Fortunately it's starting to warm up a bit now, this afternoon was actually very pleasant, well compared to the previous week.

My friend Ian has been making good progress plumbing in the bathrooms upstairs (waste and water) whilst I've been connecting up the first floor electrics by fitting all the swtiches, lamps and sockets. I'm glad I made a coloured coded plan with all the separate circuits identified. Once the plasterboard covers everything up it's amazing how quickly you forget what goes where. I had bits of masking tape stuck to each end of every wire lettering the circuits and numbering each of the switches.

It has been a struggle in the cold this week. For both of us we have been fairly static, either fiddling with small bits of wire or handling cold lengths of copper pipe. Ian has a slight advantage in that he has had a blowlamp at his side. At the moment I think I preferred humping plasterboard about or mixing concrete, at least keeps you warm.

 10:36:44 PM   Pass the blowlamp   

Fosse Septique

It's been a hectic few days here with lorries, diggers, inspectors and general commotion. The new septic tank, (fosse septique) and soakaway (bac a sable) has been installed. Click on each of the photos below for a larger image. Here is good explanation of how a fosse septique works.

Fosse septique arriving 58k	The new fosse septique arrived on the back of a tractor in the morning, along with two diggers (a small one and a big one) and a couple of lorries with very large amounts of sand and gravel and various tubes/piping etc.
Fosse septique hole 101k	Within a few minutes the digger man had excavated a fairly sizeable hole to take the septic tank. It's been dug around the back of the two new gites as close to the main sewage outlet as possible. The grey soil pipe in the photo is the main 'effluent supply' from all the toilets, baths, kitchens etc. in both gites.
Fosse septique unloading 67k	Unloading the tank read for insertion into the ground.
Fosse septique 6000l tank 69k	That's how big a 6000 litre tank is. I think the calculation is 1000 litres per bedroom for a Fosse Toutes Eaux, i.e. a septic tank that takes all water, soil and grey water. A diagram of a Fosse Toutes Eaux.
Fosse septique buried 76k	I popped upstairs into the gites to carry on wiring up the electrics for about 10 minutes and when I came down the tank had been buried and it still wasn't even lunchtime. They do get a shift on. The green bits you can see are inspection hatches to check inside the septic tank.
Bac a sable (soakaway) hole 78k	Before getting the septic tank installed we had to have a soil study done to check that waste water soaks away properly and does not contaminate any wells or ground water. There are a whole raft of regulations around septic tanks. In our case the soil had too much clay for a standard soakaway and we needed a large gravel and sand filtration bed (bac a sable). That's me standing in the hole for the bac a sable. It's 8 meters by 6 meters by nearly 2 meters deep.
Bac a sable drainage 84k	The 'sand pit', looking like a temporary swimming pool, is lined with a huge plastic sheet and drainage tubes placed in the bottom to collect the water once it's filtered down through the sand etc. above. You can just see the slits in the tubes to collect the water. In the far left corner of the photo the water runs out of the bottom of the pit and into a drainage channel adjacent to our boundary. Apparently once it's been processed the water comes out clear and drinkable!
Gravel and sand lorries 61k	Several lorry loads of gravel and sand came and went during the day. They have churned up the courtyard a fair bit. Looks like I'm going to need a few lorry loads of gravel to freshen up the drive once all the plant has left.
Bac a sable half-filled 77k	I missed the operation but I believe that a layer of gravel was placed over the bottom pipes then a porous membrane laid before filling with sand. The membrane looked very similar to the sort used by gardeners to suppress weeds but let the water soak through. I assume it stop the sand washing out the bottom of the pit.
Bac a sable supply pipes 74k	Once filled with sand the supply pipes were laid on the surface. These pipes are fed with the 'digested' grey water from the fosse septique. The small slits in the pipes are facing downwards this time. You can also just see a small concrete inspection hatch at the far end. Looking down it you can see the bottom connection point of the drainage tubes.
Gravel and membrane 73k	Finally the input supply pipes are covered with gravel and then topped off with another membrane. I suppose to stop the top layer of mud seeping into the soakaway and clogging everything up. Once the inspector has called to verify everything is OK the bac a sable will be covered over with the final layer of topsoil and a certificate of conformity issued.

The final thing of the day was to put a hose into the septic tank and half fill it with water, 3000 litres. I think the other half gets filled up as the new tank is put into service, so to speak. I guess it gives the bacteria a chance to do their stuff.

 8:39:54 PM   Septic tank installation