Blockwork looking east
You lucky people, here is another picture of some concrete, but this time the picture also contains some blockwork walls! The foundations are coming on a pace and the shape of the house is beginning to show! We are also beginning to get an idea of what our view will be like. It is good to see that the builders have built the foundations in the right place! The blockwork walls are being built because they support the timber frame above. They will eventually be covered up with decking, so will fortunately not be visible.
Over the next few days, the middle (where the chap is sitting) will be dug out and filled with gravel and then compacted, on top of that will be sand to make sure the damp proof membrane doesn’t puncture, then a damp proof membrane, then insulation and then the concrete slab. We will write more on this once the builders get that far.
Cross-section showing foundations (ground floor build up)
As you can see from the images below, the Charente is living up to its name as the second sunniest place in France after the Cote d’Azur.
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- Blockwork north
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- Blockwork north
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- Blockwork looking east
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- Blockwork south
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- Blockwork south facade
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- View looking south west
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- Looking South
New French words I have learnt (I will expand on this as the weeks go by);
Parpaings – Blockwork
Concrete – Béton
J’ai une faim de loup – I’m a hungry Wolf. I’m reading (or attempting to read) ‘Tintin au Tibet’, in the hope it will improve my French. (From this you can read that I am just doing it as an excuse to read Tintin)
Hors d’eau – Water tight
Hors d’ait – Air tight
La poute – beam
Poussez les dents – teeth coming through!
Baies coulissantes – Siding doors
Casque de chantier – hard hat.
Sous-sol – basement
La Renouée du Japon – Japanese knotweed
lespetitesgarennes 