Carol Miers

March hares and method before madness

An update about building a wooden chalet in South West France

The fosse septique plumbing goes in

How we are sourcing the utilities, water and electricity.

Three months ago at the beginning of March it is was becoming clearer that we needed a budget version contingency plan for finishing the house.

In this bottom line version we had piped bathroom water supplies and left the kitchen pipes until later. For power, we relied upon a couple of electric sockets.

So how come three months later at the beginning of June we moved into the house with one water pipe and no electricity?

There was the meeting with Bertrand the electrician, the unwelcome revelation that we would have trouble getting power turned on unless the housing circuitry was complete. This meant finishing the minimum of, a kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom wiring. We met the 'Norme' the requirements for a new home.

The only way to have two sockets was to contact the authorising consenting body, the Consuel, for a temporary works supply or 'alimentation de chantier'. After some research we found this alternative requires another coffre or termination box with its own meter for 500 euros to have power for fifteen months.

As far as we know when we have our completed house circuitry or wiring stamped 'en accord' by a qualified electrician the Consuel will turn on the power.

Looking back, when I first heard this, the implications did not sink in.

Below the bottom line

Then there was the telephone conversation with M Chaud, the father of one of the best footballers in Craig's team. M Chaud is, in a less important role, a very good plumber and we were talking about some technical points.

Back further again, in March, after weeks of stress and poor nerves, partly as a result of the leaking windows, Craig and I did not know which way we were facing and so could not agree on a bathroom design. This meant that the day M Chaud had arrived to see what bathroom work we wanted to commission, he found he had to sketch a layout that we both rapidly agreed, including having a separate W.C.

Later that week, Tracy, a neighbour and an Immobilier or estate agent, arrived with two clients to show them our house. We were examining leaks as usual, but seeing a way forward, I grabbed Tracy by the arm and asked her how she would design the bathroom.

"A separate W.C ? Do you really want a separate W.C. you mean not in the same room?" she said.

"No, no of course not," I said just as quickly swayed another way. Tracy then set the washbasin opposite the window with sunlight falling on the mirror, knocked down the wall that M Chaud had so recently visualised and in two minutes changed it all around, which we both quickly agreed upon.

So that was how we came to our current bathroom design, à la Tracy.

So back to the telephone conversation with M Philippe Chaud, speaking in a strong local accent, trying, I realised, to clarify what we wanted in our bathroom.

"Evier ceramique ou plastique?"

"Is that the object that goes in the kitchen?" I said "for the washing?" "Yes, yes, yes," he said. "Ceramic" I said. "Ceramic is much better but it is more expensive," Philippe Chaud said. "Ceramic, the best," I said.

The next day when M Chaud went to Lacaze to install the septic tank outlet pipe, I saw he was carrying a brown envelope, he had finally brought the devis or estimate for this bathroom work. But as he walked towards the house, he thought better of it and replaced the envelope in the back of the van, plus tard, later.

My eyes fixed on the envelope I had soon opened it and sneaked a look while he was bent over the pipework.

The devis or estimate for 4,700 euros, 'too much.'

Later we chose the first three tasks which would connect the outlet pipes to the septic tank. Craig thought it included the internal pipes, but this, M Chaud later explained would be a few hundred euros more. Craig then asked for a bathroom tap and M Chaud put another 200 euros on the bill. I telephoned Philippe Chaud, leaving a message to say that we had a limit and no way could we go over that and please could we have a tap.

M Chaud called back, could Craig possibly help Alex, a former player of 'le foot' now in a rival team, and M Chaud's assistant? Craig pointed out, as ironies go, of all the team players Alex was the only one he had ever argued with. Still with Craig helping the "main d'oeuvre" or labour costs could be reduced. Agreed.

Off went Craig, yet again, the week before he had helped with the delta drainage pipes for Brondel Frères, now Craig became the plumber's assistant's assistant.

(Later on, he will be the builder and the tree planter while I will become the electrician).

So that is how Craig came to crawl in and out of the vide sanitaire while Alex tried propping pipes, precariously it seemed to me, on breezeblocks, parpaigns and placed the out pipes.

That was how the bottom line contingency plan became the survival camping kit which we began with in June.

The video background of the USA is not significant..

Fast tracking through Sue and Robert's visit, and moving in

Moving in

Some friends came around to give us some encouragement, having themselves renovated properties. Robert and Sue from Duras. Robert left us with a Bricodepot brochure, the most leafed through book ever.

Robert made suggestions about our leaking window, hopefully now sealed. Sue is now an elected counsellor in Duras and is very busy with that and teaching but still really helped us to carry on.

The coolest place is the vide sanitaire, four breezeblocks high under the house. I knew it had been accepted as a storage hole when I saw a beer can was in there.

We made a makeshift office and have fold out beds. The lighting is from solar lamps, one from d.light, another from Unite to Light and a small charger panel a solar monkey adventurer. We have 3G for internet.

Last year I bought a Little Miracle Battery a golf cart battery and that powers the laptops and we charge it on a friend's supply. Craig can power the Ipad when driving. My laptop battery runs for about five hours.

We have a gas cooker and a dry toilet. After a crazy week of moving and trying to write and work, we moved in on 5th June and we nearly fried with it being 28 C inside as we have no shutters and had not put up any curtains.

So I began going to the nearest supermarket café to use their wireless (20km away) and soon started coming back with cables from Briconaut for the house wiring, as in, 'If you want a job to be done, do it yourself'.

Then we started working from a neighbour's caravan, (Carole and Bernard) using their more reliable internet. It was still 28 C inside but cold drinks arrived for free!

There was one night at the beginning where the hills were lit with sheet lightning on three sides. I opened the windows and a gale rushed across the 10 m width of house but only a few drops of rain followed. This tree blew down near lieu dit Bordeaux our last house, taking the telephone line with it.

Ghost Kriya or meditation, clearing the ghosts and opening inuition

For moving forwards it helps to let go of past fears to open to the idea of a different outcome. They say we tend to live our past, have many thoughts daily stemming from our past (>90%), repeat cycles, patterns, it continues.

So being about to move house myself, in a challenging situation, I found this kundalini yoga meditation. I hope you can try it, it gives a framework or a healing context for your memories, to replace that then with something pleasant, roughly said, in order to be carried forwards into a positive direction.

So I write this in a non-religious secular way of course it can be spoken of differently and I don't wish to offend anybody. The Kundalini yoga research institute has uploaded material that was very expensive at one time, and now is freely accessible and easy to share.

Ghost Kriya: Clearing the ghosts
The kriya begins with a mental journeying, and a posture, as you weave your way through memories. Next having lifted them into the mind, you start to clean your mind, using images, rainforests, snow and mountains and the mantra Rakhe Rakhan Har which I simplify down to being 'lead me across the water' but you can see the words and meaning. It is part of a Sikh evening prayer as a protection against negative forces.

So for anyone who wants to try it, as a suggestion here are the links of the music I used from youtube which being there makes it a lot easier.

1 Sat Siri Akal Nirinjan Kaur
2 Rainforest Reverie which is 11 hours long just in case you want to make a day of it!
3 Wind sounds in the mountains
It is said that when we die we are faced with two paths and one is all that is comfortable and warm and friendly (our attachment to this life) and the other is across the snowy mountain wilderness.
4 The gong music from Serenity Lake House
5 Lastly the recommended music Singh Kaur ~ Rakhe Rakhanhar

I did not do the full recommended times and I am interested to hear from anyone who does try it, how you find it, if you felt it was helpful. Please feel free to post any questions or thoughts in the comments.

Keeping it in perspective

These are children's bedrooms across the world as someone kindly posted this eye-opening link about differences in wealth.
Where children sleep

Stuck in the mud

Monday 24th March, on the way to teach an evening class I stopped to see the progress and found that the team installing the fosse septique were stuck in the mud. This is what it looked like ten weeks ago.

How much more of a housebuild than expected

Getting the house ready
Writing up about the house-build in South West France is even further behind than the house, so now I am going to jump forwards and put up blog entries to back-fill what's been going on, later on.

To follow an idea of progress means to write something about finishing off, solving the window leak problem, moving in, well that's the way we are going but in a rather roundabout way.

The May sun shone on the rumps of cows yesterday morning, it was a glowing warm sun even at 9am. The countryside is beautiful at the moment. It was Journée de Champêtre at Loubejac and I went to help serve snacks for the walkers and horse riders. Acacia blossom was bouncing off the road like pebbles.

(Image: Journée de la Champêtre 2013).

In the evening, even at 7pm on the west of the wooden panelling of the house at LaCaze, the view side, it was baking hot and as I put up more protective Blanchon anti UV paint, one wasp wove its way through a hole above the bardage, then another into the identical hole.

Why does getting power have to be so constrained?

We have a meter box, a coffre, and no power because the EDRF will only switch the current on when they are happy with the house circuitry. To start I had an idea to have one working socket.

I bought a pre-wired electrical termination box that includes a 16A socket, 26m of armoured power cable to run from the EDRF meter box (coffre) into the house, and an earth break-out clip (barrette de coupure de terre)with some earth cable.

I was going to drag the cable through the gaine but we decided to meet with Bertrand the electrician and then if he stamps it, it can be approved by the authorising body, the Conseul (as in concensus) without their having to visit. I thought this would be a lash-up, a bare essential's kit-out.

But then I found that any unfinished wiring is switched on under a working builder's supply an 'alimentation de chantier' by putting a second coffre alongside and cabling into it which costs 500 euros or a little less if we get our own meter box. We would rather spend 500 euros on a solar panel.

On top of this, Bertrand said they may not agree to turn it on for one socket. There is a Norme, a minimum, before EDRF will switch it on. This assumes areas, kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom.

For example: "For a lounge there must be one socket for each 4 m 2 of floor area with a minimum of five sockets." Electricity in your french house

So if someone wants a house that is reliant on photovoltaic panels and a simple EDRF back-up of a couple of sockets then they will still need to use standard circuitry not for example, a 12v circuit. If the living room is only 4 m 2 five sockets is a lot. So I am finding out if anyone has challenged this as it seems impossibly rigid for small housing.

Yesterday Robert, a builder offered to take a seized-up generator, a Diablo 2400, to see if it can be easily reconditioned for us to use. It was given to him in lieu of payment and he thinks the two-stroke motor was run without enough oil.

Even so, in May it is lovely warm and sunny with the countryside in many shades of green. I went to help serve the snacks, or casse-croute for walkers and riders, under the trees. There were more than 50 horses, and three caleche or carriages. There was even a shire horse as well as the pony club horses with a tresse or plait, 'natté' or natty I think.

Later it got hot, apparently 23C but felt like a blast too warm on the front of the house.

Three sides of a house going forwards

Craig has started nailing I think 23 x 28 wood batons horizontally onto the area of vapour barrier that surrounds the still leaking window so three sides of the interior while I have been glueing the vapour barrier bottom edge onto the cement dalle floor.

Baby rabbits have been running the length of the vegetable patch, the potager. Most vegetable plants are under chicken wire, but the leeks in the gaps are clipped or nibbled away. We have a a few geraniums giving a splash of colour. and the yellow daisies I was given and planted are flourishing but no flowers. There would be no point producing buds before we move in, the love-in-the-mist had one slender stem forcing its way through nettle and grass roots pushing out one bud that a rabbit actually found and ate.

Driving the car to the land, first obstacle is the next door farm, yesterday as I returned from walking their dog, Iris, there were twelve chicks and a mother hen in Iris's, food bowl. There are also ducks waddling in formation and bushels of roses. Then nearer the LaCaze house, two black hens are often on the road nearby if not sitting geese, one dark evening I almost hit four grey geese sitting on the corner of the road.

The Fosse septique delta tunnels and more leaks

 

On with the fosse

On 20 March Jerome from Brondel Frères began digging holes for the fosse septique while Craig painted the breeze blocks with a waterproofing layer. This will be covered with plastic before earth is laid across it.

There are stories about condensation inside vide sanitaires when the sides are covered as ours, but Brondel Freres said we still have ventilation holes and a row of uncovered bricks.

Stuck in the mud again

Monday 24th March, The rain came back. Craig helped Jerome by putting on more of the waterproofing paint. I dropped by in the afternoon to a familiar situation:
"Guess what?" "What?"
"Their truck is stuck in the mud"

There was a sense of, EVEN the Builders get stuck in the mud (but don't say anything).

Later I heard that Craig had to sit in the truck, while Jerome spun the wheels of the digger trying to drag it up via a chain hitched on the front. The surface of tar was churned up by the digger but the truck's tyres only spun a deeper hole. Craig did not budge.

So Jerome tried dragging it downhill and around the back of the house between the fosse septique and the sand bed.

The truck was difficult to steer, the chain taut like a guitar string, Craig did not know if it would hold or flip through the back window onto him in the cab. He had to try to steer it between the fosse septique and the sand bed, you cannot drive over either one and it could slide and swing in both directions.

Craig caught his breath, the chain held and finally the truck moved, swerving around the back, and thankfully avoiding the sand bed as it went in a loop onto the drive by the entrance door.

Putting in the earth spike

There was more to go into the utilities trench. Tue 25th March, after Jerome had supplied the red and green gaines or the cable conduit, and M. Chaud had supplied the water pipe, we were surprised when Jerome asked for a 'piquet de terre' and 'cuivre'.

Looking in the 'Electricity in your French house,' book by Thomas Malcolm, we found a reference to fixing your own earth using an earth spike and copper.

Unlike the UK, in the French house, the owner is responsible for an earth link to the house electrical earth loop via a disconnecting linkage bar, a barrette de coupure or mesure, which when open permits a house circuit test. To find out which spike and copper cable we needed, we put in an urgent call to Bertrand the electrician, leaving messages and emails, then when there was no answer, driving past his next-door house looking for his van.

M Chaud the plombier arrives

(Image M Chaud arrives)

M Chaud, the plumber did arrive with Brondel Frères team and they discussed where to place the pipe.

Jerome told us to contact our electrician to get hold of an electrical and a telephone gaine by the next day, as the digger would put these in the trench before covering them again. M Chaud was to bring the water pipe the next day.

We looked over hopefully towards the next house, where the electrician Bertrand lives, wondering if he would have the gaine. Usually when building a house you have an architect or a maitre d'ouevre/project manager who co-ordinates the different artisans.

This is highly recommended.

When I met up with a French carpenter experienced with the RT2012 regulation she said that to reach the level for the air tightness test every artisan must work together and for this you need a project manager. If there is not one, she said, it is the client.

That then meant us.

This is a good way to learn but it is a bit like hatching an egg, once you have it you have got to keep it warm. If you have got an incubator ready ahead it is better than rushing round trying to find a blanket.

But this is not a place where any day is as predictable as you might expect, it is not
city life.

(Image: the area around the vide sanitaire is to have a perforated pipe around it and then a delta drainage system which will be covered with earth)

As another ex-pat house builder 'client' said to me, we are not as self-assured as when we are on home ground. Here we are after all, foreigners. So when we found that Bertrand did not have the gaine and Jerome agreed to supply it, I did not point out that at the meeting last August 2013 his team had said they would supply it in any case. After all there was too much at stake.

The SPANC agreement

Still with the plan for the fosse septique, there is an agreement called an assainissement, where considerations, like the drainage quality of the earth, or the size of the septic tank and the sand bed are agreed and written down.

The systems since 2011 have been standardised and checked to be in line with a regulation called the SPANC. During the installation, Jerome said he was going to take photographs which we have to hand to SPANC when the house is finished to get the certificate of conformity.

As it was clearly better to have a drainage system put in than not and as the delta was one they were familiar with, that was agreed.

But we have to have a devis!

Then Philippe Chaud left, on Wed 19 March and I was not sure what we had agreed with him for the plumbing, without a devis or estimate. I ran after him saying we needed to know. M Chaud assured me he would write out the devis and give it to us the next day, Thursday 20 March.

As the work was starting the next day, this was just as well.

House necessities, dealing with the damp

The pvc windows are still leaking on March 21st so I sought some advise and some interesting points about protecting the wood came from an architect:

"Any horizontal ledges, and window sills, need to have a slope to let the water drain. Of course, with window sills this is always done, but check for example that there is no bit of wood trim anywhere which could catch the water." Chris recommended using a wood protection like Sadolin but we had already bought products from Blanchon and Koat.

(Image: The neighbour's hens look for somewhere to lay eggs)

We needed to know if we could go ahead with the wood fibreboard insulation if with changing the windows it was damp? Telephoning the Centre Alternative Technology, then the international line for Homatherm, the manufacturers, they told us that Holzflex can become up to 30% saturated without losing any insulation properties, unlike rock wool which starts to reduce after 3%. Of course they were biased but we went ahead.

Anticyclone, the building site work starts up again

Getting supplies into the house

Where land has no utilities a raccordement or connection has to be ordered. In Loubejac, the water 'raccordement' is through Saur and the electricity feed comes from ERDF. There is no mains gas or drainage.

( Image: This shows the three utilities, a black water pipe and a red electricity and a green telephone line gaine. )

As both water and power were set up for the house at LaCaze in December 2013, the water meter in its coffre is now covered with wet sand and mud, as is the lid, after the rains drove the top soil onto it.
To take water into the house, we will need a gaine. 'Gaine' means a girdle, sheath, even a corset, but on a building site it is the plastic cable girth, a tube with a nylon pull down cord running the length for drawing through a cable supply. For electricity the gaine is red and 80mm diameter, so our future neighbour the electrician Bertrand, said and green, 40mm for a telephone line. (Image: The ground sodden after weeks of rain, and the red gaine in the background.)

Change of weather and work is underway

It finally stopped raining on the Thursday 6th March. The weatherman said there was an anticyclone on the horizon, the first for seventy days. There has been 40% more rain than normal across the whole of France, with more than double the average in Le Var and Alpes-Maritimes for example. Much as in the UK, it was also one of the warmest winters on record.

As soon as the rain stopped we began to put up the Homatherm wood fibreboard insulation in our wooden chalet in the South West of France, finishing with six packs left over to return to Seguy's which we planned to exchange for litaux or batons, glue, nails and mousse.
Now the budget was tight. We still needed gutters, plasterboard, plumbing, electricity, drainage, a floor, the air-tightness RT2012 test and more. We had had extra costs like the chemicals to protect the panelling after it showed signs of mould due to the relentless rain.

The plumbing and the fosse septique

Perhaps for that reason we had not got in even one plumbing devis, not one estimate let alone compared a few quotes. In France, artisans cannot charge more than they allocate in their estimate or devis but from January 2014 TVA or VAT rose to 20%, so work agreed and unfinished last year is a little more expensive. Where we can do the work ourselves it can reduce the bill by over a half as, in general, the cost of labour is twice the cost of the materials. We plan a shower, W.C., washbasin, place for the washing machine, and a kitchen sink.

But with the beginning of some sunshine, any day now, Philippe of Brondel Frères was going to get in touch to liaise on the whereabouts of the fosse septique/septic tank as we had signed that devis last year. Philippe would need to talk to the plumber, if not the electrician and nothing was in place.

As if from nowhere a digger, perforated pipes, a delta drain

Any day now Philippe from Brondel Frère would be there at LaCaze with a digger gouging a hole (2.5m x 1.6m) for a septic tank and a sand drain-away bed (5m x 5m) as was written out in the assainissement regulations. At the same time, it helps save later work, if they dig a ditch running from the coffre, the ERDF box and le compteur d'eau, the water meter, to the vide sanitaire under the house. As the digger can cover it again it saves the electrician and plumber, or us, doing it all by hand.

Sure enough on March 18th there was an email from Philippe:

"We want to start in two days and we would like to know where to find the water meter, please call quickly."

How the utilities, water and power get connected to a new house

We needed to have a plumber and an electrician around to supply the gaines and locate the puncture holes for entry through the parpaing or breezeblock into the vide sanitaire. Well that is the principle. Of course there is a theory and then there is being in the French countryside learning via youtube videos and speaking French as a second language.

Back during the February rains, when I asked him what was happening, Philippe had said: "It is too wet to start. Give me one week of sunshine and we will begin."

Which was exactly what he was doing apart from one extra French week.

Two weeks after the faltering sun had begun, we realised that the blossom, daffodils and violets would continue unharmed as no freeze was coming. The anticyclone settled and suddenly Philippe wanted to begin in two days.

When I phoned back, Philippe wanted to have a meeting that afternoon.

At the house a hasty meeting so they can start the fosse septique tomorrow.

Once more the local football team triumphed. Craig telephoned the plumber M.Chaud whose son played with Craig in the La Menaurie football team. Philippe Chaud a kind man, two years ago, had altered his plans in order to repair our central heating in time for a Christmas family visit.

In a relay of conversations, I am standing with one phone talking to Philippe Brondel, Craig is on the other trying to understand Philippe Chaud's strong dialect, we are fixing a mutual time to meet. In the end there is only one hour between them, 3 pm on the site for Philippe Chaud and 4 pm for Philippe Brondel, with any luck they will both be there at the same time, one hour apart is not bad.

That afternoon, on the site, we find out we have a team of firemen working on the house. Not M Chaud, but from Brondel Frères; Philippe Brondel is one of the volunteer firemen, one who helped free Claudie last year. He brings a new ouvrier, Jerome, another fireman we later find out, who was also with Claudie. To top that, Christian Brondel our builder from Ambiance Bois et Nature was himself also a fireman.

Jerome, Philippe says, will be doing our septic tank as he puts in ten or more fosse septique every year.

The team wants to part fill the space around the vide sanitaire and put in a Delta fitting which has a perforated drain pipe and takes the water away from the house, as well as connecting up with the gutter downpipes.

This would be possible if we had any gutter downpipes but for now they will put this in for the future connection.

Brondel Frères want to start even sooner, tomorrow, Wednesday 19th March. Jerome is spraying bright green paint on the grass. Philippe turns and asks me if I am happy with the positioning of the fosse septique as if not they can put it 'here' instead, pointing the green paint spray can to the East.

If you were sitting in the back seat of a small plane and the pilot said, "Just tell me if you want me to pull this lever up or down, or turn this switch off, whatever you want," you would tell them they were the pilots.

If you are the experts then we do it your way

I tried to explain that they are the experts and please put it in the best place.

We did ask a few questions. Why wasn't it going as near as possible to the house, on the West side. Was it going to lead to problems if it was too far away? What would happen if it did not flow properly? They probably did not understand me but did follow the sentiment of it.

Philippe confirmed it will have a ten year guarantee, this comes with the paid bill and he raised his voice as if embracing the world, saying that of course he prefers it to work without any problems for ten years, that this distance is far below 50 m so no problem and he always works as though it is for his own home. Jerome is saying that if he places it between his green spray paint markers, with a sand bed at a distance, a car can pass around the house, between the fosse and the drainage sand filter.

(This later turned out to be a lucky plan when the lorry was stuck in the mud).

Philippe then picks up a broom and pretends to fly, trying to make us laugh, resorting to 'international' language - Harry Potter and quiditch.

(image: Craig and Jerome discussing preparing the wall and laying the delta drain)

So we met Jerome and then good sport Craig, agrees to work with him, in order to limit the price on another devis, saving a second maitre d'oeuvre or worker. Craig's week is once again turned upside down, with a first assignation to paint waterproofing along the base of the vide sanitaire.

Philippe emailed the increased devis later that evening, and we agreed what seemed essential work.

After all Craig and I had discussed putting in a french drain, later on, imagining it further back from the house but at least getting the trench dug while the digger was on hand.

Brondel Frères told us that the open area around the vide sanitaire has to be filled, in order to cover the water pipe with at least 40cm of land, to prevent winter freezing.

I had asked why you could not simply put a pile around it and leave the rest open but waiting even one day for an answer was not an option. Spring had arrived, and nobody seemed willing to delay after months of rains.