I've never been so excited

By the sound of a flushing toilet. As we all know in rural France this unfortunately means installing a septic tank and associated drainage soak away for the run off. This I can tell you is hard work. Even with the aid of a man with a digger raking out 12 tonnes of gravel is not easy. If fact its been a bit of a epic saga all round. First off you have a survey done, a man comes along and does a soak test of the ground and then sends you a report. In our case we waited a month just to get the man to come because they were so busy (this is because, of new regulations, many fosse septics have to be replaced by 2012). You then submit this to the local Maire who sends it to Veolia. They approve it, and send the plans back with strict instructions to inform your Maire not less than 10 days before you start work. Simple! This bit is tedious but fine. Now you have to get someone to dig it. At this point you will be tempted to hire a digger and do the job yourself. My advice would be not to. If like us you need 48 metres of trench 600mm deep and 500mm wide then its a lot of trench. If you have tight spaces to manoeuvre you will probably knock something over or turn the digger over, especially if the ground is as hard a dry as it has been this year. On the other hand getting in an enterprise is expensive. The best root is to find a neighbour with a digger and form some sort of reciprocal arrangement. This is what we did and in the end worked very well. I say in the end because most arrangements like this usually involve "a mate" and "mates" work in their own good time. In usual French style the "Ami" would appear probably at the beginning of April...then beginning of May...late May....June at the latest...July definitely! Then when all hope had failed low and behold middle of August he appears. One day later we have to work done, next day its inspected and passed and bingo we have a fosse. Well no, cause there are a few other bits to a fosse, like air vents that need to go in the roof and in our case a pumping station. We got the pumping station off the net half the price as the local builders merchant and fortunately the guy who did our roof is also a neighbour and came at really short notice to fit the roof vent when I chickened out!! (shed roofs are one thing, big houses are a bit different. Any way its done, it works and I for one am very happy not to have to empty a chemical toilet three times a week. This last week my sister and family came over to help (next post I'll cover all their hard work and assistance) but 8 people and one chemical toilet really is no fun especially if like me your head of sanitation. In fact as Leslie Nielson said its "Like being in charge of sanitation at a Haitian jail".

That's my lovely sister and her husband in the background. Don't worry Joanne, next time you come over I'll have a kitchen sink!

And thanks to our local roofer. It was a pleasure to watch him at work.

And the pumping station or "station de relevage" from www.station-de-relevage.com. Good value, well made and excellent service. Ours was the sanidrain model at €607 as I said over €1200 at the local builders!

If any sad people are wondering why there are two pipes its because one, the top one is the vent for the fosse and the pumping station, the other lower one being grey water.

Bathroom

The bathroom's not finished yet but the main elements are now there (drains, shower toilet, walls and a door). The door is all held together with oak pegs because nails and screws would have been too easy! The cupboard under the window is a home made affair. For this I've re-used the old shutters off the house and I think the weathered grain really goes well.




Likewise the hinges came off the old windows and have been cleaned up with some hydrochloric acid and then finished off with wax.

Friends

Good friends are few and very far between. Friends for life are even rarer and a great privilege.

The Bathroom gets under way

Well I've started building the supporting wall for the last beam in the main downstairs room. The "poutre" is a little on the skinny side and a bit to bouncy to put a bathroom above. To solve this I've jacked the beam up and put in a couple of oak posts 15cm2. The floor underneath is re-inforced so more than able to take the weight. To make a bit more of a feature of this I'm building a colombage wall between the two. Once the supports were in I could then put in the next bay of solives on the first floor. This was a team effort with my friend Andy down the road, and much easier levelling up with two people. This is all going well, the only fly in the ointment is that I've had to dig out the bit a wall below the window to make good and get a conduit through under the wall. Ho Hum. I'm not goung to build this back to full 1 metre wall thickness but make a small bay or alcove in which I can put a bathroom cupboard. Every cloud and all that. Hopefully this make a bit more sense of the pictures below.

Catchup

Well, its been a while but I'm back. Since finishing the outside of the shed I've now pretty much finished the inside and moved on into the house. The big thing is we now have our own internet connection. Yeeha!!! And the second big thing is the mains power is hopefully coming next week...double yeeha!!! The third big thing is the plans have been approved for the run off the the septic tank, so a flushing toilet is also in sight. LUXURY.

To achieve most of this has been the usual battle with bureaucracy except the phone. For me this was the biggest surprise. Went into the orange phone shop on the Tuesday and on Thursday the dude arrives to string the new phone line in place and fix the sockets. The guy tippy toed across the beams on the first floor without a word of "more than my jobs worth health and safety dissent" et Voila. Phone (free calls) and internet and satellite TV with all the hardware for 35 euro and month and no need to pay France Telecom a red cent. Not often stuff just works but in this case it did.

Anyway here are a few catch up photo's of the shed




Meanwhile inside the house I've had all the stuff delivered for the bath room and laundry room. I've started building the walls (oak) and dug out the wall under the window, but i'll post again tomorrow with the pics and an explanation. As I've dug out at least three tonnes of earth and rock today, I'm off to bed!

The outside finished

So, after some blood sweat and a few tears, the outside of the shed is finished



To celebrate I'm running a competition to name the shed. Not sure if there will be a prize a such, but think of the kudos. The best name will be posted above the door for all time. Names like "dolls" and "Wendy" will be automatically disqualified cos your not taking it seriously. Bonne Chance!

Ta Da - The finished roof

Well its been a long 5 day haul to slate the roof but here it is finished. Special thanks need to go to our good friends David and Christine who despite the somewhat blustery conditions have worked valiantly cutting and sorting. Without their help I'm sure it would have taken twice as long. But finished it is complete with chimney and zinc flashing. Enjoy...



That chimney flashing by the way is all fabricated and soldered up from sheet. Had to do some technical drawing revision courtesy of the internet to work out how to draw a plan view of a cone with a 52deg slant cut off the bottom. If your interested in how to do it you can go to sheet metal world

All in all I think its a nice job. The slates were free since they came off the house roof and have been re-cycled. That said I don't think i'd like to do anything bigger. If nothing else i certainly have a new found respect for the guy's who slate roofs day in day out in all weather's; If its sunny you bake, if its windy you get blown off the roof and in the rain it's just treacherous. Still done now.