Chateau de Firbeix

I don't recall if I've posted any pics of the greenhouse space but where the chicken shed used to I'm not sure if I posted pics of the greenhouse work but where the chicken shed used to be I've excavated by hand a level space for a 15m2 greenhouse.  In previous months I built the wall and yesterday and today we put in the 10x10cm concrete base with 30cm diameter x 40cm deep corner supports. We had to carry 22 bags of 30kg premix concrete up a steep hill which nearly killed us! Not to mention the water, cement mixer and everything else we needed. We'll carry on with the greenhouse as the guys working on the door openings are creating a ton of dust and noise with pneumatic drill, etc. so we'll vacate it until they're done.

Today they dug and installed the collection tank for the rain water from the barn roof and terrace. The hole they had to dig was enormous (well it is a 10,000l tank). In the first picture below, the pipe on the right is coming from the barn and the one of the left will take any overflow water into the garden. The red pipe is for the electricity cable which will allow us to install a pump. The blue pipe is for the water to extract from the tank by the pump.

As I've previously shared in other posts, in the PMR gîte we are creating two new openings in the stone walls. The first will connect the room above the workshop with the old games room, which will be the new bedrooms and bathrooms. The second will connect the workshop with the kitchen. The upstairs doorway will be standard size but the downstairs one will be 2mx2m, with no door.  They started on the first floor as we needed to remove the staircase in the workshop for the ground floor opening and that was their only access to the first floor. They turned up 3 days early which caused a lot of panic as the guys putting in the new sewage pipes had not even started in front of the gîte so had to change their plans. On the flip side, the guys doing the sewage pipes started two weeks late so it should never have been an issue. They used a manitou (below) to remove all the stone and also lift the new corner stone and new oak lintels into the first floor through the window.   This is ...

Just a lot of photos of their progress with the pipework   

Mostly pictures today as the guys are really moving quickly, mainly because the mason who is creating the two wall openings in the PMR gîte is starting tomorrow and needs to get his lorry close to the work. 

As the chateau has a lot of roofs and we're adding a large patio around the barn and hose pipe bans are not uncommon during the summer months, we decided to collect this run off water and install a 10,000 litre tank which will be buried in the ground between the barn and the trees. We can then use this water for the swimming pool, watering the garden, etc. The water will be filtered before entering the tank and we'll need an electric pump to get the water to where it needs to be used.  I've added Daniel to give some perspective how huge the tank is!

The Firbeix commune has built a new sewage treatment plant down towards the main road and since the chateau has been on a septic tank (fosse septique) up to now, we have to join the mains which is great for us but does mean a lot of work! Basically we just needed to connect the entry point of the septic tank to the mains sewage point by the main road but as we want the barn and PMR gîte also connected and also the B&B rooms on the top floor, we decided to put in a new sewage line from the barn around the back of the chateau, past the 2 back gîtes and then connecting to the mains point close to the mill. We will also increase the capacity from a 100mm pipe to 125mm. While the digging is going on, we'll also run a new water line for the PMR gîte. This work started today and a lot of progress was made