Paving Progress

Paving the terrasse

For the past four days we have been laying the paving for the terrasse around the pool. This involves laying a sand/cement mix (une chape) of about 5cm - tamping down, levelling and making absolutely flat. After this a mix of pure cement and water (une barbotine) is slopped on to glue the slabs to the chape. This has been one of the hardest jobs I have ever done - the sheer surface area (154 metres square) and the weight of the stone - but we're nearly there - probably 1.5 days to go ...

Edging stones

Today I finished installing the margelles, or edging stones for the pool. It has taken me four days of hard slog - I had to do it on my own because I am known as Bonnie Tiler here and so everyone thought they'd leave it to the expert - ha! It was hard because each stone weighs about 10kg and they have to be millimetre accurate because the slabs for the rest of the terrasse are the same colour and width (but not the same depth) so these edging stones will be the starting point of the rest of the 154m2 - the joints and the height all need to line up. I have used 150 kg of tile cement to put them down because they need to be solid - people will pull themselves out of the pool by the edges.

I ache everywhere, back, arms, shoulders, elbows and knees ....

P.S. The water will be cleaner than this when the pool is put in service!!!

704 paving slabs arrived this morning - another little job for me to do ....

Concreting the terrasse

It has been quiet here for a while, but that does not mean that we haven't been working. It has taken several days with lots of headscratching and shovelling to get the terrasse ready for concreting.

The problem was that we needed a slope o...n each side of 1cm for each metre to enable the water to run off freely - easily said, but with each of the four sides sloping in different directions and not easy to take levels over such a large area, it took a bit of time.

We have used a system of rails, the top of which represent the finished level of concrete, and we needed to bring in the right level of stones to reach the required depth of 10cm over the area of 154 metres squared.

The concrete arrived in two lorries and it was off loaded and levelled into place by me standing on the top of a long plank and three butch french men pulling the plank to level off the concrete (sorry no photo - lots of balancing required!)

After this the rails were lifted and we filled in their holes and finished with a petrol vibrating concrete ruler to get a smooth finish.

The only thing left for me to do was a four-course meal for 8 people, phew!

Ground work finished

The ground work for the patio area is now finished - we are now ready for 15 tonnes of cement and 600 paving slabs, phew!

Retaining wall

Because the ground where the pool has been built was sloping, the pool was not fully sunk in to ground level. This left us with a problem of how to secure the patio area so that it would not subside. The solution was found by installing 5 former concrete and metal electricity poles (don't ask where they came from - does everyone still have power?!) This should ensure that there is no landslide in future years!