Friday, December 10, 2004
Holes for staircases
My friend Ian and I have been cutting beams upstairs in the new gites to create holes for the new staircases. Each gite needs a hole approx 2m by 2m in the corner to accomodate the staircase. Each staircase has two quarter turns to make the rise shallow because of the high (3.5m) ceiling height. A few acro props, a chainsaw, and some very big nails (hand made 14mm dia. nails !) and job done. Unfortunately the longditudinal beams we removed were not quite long enough to be used as a cross brace back into the wall, so I had to buy two new 2.5m long oak beams (40cm was sunk into the wall). Amazingly they were only 32� (£20) each.
The water board arrived this afternoon to move the water meter. After our digger driver nearly flooded us out, we decided to move the meter etc. to a position just outside the gites. It took them all afternoon to find the buried supply pipe and then discover the stopcock in the road was broken. Not being able to switch off the water was obviously a minor problem that stopped all work. Back on Monday to fix the main stopcock first.
| 8:49:19 PM
Holes for staircases
