Dordogne Retreat - a farmhouse tale

The two tons of gravel arrived this morning and was quickly moved to backfill the wall, the geotextile fabric was then laid over the top and then another level of gravel put on top ready for the next stage.....

The next stage (in the future but before next summer) is now to level the ground between the house and the wall. This shows in profile the slope of the ground. About 200mm needs to come off by the house and be moved to wall side and then we should have flat area ready for a terrace!

Started backfilling the new walls today, not as simple as it sounds though. The main cause of failure of retaining walls is not the pressure of the soil behind it but the pressure of water not being able to escape. To prevent this we are installing a drain (the yellow tube in the picture) and this has to be covered with 30 - 45 cms of small stones and then a geotextile fabric that stops small bits of earth blocking the holes in the drain tube. Have also added a layer of thick polythene to the back of the wall to reduce damp coming through to the front side. This should give the wall a long life!

Another 2 tons of stones are being delivered tomorrow so we can finish the job.

Even though it will be covered up I did write the year in the top of the wall! This is in a corner reinforced with rebar so should be there for a few years to come. And yes I did stand on the wall to take the picture (giving the wall a stress test at the same time).

Hooray, the wall is finished! Well the construction part is at least. Need to start thinking about how best to render/finish it but thats for another visit.

Next step is to fit the drainage pipe, backfill with gravel, cover with a geotextile membrane and then backfill with earth. This also requires the garden between the house and wall to be levelled and this is where I need to hire a mini-digger!

In my post yesterday I suggested that only another day was needed to finish of the wall currently under construction. Yes again my project planning was a little on the optimistic side. To be fair I would have finished today except for three things - didn't wake up until just before 9, ran out of clean sand so had to pick bits out of some 'dirty' sand and thirdly we went to Hautefort late afternoon. Oh I should also add that have nearly run out of cement as well......

The tarpaulins are not to hide my poor bricklaying skills (honest) but to protect the wall in case it rains overnight. The photographer didn't arrive until after I had finished tidying everything, now there's a surprise!

Just two courses to go, about 20 blocks, let me think should be finished by .......

This morning the 'girls' (all 5 of them) went off to a market leaving me alone to get on with the wall. I won't say it was nice to have some quiet 'man only' time but suffice it to say that I didn't miss them!

After learning from the 'master' (Alan) over the last few days was pleased with my progress on the second part of the wall although suspect I am still trying to be too accurate with each block and therefore not making particularly fast progress. Being single handed didn't help either but reckon I got about 40% of this section done today so with luck another day should do it! Famous last words......

This picture gives a good view of how big the pool terrace will be with the walls in the background, the area is approx 7m by 7m!

One slight hiccup today was that the footing for the wall were slightly off line, clearly a mistake when we pegged it out. However by building the wall slightly skew have got the error down to under 5 Cm's.

Good progress on the walls around the corner of the pool terrace today with one section having been completed. Most of the credit goes to Alan who laid the blocks while I acted as navyy and general dogs body!

It is even straight and level, and just to prove it:

The result was very pleasing and gives a good insight as to what it will be like when finished, a real sun trap we think.

Unfortunately Alan leaves for home tomorrow, so the rest is down to me...