Last week we went and
helped our architect with some building work on his house, we went again this week. Last week the 'paille et terre' (straw and earth) work was just starting, this week it was nearing completion. Two weeks will have seen two walls insulated. There was a lot of the mix ready, so we spent the day packing it in to the walls. I did remember to take photos this time!
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| The wall we worked on last week (near the bottom!) |
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| Doug at work |
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| Close up of the finished (but not dry product) |
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| Lunch (with wine!) |
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| The bit of the wall we worked on this week |
Although we don't want to insulate with this method, it was a good chance to ask him questions about what he thinks we should do plus to meet some interesting people. Last week we worked with an English guy who had done a lot of 'eco' building work so that was interesting (as we could understand all of what he was telling us!), this week was all French people so we got a good chance to practice our French, particularly with the very nice guy we were working alongside. He was very patient and asked us nice simple questions. As it is a bank holiday in France lots of their friends turned up at lunch time (v yummy cake) too. We enjoyed it a lot.
Our favorite insulation method at the moment is chanvre chaux (lime and hemp or 'hempcrete') and we are reading a lot about air to water heat pumps, under floor heating, ground source heat pumps, solar thermal and solar pv. Thrilling stuff!
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