Day: February 21, 2022

After the builder’s surveyor had left – he was taking detailed measurements for the footings because it turns out that they need to be more complex than was originally anticipated and the groundwork contractor needs to have detailed specs ahead of starting their work – I repaired the damage caused by my latest nocturnal visitors and then did something that I’ve been wanting to do for some time.

Up to now the only images of my new house on my land that I’ve been able to create by combining images from my architects’ design software and photographs of the terrain have been rough approximations. The reason is that even by taking great care, it’s been almost impossible to get the scaling right. Yesterday I purchased some wood from Brico Depot to make some stakes to accurately mark the house’s position and although I was hampered by recurrent showers, I got them in place at the end of this afternoon as the light was failing.

I don’t have a laser theodolite or even accurate measuring equipment like those used by surveyors but I took great care measuring distances and angles and I’m pretty confident that my stakes are not a mile out compared to the ‘implantation’ plan that I agreed with my house builder. Here are a couple of shots that I took firstly showing the view of the house from the south and secondly from the east (its rear).

And now the view from the front. Because the stakes are accurately placed, I can use them to accurately scale an image lifted from my architects’ design software and in order to get it right, I’ve combined the images in stages. The first shot is just of the terrain with the stakes in place, the second shows the terrain with my house superimposed in transparent form to ensure that its scaled and positioned exactly and the third and final image shows the house accurately positioned and scaled.

So the final image above is the most accurate image to date showing how the house will appear on my land when it’s completed. Unfortunately the light was poor by the time I could take the shot of the land with the stakes in place but even so, I’m very happy with the result and will look more at what’s possible, perhaps using shots taken with one of my drones. That should be fun and interesting but I’ll need to wait a few days for the weather to improve before I try doing that 😐

I had another visit from the ‘sanglier’ last night. This time not as bad as on some previous occasions but annoying at the very least and the damage will take me at least 20 minutes to half an hour to repair.

However, it appears that the fencing that I’ve put in place is doing its job because this time there’s evidence of damage on the adjacent land to the south that shows that they came from that direction.

So it looks as though I’m going to have to accept that this will continue to some extent until such time as I’ve managed to get the ‘grillage’ in place along that side of the land. There’s a small problem with that because although the guys were supposed to come back as soon as the land had dried out enough to take the weight of their large tractor (we had more rain last night), the builder has arrived this morning to take some final measurements before starting on the groundwork next week and he has suggested that I hold off putting up fencing close to where they will be working.

It may still be possible to erect say, half of the run of fencing upwards from the bottom where the sanglier always do their work and that may be enough to deter them as I doubt that they will want to come higher which would be too close for them to where the work is going on. However, I first need to see what the builder is proposing and then I’ll be able to decide. But it’s good news the building work is at last on the verge of starting and the construction of my new house will soon be moving forward 🙂