Back to my garden and pool

I’ve had quite a few things to deal with recently one of which has been deciding what to do about getting underway with work on my garden and installing my new little swimming pool. The latter’s kit has been standing outside my house since May but other things have taken priority and it’s now fully evident that it won’t be in for this summer as I didn’t receive the official approval to go ahead anyway until early this month.

I’ve decided how I want to install it as shown in the following image. I want to kill two birds with one stone. The ‘terrasse’ at the rear of my house and the path surrounding it were never properly created and stabilised by the builder when my house was built and that now has to be done and the process of doing so will involve the use of equipment to shift soil and stone around. Stabilisation of the ground will involve the construction of a retaining wall on two sides which will also serve to enclose the pool as shown in the image.

The wall will need stepped foundations down one side because of the land’s downward slope and the pool will also need a fairly substantial reinforced concrete base because of its weight and the weight of the water it will contain. Both of these will need to be dug out using an excavator.

But thinking ahead, that’s not all. I need to relocate the ‘abri’ that I placed in front of my house before it was built down to the bottom of my land where I originally located my caravan during its construction and that will involve excavating another concrete base and after that I’ll need to extend the original ‘abri’ base in the front of the house to build a nice garage-cum-workshop. I also intend to shift the black stone that the builder laid in my driveway and around the house with white stone which again can’t be done by hand.

But it won’t end there. When the work at the rear has been completed I’ll need to complete the fencing around my house and land. That will involve removing a few posts that were originally banged into the ground, one of which was recently broken by a tractor mowing the adjacent land , and inserting quite a few more to complete the ‘cloture’ at the side and the front, which again will require the use of equipment.

You can see where I’m going with this. I recently contacted one ‘trusted’ contractor to get going on all this but he hasn’t bothered to come and see the job and I’m utterly fed up with this attitude that is so prevalent among such people here in France. Hiring an excavator costs around 200€ per day plus delivery and at that rate I’ll probably end up paying 2000€ or more just for that given the jobs that need doing. So I’ve decided to go it alone.

Fortunately I’ve found someone who’s happy to come in and give me a hand whenever I need him and that is all I’ll need – apart from the equipment. I’ve already got a motor-driven concrete mixer (I sold my electric one for a good price when I took it out of storage) so all I’ll need is an excavator and a post hole driller – an auger – and those are what I’ve been searching for for the last few days to source from, you’ve guessed it, China.

Checking the prices of second-hand mini excavators on Le Bon Coin, the hugely popular free ads web site here in France, they seem to be in the range of 4000€ plus depending on the size of the machine. However, by importing the kind of machine I need direct from China, a smallish 1 tonne machine with a 400mm bucket, I can get it for much less. Much less!

So that’s what I’m doing and while I’m at it, I’m also importing an auger that can be attached to the machine so I can complete my fence work.

I’ve posted below a couple of videos of Chinese mini-excavators. The first shows a machine with a pivoting boom in order to show this feature. It’s quite elaborate with tracks that can be made wider or narrower and other features I won’t need.

The next is the one I’m importing but with a pivoting boom. It’s less elaborate than the one shown above but will do all that I’ll need it to do. It’s also less expensive.

Finally, here’s a video of the kind of auger I’ll also be importing.

I’ve already discussed the import procedure with the French customs. The machine will be custom made to my order in 2-3 weeks with a Euro 5 diesel engine and will then be shipped to Marseilles. All I’ll then need to do is hire a heavy vehicle recovery type trailer and go down to pick it up. I’m quite excited