G2 time!

As I type this the technicians are about to start work on the ‘étude de sol G2’ for my new house. They turned up at about 9.00 am and I’d only just got out of bed, actually. They hadn’t picked the best morning as the temperature was still below freezing, the ground was covered with frost and there was a thick mist. This was the view when I looked out of my caravan door.

The machine they use to drill the boreholes that go quite a few metres into the ground is mounted on tracks and comes on a trailer. This shot was as they started the engine to warm it up in preparation.

Here’s a closer look. It looks brand new to me, as does the van towing the trailer and the Citroen SUV that accompanied it – I wonder if mine is their first job?

So after much delay things are now getting underway with this signifying the start of the actual building project. Right now they’re measuring up the ground to identify where to drill the boreholes and I just hope that I was accurate with my own measuring when I got the guys to lay the concrete base for my garden tool store. I’d hate for it to be in the wrong place… 😐

FOOTNOTE

I just came back to add that as I type this it’s 18.45 pm and the two technicians are still here finishing off their drilling in the darkness. They’ve had a bit of a torrid time. As I suggested above, their drilling rig is brand new but still gave them lots of problems, so much so that they spent most of the time during the day just hanging around.

The team that did my friend Wim’s G2 a week ago took about four hours to drill four holes. After 7 hours at around 16.00 pm today, the unfortunate pair who have been doing my G2 had only succeeded in completing one borehole! However, when I spoke to them an hour or so ago they said that they wouldn’t need to return tomorrow and would get the job done today. And as the above shot shows, they’ve kept their word 🙂