Like a charm

My theory was correct and my idea worked like a charm. In my first trip to Brico Depot today I ordered four sheets of reinforcing steel (panneaux de dallage) and a big-bag of ‘mélange’ (ballast, a mixture of sand and aggregate).

I realised immediately as soon as I saw it that the concrete reinforcing steel that I had originally intended to buy was far too flimsy either for reinforcing a concrete slab or for supporting a big-bag on my trailer’s damaged floor. I ended up going for four sheets of the proper stuff, which was nearly five times more expensive than I’d expected (gulp!) The upside, though, is whereas I’d expected to order a total of eight sheets of 2m x 1m metal, I would only need six sheets of the proper steel as it comes in sheets measuring 2.4m x 1.2m.

Here are some shots of my first order of today loaded up in the Brico Depot yard and ready to be paid for and whisked off home.

I’ve also now learned that trying to manhandle a big-bag off the trailer is a foolish endeavour. The best method is to shovel its contents while it’s still on the trailer into another empty big-bag standing next to the trailer on the ground. It doesn’t take long, doesn’t take a lot of effort and you lose hardly any of the material in the process.

So that’s what I did – actually I offloaded some of the ballast into the Leroy Merlin giant big-bag that was already half full of ballast from earlier on and the remainder into the empty big-bag that I already had.

My second trip to Brico Depot was a bit more complicated. This time I needed a big-bag of sand and only two sheets of reinforcing steel. However, I needed four sheets of steel in my trailer to support the weight of the big-bag which meant that I needed to take back with me two of the sheets that I’d purchased earlier. Luckily I cleared with the security guy and the young chap who loaded the steel onto my trailer with a fork-lift that when I arrived at the check-out hut, although I’d have four sheets of steel on-board, I’d only have to pay for two of them.

Unfortunately it was almost impossible to get the lady with the scanner to understand this simple notion, although the young French guy who was next behind me in the queue obviously did because he found the whole thing very amusing. However, the penny eventually dropped and here are a couple of shots of my final trailer-load ready to be off-loaded back at Labattut at the end of the afternoon.

And finally with all of the materials unloaded and ready to get going laying the base for my long-awaited little metal tool store.

The weather forecast is very favourable and it looks as though we can expect a period of several dry, sunny days. So an ideal time, hopefully, to get the job wrapped up so I can begin to move on again.