![](\"http:\/\/micro-trike.co.uk\/images\/04may22_01.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nI watched them as they placed a few more into position and then went off to get my Fimi drone into the air to take some more aerial shots.<\/p>\n They were taking great care to get the beams aligned and every now and again after they’d dropped one into place they made an adjustment to the height of the column on which it was supported to ensure that they were all at exactly the same height and perfectly level.<\/p>\n Here’s a shot of a beam being aligned with its neighbour by being nudged with a large crowbar. In order to align some of the longer, heavier beams they had to be slightly lifted up again by the hoist operator on the back of the lorry.<\/p>\n The next shot shows the next stage in the operation. After all the beams had been put into place, all of the gaps between them were shuttered using short lengths of stout wooden board so that all of the gaps were totally enclosed to exactly the correct height. The following image shows how short lengths of the steel reinforcing cables that have been used to pretension the concrete from which each beam has been manufactured had been left protruding from the ends of the beams and then been bent to point upwards.<\/p>\n Each beam junction is on a column from which two or more reinforcing rods emerge also pointing upwards so within each of the now enclosed gaps there are six or more, depending on the number of beams at the junction, upward pointing reinforcing rods and cables.<\/p>\n The idea then is to pour concrete into the shuttering so all of the reinforcing rods and cables are enclosed and when that has cured all of the beams and the column on which they are supported will be knitted together into a single joint which will be immensely strong. And when all of the junctions are cured, all of the columns and all of the beams will in effect become a single, solid framework anchored to the underlying rock on which the house will be supported.<\/p>\n It’s great thinking and a relatively simple solution to what would otherwise be a serious problem, namely how the structure of the house can be protected from the effects of the clay on which it is built expanding and contracting as it dries out in the summer and gets wet again in the winter. But in any case, it’s how it has to be done here in this part of the Dordogne and these workers are very experienced and know exactly what they’re doing.<\/p>\n Now here are a couple of shots that I took when the guys had gone off for some lunch and to end with, some shots that I took of the finished job when they’d left at the end of the day.<\/p>\n I’m guessing that before the build can move on the concrete poured into the joints today will have to be left to fully cure, which may take up to another week. What will happen after that is anyone’s guess. I’m thinking that earth will be backfilled into the hole up to the bottoms of the beams. I think that then a thick plastic membrane will be laid in their interior together with some steel reinforcing panels and then concrete will be poured in up to the tops of the beams.<\/p>\n But I may be wrong. We’ll just have to see what comes next and I can’t wait as I’m finding this part of the build very interesting because it’s totally new to anything I’ve had experience of previously. And I’m speaking as someone who in my younger days used to work for Ready Mixed Concrete Limited in the UK.<\/p>\n And I tell you what, once these foundations are completed, I reckon you’d be able to build a block of flats on them \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was enjoying another mug of tea after my breakfast at around 9.30 this morning when I realised that I could hear the sound of a diesel engine and when I looked out of my caravan door I could see that there was activity up at the top of my land. When I walked up … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19113"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19138,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19113\/revisions\/19138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.micro-trike.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n