Month: September 2022

I went out of my caravan this morning with the intention of watering my two little cherry trees which have been suffering greatly from the continuing absence of rain in these parts. I’m not complaining, but we’re still getting endless days of clear blue skies, very light winds and afternoon temperatures of around 25-26 degrees but no rain. But this is what I found.

Both trees had been attacked by deer, the smaller completely stripped of leaves and the larger almost. I can hardly believe it, after all this time. I’m hoping that the damage won’t be terminal as the leaves on both trees were turning brown and beginning to drop off anyway, plus the small buds at the bases of the leaf stems where they join the trunk are still intact. But I’m no expert and I guess I’ll now just have to wait it out until the spring to see what transpires. I am disappointed though 🙁

Now that I’m up-to-date on my house-build videos I can at last get back onto other projects that I’ve had to put on the back-burner. The first one is to do with 77ASY, my Savannah.

A few weeks ago, while I was sorting out the fuel problems on my X-Air, I decided that in the meantime while I was waiting for parts etc to arrive it was about time that I took my Savannah up to get some air under its wings. Unfortunately, after doing my pre-flight checks, when I started to taxy for take off I found that it had no brakes.

Luckily, despite being on a slight down-slope, after quickly killing its engine it rolled to a stop before any damage could be done, but it meant that it too was unflyable. This was the second time this had happened – the first was on a flight back to the UK when, after landing at Blois, I found that applying the brakes to exit the runway had no effect. Luckily there was plenty of runway left to exit at the far end after allowing the aircraft to slow down by itself, but it was a bit unnerving.

On both occasions, the problem was due to the brake fluid boiling out of the system in high temperatures and as I had done in the UK the last time when I had just replaced the fluid, I tried to do so again. But this time I was unlucky because the bleed nipples on both wheels were corroded in and snapped off when I tried to unscrew them.

I tried to contact Les Noyers, the Savannah agents, but as they were tied up preparing for Blois, Europe’s biggest ULM show in September, I couldn’t get a reply. So I tried again by contacting ICP in Italy, the builder of the Savannah.

I sent them a hand-drawn image showing what I needed and asked if they could supply the parts to me direct. The first thing they asked was, ‘What brake fluid had I used?’ I told them Dot 4 and they immediately said that this should absolutely NOT be used. Instead I was told that it’s essential to use a mineral oil based fluid and they gave me a couple of brand names.

They also said that this was clearly stated in the Savannah’s manual but when I looked I could find no mention of such a thing. I then wondered if there’s such thing as a maintenance manual, and sure enough I found one on line, but only in French, and in that it did indeed confirm, unsurprisingly, what the factory had told me. I wonder how many other Savannah owners have made the same mistake as me?

ICP suggest that Dot 4 can damage the brake system’s rubber seals and I’ve yet to find whether this will be so in my case. I’m hoping not because the aircraft did have brakes before but I won’t know until I refill the system with the correct fluid. Anyway, ICP referred me back to Les Noyers and after Blois I sent them the same image as I’d sent to ICP and they came back immediately with a price.

Below is a shot of the image with the old, broken parts in the top right-hand corner and the new parts I received from Les Noyers in the lower left-hand, for 40€ including delivery. All I now need to do is fit them and refill the Savannah’s brake system, which I was going to do today except I had to finish a couple of things off to do with the next project, which I’ll go on to describe below.

The next project is my computer that I’m typing this on, which is now getting a bit long in the tooth. I’ve never bought a ready-built computer with a manufacturer’s brand name on it but have instead always built my own to my own specification to do the jobs that I need to do. I think that my current machine dates from just after I arrived in France, so it’s around ten years old.

This is pretty old in computer terms. Nevertheless, it’s served me very well and could continue doing so except for certain in-built disadvantages that it has for the type of work I do, which are causing me more and more problems.

Take my blog for example. In itself it’s a pretty undemanding activity in computer processing terms but it involves activities that present two problems. Over time it’s grown ‘like Topsy’ and as a consequence, it comprises an ever-growing amount of data. Yes, this is all held on the remote server that hosts my blog web site, but quite a lot of it, principally the images, I like to keep on my own computer where I can readily access them.

The problem with this is that computers of a similar generation to mine are limited in the amount of data they can handle. This is because they use an old-fashioned disk storage system called MBR (Master Boot Record) which is limited to a maximum capacity of 2TB (terra-bytes). As a result, as in the case of my machine, although my main disk drive has a capacity of 3TB, one-third of this is unusable and is therefore totally wasted.

To get around this, modern computers use a disk storage format called GPT (GUID Partition Table) which allows the use of disks of any capacity. It is possible to convert MBR disks to GPT but the problem then is that the heart of the computer, its motherboard on which all of its components are mounted, has to be compatible with both formats, and mine isn’t because it’s too old.

So this means that to get the advantages deriving from the new GPT format, I really have to junk my existing computer and start again. This is hardly surprising given its age and I’ve had to do it several times in the past, and as my current machine is still pretty fast, I should as previously not have a huge problem finding a new owner for it.

And there’s also another benefit that I’ll derive from the upgrade. Every time I’ve upgraded my machine in the past, I’ve ended up with a much faster replacement. I’m hoping that the same will happen again, although you can never be sure until you’ve built and tested the new machine.

Why should this be especially important for me? It’s because I’m making more and more videos nowadays, which is a particularly demanding activity in terms of computing power. It’s not just the editing that requires processor power. It’s also what is called the ‘rendering’ of the final video, when the edited version is converted into the final video which can be viewed on a computer or uploaded to Youtube, for example. This is hugely demanding of processing and graphics power and sometimes requires many minutes, often over an hour or more for a longer video, on my existing machine.

After today, I’ve already ordered all the components and parts that I’ll need for my new machine and I’ll go through them all one by one to describe what I’m doing and why, starting with the beating heart of the machine, the CPU (central processing unit).

My current machine has an AMD FX-8350 processor, which was a good, upper-mid-range processor in its day. It was launched in 2012, has 8 processing cores, a clock speed of 4.0 GHz that can be increased by over-clocking to 4.2 GHz and an 8MB cache memory (the amount of data that it can take on board to process at any instant). It can support DDR 3 RAM (random access memory) which notionally had a maximum speed of 1066 MHz but which I think has since been upped to 1600 MHz. Mine is old so is running with 8GB of 1066 MHz.

I’m upgrading this time from the AMD to an Intel processor, a Core i5-1260KF. This was launched in Q4 2021, so it’s fairly new. It has 10 cores with a base frequency of 3.7 GHz, although this can be pushed up to 4.9 GHz by over-clocking. It has a 20MB cache and supports both DDR 5 and DDR 4 RAM. I’m going with 16 GB of DDR 4 with a speed of 3200 MHz, so this represents quite a big uplift from my existing machine’s specification.

To get the level of performance that I’ll need, I’m going to be overclocking the new machine. I tried this with my current machine but had a constant problem with overheating, especially here in France during the summer months. When a computer gets hot it just shuts down on you, which can be very annoying if you’ve been editing a video for an hour or so and haven’t saved the changes you’ve made.

To get around this with the new machine, I’m going for a solution which is mainly used on gaming computers, namely water cooling. My current machine uses a standard cooler with a fan that’s just strapped onto the top of the processor which it tries to cool by dragging air over it. As I said above, this works fine if the processor hasn’t been overclocked but can, even so, let you down on hot days, as it has a few times during this summer.

The cooler that I’ve gone for is a Thermaltake Toughliquid ARGB cooler which I chose because it’s especially recommended for the Intel CPU that I’m going with. I’ve never built a water-cooled computer before so I’ll be very interested to see how it goes. I might add that although it has a radiator, it’s not like a car with a radiator cap and is completely sealed!

Besides the CPU, the other key component of any computer is its motherboard. This is the unit on which all of the components are mounted and is crucial to the speed that the machine ultimately achieves. And more than this, every type, or range, of CPU has its own type of motherboard and although there are usually several manufacturers to choose from, it’s essential to choose a motherboard type that’s compatible with your CPU.

Motherboards vary greatly in price depending on the features they incorporate and the speed at which they operate. I’m not a ‘gamer’ so I don’t need a top-end motherboard, but I do need one that will take my Intel Core i5 CPU and DDR4 memory. I ended up going for a MSI PRO Z690-A, a mid-range motherboard with a reasonable specification and not-too-crippling a price.

I prefer motherboards that don’t have on-board graphics cards. This one has but I’ll not be using it as I’ll continue using the Nvidia GTX 1060 that I have in my current machine. I’ll probably upgrade later to a newer graphics card that’ll up the new machine’s speed even more, but in the meantime I’ll probably be able to enjoy the novelty of running two screens at the same time, for flight simulator for example.

Finally we come to the cabinet that will house all of the above items. Like motherboards, cabinets vary greatly in price depending on what you want out of them. Gamers like transparent glass windows to show off their machine’s innards with lots of coloured flashing lights to boot. I need none of that stuff – I just want my machine’s cabinet to be functional.

This time around I’ve had to look for a cabinet that is just that and is also able to accommodate a water cooling unit. The one I’ve chosen is a Fractal Design Core 2500. It’s plain black, which experience has shown me over the years can take the knocks and bangs that arise from normal use while still mostly retaining its original appearance.

I’ve also had to make sure that as well as accepting a water cooling unit, it will also accommodate the motherboard and peripherals I’ve chosen (disk drives and DVD unit) and has fans built in to provide everything with the maximum amount of cooling. Most ready-built PCs don’t nowadays incorporate a DVD drive but I’ll be transferring over the one that’s in my current machine as not only does much software still come on DVDs but I also have lots of writable and re-writable CDs and DVDs that can be used for data transfer and storage.

Other than the Intel CPU, which I’m still waiting for, I’ve received nearly all of the other components, including the water cooler, the motherboard and the memory. I’ve just ordered the cabinet and also a new 750 watt power supply, both of which should be delivered by the week-end.

And how much did all this cost, you may be asking. Just under 745€ is the answer. Not that much, but you have to pay to get what you want rather than what someone else has decided that you’ll get. And this figure is still some way below what I’d have paid if I’d searched to buy a machine of similar quality and specification. I’m now looking forward to the build 😉

Hooray, I’m up-to-date at last, because here’s the video that brings me up to the end of August, the month when the builders were all on holiday for the whole of the month. The video shows two events that occurred in August, the first on the 23rd was the laying down of the damp-proof course and the second and most important, the first delivery of blocks (‘briques’) in readiness for starting work on building the walls.

As the overhanging tree branches that might have hindered building work have now been removed, progress should start to speed up once work begins on the walls. It’s usual to continue non-stop until they’re finished, so who knows, the house might even be ready for Christmas!

Here’s the video from 28th July when the great leap forward happened, namely the laying of the concrete floor slab. It was done on one of the hottest days of the year and having started at around 7.30 am, it didn’t take much more than an hour to get finished.

It was important that it was done before August when almost everyone in France, including my builder, would be on holiday for the whole of the month. This would give the concrete plenty of time to cure and gain strength to allow a start on building the house’s walls on their return in September.

Here’s the video from day 12 of my new house-build project when sheets of reinforcing steel mesh were laid in advance of the concrete floor slab being poured. It was the day after the pipes for the heat pump had been put in place and only took two workmen under two hours to do.

Afterwards a spent some time tidying up their work a bit by adding more wire ties to the joints between the sheets to ensure that their edges wouldn’t be higher than the surface of the concrete when it’s laid and cutting off the ends of some long cable ties as well as trimming some excess plastic mesh so they also wouldn’t protrude.

Here’s the video from 25th July when the young workman came to install the underfloor pipework for the heat pump. He made a good job at the start but not so good a job of the area under the bedrooms and bathroom where he finished. I think that he’d been told that he could only stay on my job up to a certain time by which he had to leave. As a result I spent an hour tidying up his work in readiness for the next stage.

Sheets of reinforcing steel will now be laid on top of the heat pump pipes and then the project will be ready for a big leap forward when the concrete floor slab is laid. I was very happy when this eventually happened (see upcoming video) as up until then the polystyrene ‘hourdis’ had been exposed to UV rays from very hot sunshine over a period of several weeks that I had been worried might damage them.

Now that the first load of blocks has been delivered and is ready for use, I’m hoping that my house-builder will start work on the walls in the very near future. However, as I’ve been mentioning for some time, branches from a nearby oak tree were hanging over the northern end of the house and the situation had been made worse by the weight of their leaves bringing them down even lower, making it impossible to build the walls in that area any higher than just a few feet.

My concern was that this would give the builder yet another excuse to delay the construction until the branches in question had been removed and although it had been my desire to find an ‘élageur grimpeur’, a tree pruning expert who ascends into the tree on a rope to cut off the offending branches, while the builder was off site, this had been impossible due to the national French tradition of everyone stopping working and going on holiday throughout the month of August.

I was lucky enough to make contact with such an expert on Monday who came to see the job yesterday and said that they could come on site this afternoon to do the necessary work. I was very impressed by both how well they did the job and also how well they cleared up afterwards and here are some shots that I took after they’d started and had actually already begun to descend below the heady height that they went up to in the first tree to cut off the highest branches.

I was delighted with the results as although a couple of blocks got broken when one particularly large branch swung as it fell down, there are now no low hanging branches whatsoever over the floor area of the house as these shots taken from below and one side show.

The view from the front also gives a good indication of how much space has been created over the area in which the walls will be built, space that will also be amply high over the building’s roof as well.

And one of the good things was that although branches had to be removed from two trees, we got away with removing one fewer than I’d originally allowed for. This was a good thing because as the tree man said, if we’d taken another large branch out of the tree’s canopy it might not have withstood the shock, but as things have been left, it should recover with no long term effects. I’d hate to have been responsible for the death of a mighty oak tree that has stood, albeit crookedly leaning to one side, for generations, but hopefully now that won’t be the case 😉

Now that August, the holiday shut-down month has been and gone, I’m trying hard to catch up with my house-build videos. This one is from day 10 back in mid-July, when two workmen installed the services in the form of the plastic tubes that will carry the incoming water and electricity and the larger diameter pipes for the outgoing waste water.

Progress has continued at a slow pace as mentioned in a recent post but there’s hope that things will pick up in September, I’ll just have to wait and see.

I received an interesting email from my housebuilder yesterday that they’d circulated to all of their clients. In summary, it said the following.

The number of clients entrusting them with their projects is growing ever larger for which they thank them.

Despite the increases in material and labour costs, they will completely fulfil their role as builder in maintaining the prices set out in their contracts.

The Covid pandemic, delays in material supplies, difficulties in recruitment and above all, the number of projects they have in hand have all had an impact on their work schedules and at the present time, building works are taking roughly 8 months to complete from the commencement of site work.

By being able to make plans encompassing all of their projects they can juggle the mix of resources so as to be able to ultimately deliver a house according to plan and the agreed time period.

They understand that the waiting times are difficult to live with and they are doing everything possible to bring things on as fast as they can.

They will also ensure that they keep everyone informed of the situation regarding their projects.

As for me, I’m very relieved to see that they will be maintaining the price agreed in my contract as although the inflation rate here in France is, and will remain much lower than that in the UK during the course of my building work, I have a budget for work that I will be carrying out myself once the builders have finished and for buying new furniture and household goods. Although this will now inevitably be more stretched than I’d originally envisaged, hopefully their statement means that things won’t be as bad as they might have been.

Their statement about building times implies that my house should be completed by November of this year and if so, I’ll be happy with that. I’ll need to immediately install my new kitchen and the bedroom floors and November, possibly with the heat pump gently providing background warmth, won’t be a bad time for doing that.

And it’d be nice to be able to get my Christmas decorations out at last! They’ve remained in their packaging every since I came from the UK ten years ago so it will be a very fitting way to celebrate moving into my new home 🙂