Terry had a job to do this morning and he needed a hand, so seeing as I owe him God knows how many days’ work I went along to help.
And where we ended up was at a house right on the edge of the Gorges de la Sioule – the cleft in the Combrailles that runs from South-West to North-East.
The view is certainly spectacular from here, that’s for sure and I wouldn’t mind a little field right up there at the back to build my log cabin.
And back home I started work on part one of the patent water filter system (and I would have done part two too but Terry forgot the puzzolane). Part one consists of a length of 40mm downspout, a reduction plate from 40mm to 100mm, a length of 100mm pipe, another reduction plate back to 40mm, a section from an old stainless steel mesh kitchen strainer and another length of 40mm pipe into the water butts. This first filter takes the place of the sump (the stones and the like sink to the bottom of the 100mm pipe) and the mesh filter inside the water butt.
You can see what I mean in the photo just here. Filter n°1 is the one on the right-hand side. The mesh is to the left of the filter so anything that I don’t want to drop into the tank will stay in the section of 100mm pipe – the grey stuff.
To the left of filter n°1 is another grey section of 100mm pipe. That will be filter n°2. It’s constructed in the same way as filter n°1 except that it will be filled with puzzolane and there will be stainless steel mesh at either end. The purpose of that will be to to keep the puzzolane in the section of 100mm pipe and that will be the water filter.
I’m eventually going to make up two sections of these so that I can change them and clean them. Cleaning by the way will be quite easy – you just put a pressure hose to blow backwards and that will move all of the debris out.
Of course the idea of using puzzolane is not new. The Romans were the first recorded users of puzzolane for filtration purposes (they also used it as a base for Roman concrete) but nature makes quite good use of it too – Volvic water from just down the road from here uses natural puzzolane seams to naturally filter the water that rises up from the water table. That’s ground water of course – and I’m using rain water so I bet mine will be cleaner than theirs.
Tonight I went into Pionsat for the annual fireworks display. And that was nothing much to write home about although it is nice to go out. But it did remind me of Guy Fawkes’ Night 1980 when I was a taxi driver in Crewe. There was a company in Crewe at that time called “Dial A Car” and they had two vehicles, a Vauxhall Victor Transcontinental Estate that was driven by one driver, and he had only one speed and that was “flat out everywhere”. The other car was an absolutely ancient and derelict Ford Zephyr. That night around Crewe these two cars became affectionately known as “Dial A Rocket” and “Dial A Banger”.
