Not surprisingly we wanted to hire the same guys to lay the sub-floor upon which the pavement will be put later on. Like I already mentioned, this particular firm uses a terracotta based substance, rather than the concrete sub-floor that is usually used. Yes... it's twice as expensive... Not really the sort of thing you'd normally choose when your financial situation isn't all that brilliant. But this terracotta mixture is in fact the same as the one the Romans already used for their floor heating 2000 years ago. After all, terracotta conducts heat many times better than concrete. This means that for starters we'll not nearly have to spend as much on central heating and that we'll have a return on investment in perhaps a couple of years already. But it also means that the central heating will have an even more pleasant feel than with normal floor heating.
But two weeks ago... disaster struck. Christine had already been pushing them to come as quickly as possible since they had been deferring their work for already quite some time. We were actually heading towards a tough choice. Either waiting even longer or hiring someone else and settling for the "normal" concrete. Unfortunately in our region noone else offers the same terracotta sub-floor. Christine tried to call them one last time and to our horror they had very bad news for us. They were already involved in a very big building project and they were under a lot of pressure to finish that before a tight deadline. It had become impossible to fit us in before September. Christine and I were devastated. Our wallet perhaps a bit less so. But we had such high esteem of these particular workers and their products that it would really be a pity having to revert to "normal" materials and - who knows - people who didn't take their work as seriously.
And then... the phone rang. It was the foreman again. And this time he had just wonderful news! The sort of news which would actually make one believe in divine intervention (although almost but not quite to me... hehehe...). A serious problem had occured at the big building project and the works had to be stopped for four days. Just enough time to do the job at our house!!! Hurray!!!
These guys actually come from the city of Modena, which is almost an hour's drive away. When they had come to do the plasterworks, they had rented a small cottage in our village for the period of the works. After all, this would save them a lot of time and in the current summer heat it's much more pleasant over here in the mountains. Can you believe that they worked from early morning until 9 'o clock in the evening? When they returned, Christine treated them on her famous pasta with broccoli and Gorgonzola cheese. In order to give you an idea about how close friends they've become in the mean time, the foreman confided that when he had to tell Christine that they weren't able to make it, he had burst out in tears. Where do you still find this kind of commitment? We feel so very fortunate!
The process of laying this terracotta sub-floor is quite similar than that of a normal concrete floor. First some patches are put all across the room to establish the exact hight. (You can also see the tubes of the floor heating on the picture...)
Then the terracotta mixture is sprayed through a hose and levelled by hand.
And here's a picture of the result. It's so beautiful that it's almost a pity that it still has to be covered with a pavement. By the way, the pavement will also be made of real terracotta.
It doesn't just look nice, there isn't any odour from solvents or other nasty products that are used in the "normal" concrete mixture. This is a 100% natural product and you can feel that right away. Now... the pavement...
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