In Provence to build houses

I've told you many times about prefabricated wooden houses and their advantages. In order to bring credible arguments in favor of this type of houses, we talked to owners and visited several houses built on wood panel structures. They are all very happy with their houses and say that would never build otherwise. The most frequently cited argument was the short working time on site. We are all used to building sites that take years, with large crews and a lot of waste, and when we are told that a large, multi-storey house can be erected and roofed in less than a month we are tempted to think that this is at least an exaggeration. Story house built by Dimmer in the south of France proves that this is no exaggeration but a common way of building with wood.

In Gordes, a famous town close to the Mediterranean and the Côte d'Azur

În ciuda faptului că este doar o comună cu puțin peste 2000 de locuitori,  localitatea Gordes este cunoscută și dincolo de granițele Franței. Situată în regiunea Provence-Alpi-Coasta de Azur este o destinație turistică apreciată nu doar pentru frumusețea locului și apropierea de Mediterana ci și pentru istoria lui. Norocoșii care ajung în zonă descoperă castelul refăcut în perioada Renașterii sau satul antic cu case în totalitate din piatră. În perioada celui de-al doilea război mondial aici a fost un punct al Rezistenței franceze, comuna fiind decorată cu Crucea de război pentru eroismul și sacrificiul locuitorilor. Reconstruită după război, a devenit o atracție pentru artiști, Marc Chagall fiind unul dintre cei mai cunoscuți pictori care au creat aici. Zona este colinară, cu măslini și viță de vie, ceea ce a atras producătorii de filme. Regiunea a folosit drept decor pentru o serie filme printre care și “Un an bun” (A Good Year), de Ridley Scott, film pe care nu obosesc să îl revăd.

But back to houses. All this notoriety comes with rules that must be strictly adhered to in order to build here. The houses must blend perfectly into the landscape, only earth colors (ochre) and stone are allowed for the finishing of the houses, and the roof must be made of burnt earth tiles. The land cannot be enclosed by wooden fences but only by stone, and alleyways, called calade, it is all covered with stone. To comply with the rules, most of the buildings are built with stone, as they were in the past.

However, the owners of the house we are talking about decided to build it from prefabricated wooden structures. Convinced by the energy efficiency of these houses, impressed by the speed of construction and dreaming of a healthy indoor climate, they chose to build a wooden house.

House around the olive trees

The plot of land on which the house was to be built stretched on a hill overlooking the Mediterranean. In the middle of the plot there were two olive trees very close to each other, seemingly grown from the same root. The owners wanted to keep them and the house was designed and built to include the two olive trees.

Casa, cu parter pe o suprafață de 162 de m², etaj de 93 m² și terase amenajate de 143 m², a fost proiectată astfel încât măslinii să fie în mijloc. Sunt trei corpuri care închid o curte interioară “pavată” cu lemn, în mijlocul căreia se află pomii. Casa are un corp central din care pleacă în spate, de-o parte și de alta, alte două corpuri. Unul dintre corpuri are etajul mai scurt, permițând astfel amenajarea unei terase de unde te poți bucura din plin de coroana măslinilor. Proiectul a respectat modelul caselor provensale, cu ferestre mari, luminoase și usi înalte, vitrate care se deschid generos spre terasă.

The elements of the house - walls, floorboards, wooden frame - were built in the Dimmer factory in Comănești. Being a spacious house it took 6 weeks to build all the elements. The wood was cut and dried in the factory. After stratification and the necessary mechanical processing of the joints, the wood was treated with fire-retardant and insect-fungic substances by immersion. Basaltic wool was installed in the frames built for the walls. Finally, all the elements were packed and transported to the site in France.

Because they worked fast and well, they'll be back

Pe șantier lucrul a început în mai, cu turnarea fundației. Peste drum era un alt șantier, pentru o casă din piatră, început în urmă cu un an. După perioada necesară întăririi betonului, a început montarea elementelor casei. Asamblarea casei și acoperirea ei a durat mai puțin de o lună. Practic, în 3 luni, incluzând și timpul din fabrică, casa era gata “la roșu”. Short working time on site is due precisely to prefabrication in the factory. The higher the degree of prefabrication, the shorter the time spent on site.

Work continued on the interior with electrical, heating and plumbing, plastering and finishing the walls. The exterior of the house was clad with 100 mm thick basaltic wool thermosystem, which was then plastered and painted. A color specific to the area was chosen and the house blends perfectly into the local landscape. Looking at it now, only the owners and those involved in the design and construction can still call it a wooden house. Everything was completed in October and the owners moved in in November. Work on the building site across the road was going on and continued after the Dimmer team left.

Six months after the move, when the owners met again with Dimmer representatives, work was still going on at the site next door. They returned to France at the request of the owners' daughter, who was very pleased with the house and the speed with which it was built. She decided she wanted a similar one - prefabricated structures - made by the same builders. And so they got another contract to start this spring. The pandemic delayed it a bit, but didn't stop it. Work on the factory will start soon, and on the construction site as soon as possible. Dimmer has promised to keep us up to date as events unfold. We await information and photos from the scene.