🏰 EP 68: BIG MOAT PROBLEMS : - Chateau Life

[Music] [Music] so you got the camera out just to watch me fall in hello lightning are you coming to help you're coming to help you want to be a youtube star you want to be a youtube star he is the star he is the star last time we were really okay you want you want to talk don't you shall we get you a microphone yeah okay why don't you get a microphone right uh as i said he wants to start the opener really hello and welcome everybody to chatter life virtual translation of a dog um okay last time we were here i was weeding the gravel up to this area i'm just finishing off the steps because that's what we have to do and to keep it clean and tidy they're all about to drop seeds so we need to get them out big weed burners and stuff aren't fantastic then we're going to use something for all the smaller stuff i did mention that we generally use don't use pesticides and great suggestions for everybody in the last video thank you so much weed burners i have a large one and there's some suggestions regarding a homemade non-pesticide weed killer we're going to try all those out but we're also going to try out a new tool and in the corner over here you see lots of weeds so not to worry this is for another video project and we're leaving these on purpose because i've got a new cool solution to show you all right let's get on with this and the project we're working on here today at the chateau is the front garden area and it's this travel area this whole driveway it's very lovely and decorative and if you'd like to see more about life in a chateau living renovating and generally living in france make sure you subscribe to this channel and hit the bell button so you receive all the latest notifications the way the idea or shall i say the tool the new project came into my mind is i've been looking at japanese gardens and thinking why are they so weed free right all the sand and the gravel there is pitch perfect and here all i'm surrounded by is constant wheat so i looked at the rake and went and got identical one and the idea behind this if you rake the gravel every day or every so often the weeds and the roots of them lift up and the sun will scorch them and kill them just like this and then i realized that this little rake is way too small for this huge area for me to do so i needed to find something else and then i found this this is huge this is probably like a combined harvester of the rake world it looks really mean and i'm hoping this will be much better solution the way the rake times work is because they are so wide and far apart they let the gravel go right through without collecting them and bunching them up and the root systems of any weeds just get dug up and pulled out this is what a normal rake would look like see how it's just gathering all this gravel now this rake is great but it could do with an improvement just a slight one the heavier the rake is the deeper the times can go and therefore more weeds can get pulled out at the moment it isn't bad so i'm gonna ask billy for a little help on this and what i would like to do is put some kind of weight bar across there to make the right just heavy enough for it to sink down further i found this pretty heavy what do you think let's give it a go definitely uh this is obviously quite old so i don't want to go hammering and nailing things into it what about this metal bar there and i can just strap it to there to give it a go i think that's the good idea basically that's what we're after yes cool so before we strap it up we're gonna just give it a go and that is a good spot for it to stay all right gonna use cable ties man's best friend but mostly so we don't damage old wood of this in case we need to change this solution over you know what they say if it doesn't move and it's supposed to wd-40 if it moves it's not supposed to cable ties or graphite okay perfect is that the same for kidnapping if it doesn't move gafferty if it works right okay thank you very much and let's do the whole gravel [Music] [Applause] and that's where the time lapse footage has ended and died but as you can see it's looking awesome come and have a look closer look come on show him dog as you can see it's lovely and well manukin gravel here phil was in charge of picking up the big pieces that the rake can't pick up just yet we still get a few these are trees literally these are self-seeding trees but the little grass in most places did pick up but what it also did is leveled up all over this gravel over here which is really really nice everywhere and i'm sure lightning will be very happy with his results but what we have here is a lone daisy [Applause] i've left it here for now i'm just gonna pick it and transplant it elsewhere and let it just self-seed in a lovely place it's so cute and here are some uh holes now from the weeds that phil had picked out i'll just go over quickly with a rake to level it all out but all the weeds have been collected and in there and that was super quick and easy i love this rake and i'm just gonna do a couple more passes i think over here because it's the first time this gravel has been turned so i can get maybe possibly these grasses out that way phil's got less picking up to do it was much easier after you've taken a pass to pull the big stuff out so i'm happy that that's making my life easier and less bending down um my next task is not going to be quite as simple though i might need some help and so here is the finished gravel result after two passes so that's enough for today it's pretty good start a few little patchy areas but i'm sure they will start to die down tomorrow but a simple tool that farmers use to rake up hay converted to be used here at the chateau and it solves all issues [Music] [Music] [Applause] i don't think i'm going to be on the gondolas in venice any time soon apologies for making this look more work than it is so tell everybody philly why are you in the boat we've got i've got more weaving to do and let's see a moat fantastic at keeping people out of your property you know so castles came with mo stopping invading forces great defensive architecture doesn't really help when you need to weed the side of the building yourself so i've had to get into the boat to be able to get rid of stuff growing in the side of the house great fun having a note and just in case there's any rewarding forces it will help us keep them out in the future but it does mean getting to the building is a lot more difficult in fact sometimes almost impossible depending if the boat's floating or not and a lot of stuff is growing in the walls so i need to deal with that before it's a bigger problem that's a bit easier than i thought it is well uh in case everybody is wondering what that is it's a tree and uh yeah we have to get them out of the um side of the building always always always yeah the building isn't as bad as the walls because it's obviously rendered we do get lots of questions about the building and it's structural integrity with emote and all the rest of it the biggest issue is actually getting to it rather than problems that go with the water it's just the fact that you've got six or seven meters of water that is a meter and a half deep between you and the building which doesn't make maintenance particularly simple what philly's doing at the same time as holding on for his dear life to the chateau is um inspecting the house for any more weeds and also i need more structural damage or anything like that i think it's a great idea to keep an eye on externals of the property in areas where you can hardly access so philly did you find anything i found a few things nothing that we need to worry about today it's a shame to pull these little flowers out they're quite cute but they shouldn't be growing there and they'll only grow in cracks in the mortar so they're quite a good help to show that you need to have a look at something and there's a few reasonable sized cracks in the mortar which will need to be addressed at some point this year time to duck there you are so philly is gonna now pull out all these weeds out of the wall and the of course the ivy that's the most kind of nuisance bet part uh but by the amount of it i'd say he needs a lawn mower i was thinking more hedge cutter or chainsaw um the other thing that i have been looking at is i've just been looking at this bridge because as much as it looks in really good condition it's good to see it from underneath because this bridge is very old we've got old postcards from 100 and something years ago at least with this bridge in so uh always good to check it as that's our only way in and out the back garden from the house indeed it's a great time to check the whole structure not just the building but anything surrounding it and the entrances and exits are very important of course and of course philly is working in this boat which we basically call the water skip as the other boat is way too nice to be abused obviously this one is plastic and very wide and sturdy i'm hiding in shame do you want to tell me that again no hiding in shame what happened an ant an ant came and stole your tool which tools it ran off with it it was a massive ant they they all clubbed together and formed a hand stole it from me and ran off okay so then they dropped it in the water oh oh so that's yeah and what do you need from me because can i go magnet fishing for the tools please yes i'll get you my magnet fishing thing yeah there you go i'm just really pleased that we got this uh nice little handy tool this was all on purpose so i got to show it off again for the viewer at home yeah it's all for you guys spot the deliberate mistake yeah but on a serious note philly does obviously drop quite a lot of tools into the moat it seems and um well angie's always to the rescue you're making me sound like i just drop everything all the time well i don't know take what you will from that but um yeah get it out come on i haven't caught anything yet do you even remember when you dropped it because last time you did the same thing and i had to find it in a completely different location yeah show me that here what about if it's like aluminium or non-metal magnetic you know because it is rather light stop ruining all my shall i get you a butterfly catcher so you can maybe yes oh there he goes well done now don't do this again i'm gonna keep the magnet in the boat just in case look you're advertising two tools yeah submersible having a motor chateau around here is of course wonderful and comes with many upsides such as obviously increased wildlife as you can hear in all our videos beautiful hydration for all the plants here and it's just so unique and so so rare nowadays to find a beautiful place like this don't you think lightning you love this place don't you he loves it and he loves all the fish friends he has here lightning is just looking down at daddy and seeing how daddy is progressing with the work of removing all the weeds [Music] i know i know my beautiful you good boy are you a good boy yeah i'm gonna be done in a minute i've got it's gonna take me at least 10 minutes is that okay i'll take that as a yes oh no i'll be quick it's okay i'm safe i'm safe yeah maybe he wants to help you with his paws he wants i actually think he wants to get in the boat he does enjoy a little trip in the boat you want to go for a swim swim lightning should we go first run swim oh you forgot how to swim you want to go in the boat lightning you want to go in the boat hello hello no space in the boat today this place is really special most places that have a moat uh the building it's an island just like this and then the building is built on the island so there's usually a little bit of space around to walk to touch the building because it's easier to actually maintain it afterwards here on three sides it drops straight into the into the boat so there you literally can't do anything other than get a boat up to the foundations of the building pretty to look at beautiful to be to live in pain in the backside to maintain at times and there are issues that go with it oh here's something i find quite often see this little bird's nest an old one obviously hidden behind the drain pipe cute place for a home that's literally the foundation of the house straight into water there's lots of problems that go with this but lots of fantastic things and of course i get to look at from this view which was my favorite you really see the scale of the place i think that's a job well done very satisfying and i get half an hour in the boat looking at the home from a different angle i really do love having a moat here and everything it brings despite the extra work that all came off the wall that's just one side of the house haven't done the wall down that side or further down there it's not a bad half an hour's work to tidy up and i think the result speaks for itself [Music] job well done i think and a very satisfying one because i actually love uh seeing the house from that angle you know not many people ever do only me uh in the boat and so it's something that's a bit special that no one gets to see i thought though i'd answer a couple of questions which we often get about the house and the moat specifically one of the big questions we always get asked is does the moat cause any structural issues flooding or damp in the property and no it doesn't and i'll just quickly explain why you see the level of remote and how far away from the house it is the level of the bridge is where the floor is inside so there's a huge gap between the moat and where the floor would be so no issues there another one often asked about is flooding and we did a video on the moat system and how that all works link is in the description below if you haven't seen that one but that explains how the place all the water comes in comes out empties and it can never really flood the house which is obviously quite nice to know we're often asked about basements and there aren't any as they've been in ground pool but this is something i was talking about earlier in the video literally the house drops straight into the water all around there aren't really any structural issues the issues are what i've shown you in the video which is simple render stuff and uh mortar which you'd be able to sort out particularly easily just this one i've got to do it in a boat or a cherry picker it's all worthwhile when you stand back listen to the birds and look at that view [Music] and though it for this episode and we really hope you've enjoyed this one and as always a special thanks to our vip tier patrons if you'd like to become a patron then simply head over to the link in the description that will open the page with all the membership levels you can read what each tier level offers also a special thanks to anyone who buys us a coffee again the link would be in description comments and if you'd like to buy us a 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Channel: Chateau Life

Views: 18,172

Rating: 4.9643388 out of 5

Keywords: chateau, chateau du bailleul, escape to the chateau, escape to the chateau diy, chateau rescue, chateau life, french life, behind the scenes, decorating ideas, life in a chateau, french homes, Chateau France, chateau diaries, stately home, french castles, living in a castle, Michael petherick, doing it ourselves, castle, france, dick and angel, renovation, make do & mend, Stephanie jarvis, our chateau life, chateau de la basmaignee, the Pethericks, how to renovate a chateau

Id: JvL1Q0JlB2M

Length: 23min 57sec (1437 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2021