Introduction from France

[KirAlet]

Just a quick message from sunny southern France.  

I work in the renovation business and have many clients talking about the North American ways of doing things, including buying log homes and putting them on land here.  

I will need your help and advice in the future.  In the meantime if anyone would like information on France (or W.Africa!) I'll be only too glad to help you out!

Thanks!

KirAlet

[PEG688]

OOO La la France    What big city would be closest??  Marsille ? Nice ?? MTL both spelled wrong  
 I did a bit of traveling in France in the late 80's.  

 Welcome aboard. A buddy of mine when to Amsterdam a few years back to assemble / train a local crew on some type of kit home , Pan abode, IIRC. Spent three weeks over there , we called him our "international carpenter"

 Whats your angle ?? Type house??

My boss when to Japan some years back as well to teach / do some platform framing , a bit after the Kolbee (sp) earthquake . The local lumber yard was shipping full house packages over there , appliances / toilet/ bath fixtures etc , every thing but the furniture.

The market tanked 5 or 10 years ago and that lil boom dried up.

[glenn kangiser]

Welcome aboard KirAlet.  It is great to have France represented here.  There are some great old historic houses in France.  I would really enjoy information on them and old building methods there.  We stayed in a cave B&B in Troo.  Wish we had more time when we were there.

Please tell us what you know about West Africa also.  A general forum article on each  with pictures would be great.  Is that asking too much?

[MountainDon]

Bienvenue KirAlet! It would be interesting to compare typical construction techniques in France to the North American. If you can post any links to educate ourselves it would be appreciated.

[KirAlet]

Thanks all, seems to be a friendly forum!!!

Firstly, I'm 'near' Toulouse, about 1h10m away or 130km (?85miles?) to the south east.  I have a small site http://limoux-renovations.blogspot.com which has pictures of some work done in the region, you can see that most houses here are of stone & beam construction.

Occasionally I get people asking about log cabins and costs etc; it seems to be as cheap to import them from the US/Canada as it is from Finland!

As for West Africa; what would you like to know?  There are two blogs listed below if you have time, Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea Bissau & Guinea.  I've travelled most of the world (including other areas of Africa) and been to some remote corners such as Mongolia, worked in Australasia/Asia Pacific ... so any questions regarding that do let me know!

Hope you're all having a great weekend!

KirAlet

[glenn kangiser]

I am interested in alternative building (here - alternative -- there it is just normal I guess) methods - how the rest of the world does it.  I like to see places where building is not so corporate profit, modern material, and tax base driven as it is here.  Also I am interested in how the construction was accomplished in houses such as the old ones in Vendome, France.



The view from the park on the hill was outstanding.

I'm checking out your sites now.

[glenn kangiser]

Great blogs and explanations - I will try to spend more time looking at them later .  Very interesting. Thanks.