Strange!

Yesterday we took a detour on the way to my mother-in-law's house and noticed this new house being built. This morning when walking the dog I walked past it deliberately to take a picture of it. The dog wasn't sure what was going on it wasn't his usual route, but he didn't care too much as there were new smells...

In the picture you can see what looks like a concrete slab foundation - typical in France, but what surprised me is that it's on separate feet, so it looks like the foundation deck is a large box and I'm guessing the inside is a void or more likely an insulated filler. You can see the service ducts go through the slab and come out at the bottom.

House construction methods in France are quite different from the UK, where I grew up. For nearly a century in the UK walls have been double skinned with a cavity in the centre to prevent water movement and more recently with insulation as well to keep the heat in. France is warmer and drier and has never really adopted this technique. Though electricity prices have shot up recently they have been historically cheaper than the UK which has created a lazy culture when it comes to electrical efficiency so people haven't until recently cared about insulation as much as in the UK...

I hope this new building will be nice and efficient, unlike most of the other new ones round here that are built as if global warming isn't happening and electricity is free...