Episode 45 - Electrical Disaster At The Château!

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:01]This week at the chatau, everything happened at once. Our electrical block literally exploded. Damian's back with his Damian's fine. We finally attacked the basement of the chatau and for the very first time began bringing its old windows back to life. What a week.

[00:00:15]Welcome back to Chatau Besidon.

[00:00:26]So, we're um making great progress. The hydranches hydrangees hydranches are something just exploded. Something just exploded. Emergency services are on the way for the electrical company. Um for many reasons I will not be allowed to film. They are very particular about that. Um there's another storm coming.

[00:00:50]It's just one after the other and and like in between we have this weather. It it's a really really weird uh moment.

[00:00:58]We'll see. I'll try to share once they're done. I don't know if we'll have electricity tonight. Um, it's slowing down the work. We have people here to work. It's not great. It's so you see we have three entry points of electricity that look like that. Well, this one is detached and well, there's also a lot of greenery.

[00:01:37]It's fair to say that I am not touching the IV going up there. No, thank you. Um I would be like now my hair would curl a lot more than it does uh on a morning after shampoo, but uh Okay, so they are currently working on it. Um they're on the other side and um they're cleaning a little bit of the ivy that was climbing. Uh I'm very thankful for that because truthfully I don't think I would have dared touching that thing. Um so they're clearing it.

[00:02:23]They've got the big toys. So hopefully they can do something about this cuz it would be lovely to get electricity back.

[00:02:31]Well, at least that's pretty.

[00:02:35]I apologize for the look.

[00:02:39]Um, so the repair happened late last night. The sun was going down and and when the sun goes down, your guy goes down, too. Like I was like, well, I guess there's no electricity. I don't need electricity to sleep. So, I plugged my phone and hoped for the best. My phone charged and lights went on this morning. So, uh, we're back. The team came in on the stat holiday at night, fixed it up. Thank you, and now get to go do more work. I'm currently walking Arthur for his first um, walk of the day. Arthur, I'm not going to show you. He's doing his his things, you know, just kind of respect his privacy. Okay, let's move on to something else.

[00:03:44]We just finished setting up the tables here for the clearing day that's happening tomorrow morning. Um, we also had two of our patronons who have a house in France that they're selling and they're coming for the clearing day and they brought us some gifts tonight and I need to share those with you. This is kind of a demon's find, but really they were gifts. So, let me show you the first piece.

[00:04:09]This incredible tapestry.

[00:04:14]It's very large. And this is going to look amazing on top of a bed um on a wall behind a bed in one of the rooms of the chateau. And it represents uh there's a stag in the water and it's kind of a hunting scene really. So it reminds me of what we see on the fresco of the dining room, the barf we call in French. And yeah, it's a really cool piece. I think it's a n 19th century tapestry. So, very nice piece. And then they also brought us this chandelier. It's a Dutch brass chandelier with 12 lights. It's really massive and I think it's probably going to be perfect for the dining room.

[00:05:02]Either that or in the tower on the ground floor. So, not too sure yet, but let me show you.

[00:05:14]Look at this. He spent a month polishing it. It hadn't been polished in 20 years.

[00:05:22]This is such a cool piece.

[00:05:25]It fits perfect in the chatau and I'm really happy that they decided to bring it to us.

[00:05:32]Very, very fun.

[00:05:35]There's a few other pieces that I'm going to show you right now.

[00:05:48]Okay, so I just laid it here and I actually just realized that there's a chateau with three towers, which could seem like ours, though we have four.

[00:05:59]And you can see here the stag, the two dogs here. They're not just giving him kisses. I think they're hunting him. And this is really like a typical shasakur with a horn.

[00:06:14]And these are the other pieces he brought. They brought. So this piece that's probably a really old crucifix. Well, it's a piece of a crucifix. I don't know how old this is, but interesting piece.

[00:06:31]Then this really old mold for cake.

[00:06:38]supposed to be I think a lamb or some kind of animal.

[00:06:45]I'm not sure. He says he tried to bake in bake it bake in it once and it looked horrible, but we'll see what Tom can make of that. And then there's this other mold that looks like I don't know, baby Jesus or um Mary. Maybe it's missing the top piece. I'm not sure, but these seem really old.

[00:07:10]So, yeah.

[00:07:12]Another thing that's really funny is that they brought us these books. I don't know if you remember but couple months ago I found these exact books and I bought them for Tom because it's Canada France and it was written by Franu Garno which is Tom's ancestor.

[00:07:35]Tom's last name is Garno and this was one of the first uh writer he was the first writer actually of French Canadian history. So, what a coincidence that they had this in their house. They also brought us a few other books. But yeah, this is a really cool these are really cool gifts. So, thank you so much for these. Very, very excited about this chandelier.

[00:08:04]Cannot wait to see it up.

[00:08:17]Hello from the basement of the chateau.

[00:08:20]A little bit of a side quest today. So, I'm in what used to be the old kitchens.

[00:08:26]This room will become our workshop, but to store things here, I have to do a little bit of demolition. So, I'm not looking to get rid of the island. Not at all. But we got to have um the walls be able to breathe again. And there's a little bit of uh cement that was poured on top of it. Unfortunately, I'm going to try to remove as much as I can to let the the stone breathe here and um then we'll get to work and start moving things around.

[00:08:57]Little bit of work um today and hopefully in couple of days this goes from this goes from uh bit of a hole to uh my workshop essentials for the vlogger. the tripod and then the tools protection and we go to the chateau.

[00:09:35]It's a full lot today.

[00:09:38]Lots of volunteers. We are extremely lucky.

[00:09:44]Here we go.

[00:10:01]Okay. So, first thing first before you can um clear the the room uh is got to empty the access. I'm going to show you a little bit. So, this is an access that is under the main one. This is for the servants. We finally opened it. Uh, lots of stone work that needs to be done. We're already on top of that, but we're going to clear a little bit the steps so we don't kill ourselves going there. And this leads immediately to the domestic entrance here and to that room, which will become our workshop. So, let's get to work. Going to grab these two babies. that it's going to be dusty, messy, but it's exciting. It's always exciting to work on the chateau. It really is.

[00:11:01]Here's the thing with taking trash out. That's a bit of a pickle. So, we inherited all of that. There's powder of the stone that's kind of coming down. There is glass, wood, plastic, cans, tools, metal. You can't just throw this out. We can't. Um, so you have to sort of triage a little bit of it. It's not easy on such big quantities. So, we have a few bins, but we still have to triage inside of them. So, sorry, I'm taking my gloves as we speak. So now I got to go empty it there and hopefully it doesn't take an hour to triage it.

[00:12:00]All right, we're at the bin just on the other side of the chateau. And now we got a triage metal here. Then we have some >> and then plaster. Yeah, it's a lot of work.

[00:12:29]So, this is the glass from the lamp in front of the the chateau. Um, you can really tell the difference. You see how thick? I'm going to keep this one.

[00:12:52]Done.

[00:12:55]One more.

[00:12:57]All right. So, this is the first time we actually see the floor. We can notice that this this is twofold stone. Very different. It's a soft stone. This is hard stone. Same as this one. Same as the foundation. We are like those are giant blocks of stone. It's really nice to see the entrance come back to life again, but we can see there's still a little bit of work. Humidity made its way in. So, we're going to have to consolidate a little bit of that. But the entrance is opened and now we get to work downstairs. Let's go.

[00:14:07]Hey, Okay, so I just took part in this. Uh I'm actually out of breath.

[00:14:22]It's it's uh it's super heavy, but it's fun. I love destroying things. So this is great. So again, concrete over stone is no no because what it does is it traps the moisture inside the walls. Has two consequences. It's bad for your walls and then it goes upstairs cuz the moisture is looking for a way out. But if you look at just the this is just literally wet. It's like wet sand.

[00:14:46]>> Yeah, it's literally wet sand.

[00:14:48]>> So it's quite easy to remove the what's hardest is actually the weight of that machine.

[00:14:54]>> Yeah, it's you super heavy.

[00:14:55]>> It's just a little heavy, but it's it's a big it can really like you can go easily under layers of concrete. So that's super useful, but you you're you're dealing with a structure that is getting wet and the twofo stone is here.

[00:15:11]This is the base. And that's not great for tufo. So we're going to keep clearing it. So this is muong, which is stone and sand. And then from here on is tufo. Is that what it is?

[00:15:23]>> Yeah. I don't know if >> Yeah, that this definitely looks like tufo. This is tufo.

[00:15:28]>> The round part is twofold. Yeah, but there's some kind of weird >> Yeah, they put uh Oh, so by the way, when we were here with Pak, there's a vat that came out.

[00:15:39]>> He was living under one of those flat.

[00:15:41]Yeah. So, I just I I couldn't see it and and it came out.

[00:15:45]>> Oh my god. Okay. And >> so, you got a bit more work to do here.

[00:15:50]>> And then we can see here uh so Pierre and are removing also at the same time.

[00:15:57]You can see the stone here. smaller stones and then again this concrete that they put which needs to be completely removed. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done. This is a wrap on day one and it's messy. I'm messy but god it feels good to be working on the chateau. I don't know about you guys but I was done working on the house. Um, we spent the last couple of weeks planning a lot of things, which is not visually that interesting to see me at the computer, but we're back. We're back. Um, so we still have a few days more of breaking uh the concrete on the walls in this room and a lot more in the other rooms.

[00:16:40]That's important to let the chatau breathe again. And uh I'm going to go dump the leftovers in the tractor and uh go grab dinner and a shower. Maybe a shower. I think that's a good idea.

[00:17:07]Okay. And basement update.

[00:17:10]>> Hello.

[00:17:11]>> It has changed a lot here since I was here last time.

[00:17:15]>> It is different. Um, so we're done. We removed all of the um concrete that was um kind of preventing the walls from breathing. Found a lot of things like they decided to mix hard stone and twofo stone around the windows here for some reason. And put concrete over it which means it completely killed that twofo.

[00:17:38]That twofo is is done now.

[00:17:39]>> That's horrible because that means more cost for us. And look, this tufo was was all down here, but they put concrete completely wet still.

[00:17:49]>> So this So this is um a door um >> archway >> archway. You can see that they've put Tufo as as kind of like a noble for some reason. But Tufo was dying probably here. And instead of replacing it, they added a few slates of concrete. We're going to have to demolish that. But I'm not touching that yet because I don't understand um as well the structure. So we're going to have to have someone look at this before we do anything stupid.

[00:18:19]>> But this has to be taken away because it does kill everything underneath. Now the good thing is all the two foe breathe will breathe on either side. So that's a good thing.

[00:18:29]>> We have Teo, our stonemason that's coming uh in two weeks. So we can ask him that when he comes >> to have a look at this. I saw the biggest spider my entire life going in that corner. It was probably this big.

[00:18:40]So, we're going to leave her alone for now, but it's going to become the workshop. Um, just a few more hours of work here. And we have our first kind of like ground zero in the chatau. You can see artifacts of previous lives. So, this was a chimney that they clearly used and there was no chimney. So, there's a chimney here, but there was no chimney here for whatever reason or or heater or cook stove they were using.

[00:19:06]Um, so they added a chimney. So on when you go outside of the chateau here, do you see there's an added brick chimney that goes all the way up? Oh, that's the one.

[00:19:15]>> That's it's that. So we don't need any of that. We're likely going to just demolish the whole thing because >> it's useless and it's on top of Tufo and we don't like that. Tufo is a I said like a sports car. She's pretty, >> she's fragile, so we got to take care of her. Okay, so that's a wrap for the workshop. Next time we're going to be here a bit more action-packed. Now we got to move all the stuff from the the house to here and uh get to work in the chateau, I guess.

[00:19:48]>> Amazing.

[00:20:04]We are in the future honeymoon suite and today we are talking windows. We are um so we are on multiple things at the same time. But today we're doing a little bit of a tour of the chateau. One of the uh piece of work that we're looking at is uh the restoration of the the windows and kind of the puzzle that we have to do because they're in bad shape. So let me just show you a little bit kind of like what we're working with. All right.

[00:20:32]So, this is one of um our window. It's we're currently in the honeymoon suite and I've shared in an episode. I can't remember which one, so apologies for that, but I shared a little bit kind of the dilemma that we were having. Uh we want to go to double pane glass pretty much everywhere in the chatau where we can where and when we can. Uh because it's expensive to change that. But what we want to do is to make sure that we gain efficiency when it comes to energy losses, heating loss uh through the windows. So I shared a little bit in the past that we were looking at um doing double pane windows in our current windows or um do just you know brand new and change them gradually. In both cases it cost a fortune and we don't have the money for that. So, were um we decided to opt for option number one, which is restoring kind of like renovating the windows, but we can't afford all of them at the same time. So, we're going to have a trial. We want to see what this looks like. I'll show you a little bit kind of the concept behind the work. Um so, when they do uh full double pane, if you can are you able to get a little closer? So, what you see here, there's no more glass here. So, it's a lot easier to see. The glass panel basically sits on top of that. Then you have the mastic kind of like closing it up. So, this one is barely holding, but it's holding. So, that's what it is. Now, the double pane window would be too thick um for that, and it would be quite heavy to have three double pane windows. So, what we want to do is remove the glass panels here, remove the wood in between and insert one big double pane uh panel and uh and then of course rebuild the window around it and read the same details.

[00:22:26]What this does, one big window, is it doesn't um you know, people were writing to us, it's going to add too much weight, the windows are going to collapse. Actually, not. So adding one giant panel is like adding a backbone or adding a ver um like your um your spine I should say to your your window. So you're basically that's the thing now that is holding the window uh versus the other way around the wheel window holding the glass. So what we're going to do is that's out of my uh skills that's out of my reach right now because I'm working on other things in the chateau. So, we had to call for help.

[00:23:05]We're going to have specialized people that are going to come in the next couple of days and do a bit of a trial on some of the windows downstairs because here's here's the reality. The ground floor will not be insulated more when it comes to walls than it is right now, right? Um, that's not the plan.

[00:23:23]There's too much details. So, what we want to do is to make as much efficiency gains as we can through doors and windows. So, we've commissioned it for the big window in front of the chateau.

[00:23:34]That one's a biggie. I can't wait to see what it's going to look like and then couple the windows on the ground floor.

[00:23:40]Goal here is to see does this work? Is this helpful? And it allows us to put some money aside uh to hopefully continue the work. So, they're coming.

[00:23:52]They're spending a few days here and we're going to look at their work and see. Okay. So, I just came in the room before Damian. He's going to see this for the first time. I'm going to turn the camera.

[00:24:03]>> This is the last you will see of this window looking like that. It's getting a little beauty cure.

[00:24:10]Glass will be broken. Window is going to be removed and uh it's getting uh it's getting fixed up. So, that's exciting.

[00:24:54]Okay. So, I just came in the room before Damian. He's going to see this for the first time. I'm going to turn the camera.

[00:25:01]>> Whoa.

[00:25:03]We have glass in all these windows. What a change. Can you >> also >> I hear nothing.

[00:25:11]>> Wow.

[00:25:12]>> Nothing.

[00:25:13]That is >> that's what 60 cm thick walls with good windows does, my friend.

[00:25:21]>> A difference.

[00:25:22]>> You can sleep here. Also, it's currently 32° outside and it's nice and cool.

[00:25:27]>> It's lovely in the chatau. Okay, let's see what they did.

[00:25:30]>> Let's please have a look. Walk us through this.

[00:25:34]>> You know, still raw reaction here. Okay.

[00:25:36]So, first of all, uh let's see if it opens well because they were not opening super well before.

[00:25:43]Okay. Smooth. Nice.

[00:25:47]Looking good. Again, these windows are not finished. They're not painted yet.

[00:25:53]But honestly, you cannot tell that these are changed. These are the original windows. That was the whole point of doing this restoration, so that we could keep the the wood. It's nice oak wood.

[00:26:05]They told us that the windows were already in good shape, the ones that we were not changing. Um, we get to keep those beautiful espanollet.

[00:26:15]Uh, and now you can't see that it's double pane. Okay, so this is what they added. Okay, you can see >> a little closer.

[00:26:23]>> So this piece here of wood is what they added on top, right? So this entire sheet is one humongous double pane glass and then they just added those baguettes to recreate the exact same shape that was there before. It's really well done.

[00:26:38]Also a detail I just noticed that they did if you can see above. Come here maybe.

[00:26:44]>> Okay.

[00:26:45]>> The window is rounded on the top right corner because you see how >> um the structure of the window is rounded. That's because the wall, the stone wall behind is also rounded. You can't see it because of the shutters, but this creates this beautiful little arch. So, that's also part of the reason why we want to remove those shutters.

[00:27:07]Um, there there's a lot of work to do on them. And they just don't show the beauty of the stone around it and the beauty of the windows properly.

[00:27:17]>> It's kind of crazy to me that this is one glass panel. Like, it doesn't >> It's huge. Can you put it in five? Just >> I am in five.

[00:27:25]>> Okay. Cuz I I'm very small compared to this window.

[00:27:28]>> Yeah.

[00:27:28]>> Uh and I'm 6 feet, so I'm not that small.

[00:27:31]>> Um >> Hey, this is really cool. I I love it. This is >> Okay, so this one was redone.

[00:27:37]>> Okay.

[00:27:38]>> Uh we know this whole room was redone because when we commissioned this, we wanted this to be our bedroom.

[00:27:47]>> Very nice.

[00:27:48]>> That's just one same thing. Gorgeous.

[00:27:51]And something you guys might not know is that here we have interior shutters that are hidden. Look.

[00:27:58]>> Okay, here we go. We might find some spiders, but so this is also the reason why we're fine removing the outside shutters because we have these guys inside.

[00:28:08]>> Yeah, and they're brand new.

[00:28:10]>> They they look brand new. Yeah.

[00:28:13]>> No, but they're in great shape, honestly. We just need to sand them. But I love how they just blend in the window like that. I think that's so clever. Uh, and it, if you can see here, there was a, come see, I don't think you know that >> there was a little lock piece here, >> and it was locking here. There's a little hinge >> to lock the shutters.

[00:28:35]>> Oh, gotcha.

[00:28:37]>> Yeah. So, quite well done, honestly. Um, yeah, super happy with this. They did nine, I think nine pairs of windows to total. So, we have three here. We haven't done the ones in the bathroom here. Uh, that's the closet.

[00:28:51]>> The closet has a nice That's That's the central. I'm going to try to boop.

[00:28:56]That's the view. Okay, that's very well done. And then the other ones.

[00:29:00]>> Wait, there's something you also haven't seen.

[00:29:05]Look at the little moons on top. This is the only um interior shutters that have little moons like that. And I think it is so cute and quirky. I love those little details. And why in in in this a closet? Like you put beautiful details in the closet. It's funny.

[00:29:23]>> I've only seen moons like that on a door when people have um their toilet.

[00:29:28]>> Oh, yeah. Like an outhouse.

[00:29:30]>> Yeah.

[00:29:30]>> Well, this is definitely not the outhouse. I think it was the >> Well, it was for someone >> for the birds, but this was definitely the closet of the entrance cuz last time I was wondering where did people put their coats >> when they came in the chateau and this was the spot. So, it was through this bedroom here.

[00:29:50]>> This it's scorching hot. We're just in May and it's 32° I don't even Celsius.

[00:29:56]So, I don't know how much. I think it's like 110.

[00:29:58]>> I don't know. It's silly country with silly numbers. We're not We're not encouraging that. Move to Celsius and you'll figure it out.

[00:30:04]>> Okay. Wait, wait, wait. Let's Let's see this one.

[00:30:06]>> Hold on. I'm really going to sneeze.

[00:30:09]>> Okay. Let's do it. Do it on camera. Do it on camera. Do it.

[00:30:12]>> No.

[00:30:14]>> And that is from the outside.

[00:30:16]What a difference. You can see the three window. I mean, all the windows on the ground floor here were changed. And then above obviously have not um night and day. Honestly, this is looking like a chateau that's alive that is inhabited.

[00:30:31]And uh we cannot wait to get to all the rest so that it looks like this everywhere we look.

[00:30:37]>> Yes, indeed.

[00:30:38]>> Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.

[00:30:40]>> Let's get a lemonade. It's scorching here.

[00:30:42]>> Let's go.

[00:30:44]>> Hi, Tom here. Thank you so much for watching and for following along with this completely mad adventure of restoring Shadow Peson. And if you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to like the video. Subscribe to the channel and leave us a comment. We always love hearing from you. And if you'd like to be even more part of the journey, there's a whole lot more waiting for you on Patreon. Early access to episodes, daily behind the scene moment, extra videos, chat with us, and a chance to help keep this chatau alive. Thank you again for being here, and we'll see you in the next episode. Bye for now.

[00:31:33]Heat. Heat.