Alane

No, that is not the case. In our area ALL homes are having their fosse inspected. When the first letter arrived my neighbour advised me to ignore it and, as I was returning to the UK, I did. I then received a string of letters, none of which coincided with my being in France. Luckily the last letter arrived just before a two week visit as it threatend me with a fine or a spell in prison if I didn't get in touch with the inspector. So you will need to prepare to have a long stick, or spade in my case, inserted into your fosse at some point.

We had our inspection in July and the charge will be around 50 Euros - he told me the bill will arrive with the report. There is much discontent locally as this is an annual fee for 3 years for some reason although only one inspection is made. Our inspection was fairly uneventful although quite amusing when he lifted a manhole cover and revealed some unpleasant looking debris which I knew to be mud but looked like something else. This seemed to cause him some embarrassment although I would have expected him to be used to it. I also wasn't sure what to think when he stirred up the water in the fosse with his spade and then put it straight back into the boot of his car.

Anton Oxalic acid lightens dark stains in wood although I'm not sure if it will take out rust stains. It is sold in Brico Depot so may be worth a try.  

Coincidentally I was about to ask the same question in a new thread. We are converting a barn without a chimney and I have seen diagrams that indicate that an insulated metal flue can be run up inside the house rather than having to build a chimney. I would be grateful if anyone has more information on this as it seems an easier option than building a chimney if we only want a woodburner rather than an open fire.

Have you tried Direct Travel - my daughters have been all over the world on my policy and I'm sure the youngest was only about this age when they started. Only problem we had was when no. 2 daughter went on medical elective to Malawi which they wouldn't cover.

The T&Cs are quite clear on this at the moment but this change may be coming - I was recently asked to participate in a market research programme which asked for views on different options for the scheme. Joint accounts was one of the options. In the past I have found that an e-mail laying out a complaint in a non emotive way usually elicits a fair response from Eurotunnel. I've also found the service this year to be much improved but that may well just be luck of the draw.

The exterior timbers on our barn have, in places, been treated with a black substance that I assume is creosote. I'd like to get back to a more natural look. While I can get it off by using a sanding disc on an angle grinder this is messy and time consuming and also loses some of the wood in the process, presumably sand blasting would also work but would no doubt be costly as well. Power washing removes some of the residue but not all - are there any products on the market that will remove creosote from timber, or at least the worst of it? I seem to recall this coming up before but I've done a search and can't find it. Some neighbours suggested oxalic acid and I've used this on small areas inside but this seems to be for lightening dark timbers, not for removing creosote. All help gratefully received.

At that price it would be worth buying 10 Frequent Traveller tickets which would cost £390 and effectively get another 4 trips for £140.

Dave You can tamp and level as you go. My wife and I did a 6.6mx5.5m floor on our own last summer using a mixer. It took us 9 hours plus but we worked through the room and you are right - the far side was hard by the time we had finished. I used a powered tamper which helped no end. Hard work and we are reasonably fit and used to laying concrete. We would probably have been better off if we had two people to level and tamp while the others mixed and barrowed but decided that it was achievable on our own. We've another slightly smaller sized room still to do and will probably get help with that but will tackle it on our own if we can't get help arranged when we need it. My preference would have been ready-mix but the truck would have caused more damage to garden etc than we considered worth the trouble.

Brilliant tip to mark out the whole plan first. I'm also planning to use this system to dry line some existing exterior walls with insulation in between. Is it usual to fix the uprights to the existing walls or to fix them floor and ceiling, independent of the existing external wall? Also - in this case is it necessary to leave an air gap between the insulation and external wall? On another point - the UK guides show angled steel used for interior and exterior corners, eg around window reveals but this doesn't seem to be available in France - have I missed something?

I've complained about Eurotunnel in the past but recent experience has been much better. We came back this evening and I was expecting the usual end of half term queues at the French terminal, but no - straight to an auto check in machine and confirmed on our booked crossing, a swift passage through the security checks and passport contral and loaded almost immediately and away on time. Too good to be true of course, at Folkestone a car in the carriage in front of us wouldn't start and it took 15 minutes to shift it off the train so the rest of us could disembark but that I can put down to misfortune. Let's hope they can keep it up through the busy summer period.  

Thanks for the information - I've just got back from a week away so apologies for not replying earlier. Due to the foul weather for most of the week I concentrated on inside jobs but will get around to this next trip.

Lots to do next week on our barn conversion - one of the jobs I'd at least like to start is to put in the gaine for the - eventual - telephone connection. As I understand it we need to put in green gaine to near to the telegraph pole on our boundary - leaving enough spare either to go directly to the pole or allow for an inspection trap just inside the boundary. My reference book shows that two green gaines are necessary to the Gaine Technique Logement in the house. I can't understand why I need two - can anyone shed any light on this or confirm it is wrong please.  

Thank you for the responses. I should have said that the door is an internal one so won't be subject to severe sun and rain. I think I'll just go ahead and try it. If it distorts later then it won't be the end of the world if I have to go to Lapeyre and buy one of their rustic doors.  

I have some beech planks that I am thinking of using to make a plank door. I haven't seen beech used for this purpose before so wondered if there was a good reason not to use it? Any help gratefully received.

I made the mistake of gluing the planks on a door I made some years ago. In the end the glue joints just pulled apart with the movement anyway but the door was made of oak that hadn't been seasoned for very long so the glue was probably weakend by the damp timber in any case. Since then I haven't bothered with glue on shutters similar to yours and they are fine.

Has anyone tried varnish stripper or oxalic acid to lighten the dark beams without the mess of sandblasting? I'm going to try this next week when we go over next week but would be interested if anyone has tried this. Some of our beams are between 15 and 18 inches deep and the dark colour does make the room look dark overall. We used an off white shade in a Chalky Finish emulsion, (if I remember the brand name I'll update this post but it is available in B&Q ) on the ceilings but you could always try limewash. Mike Wye and Old House Store sell pigments that can be diluted as far as you wish to create light colours. www.mikewye.com and www.oldhousestore.com.

I've recently been looking at how I'm going to lay the floor upstairs in my barn conversion and looking at the floorboards in BricoDepot. Unlike the parquet boards the floorboards aren't tongued and grooved but have been rebated to half the depth all round with a view to laying them with the rebate overlapping, if that makes sense. Is this the normal French way or just Brico Depot cost cutting? It rules out hidden nails but I had already decided not to use that method in any case so not a problem.

"Regs state that all new builds and renovations must have a seperate wc" - Does this mean that the shower in Blanche Neige's example should be in a separate room? I'm just about to install a shower, WHB and WC and want to be sure that the shower doesn't have to be separate. I probably have the space but only have one window and don't personally like rooms without a window. I'm also not sure whether to go for a full VMC or just an extractor. I don't think I'm really clear as to the advantages of a VMC and while I can see that one extraction unit for Kitchen and all bathrooms and WC's might be useful they do seem to be a lot more expensive than separate extractors.

Hazard flashers are not much use when, as happened to us, the alternator packs in with no warning and some time later the battery goes flat on a stretch of unlit motorway at 11pm. It's a strange sensation as the headlights dim, the radio goes off and then the engine dies a little later. I always carry a triangle and reflective jackets. The reflective jackets are definitely mandatory on motorways in Spain by the way.

Mel of course may have had in mind the twerp driving at around 55mph in the second lane on the M25 between Leatherhead and the M20 junction the other evening with little traffic in lane 1. This clown had caused a long tailback of vehicles trying to get past him as well as having a number of drivers, including large trucks, pass him on the inside.  To the OP question - I suspect I am going to find out pretty soon if the UK and France have a reciprocal arrangement. Returning to the UK last week I was flashed by the speed camera on the final stretch of the motorway from Boulogne to the Channel Tunnel. I was cutting it fine but sticking to the speed limit but was flashed at an indicated 132kph. Normally my speedo corresponds to the speeds on the warning panels referred to earlier, at least at lower speeds, but maybe is just inaccurate at higher speeds. My fault for letting the speed stray over the 130 mark I know but even so it did seem a tight margin. It will be interesting to see how long the ticket takes to come through and if so what speed it shows for future reference.

This web site did, at one time, have info on Brico-Depot products and scans from the catalogue online  http://www.promo-conso.net/ Currently it doesn't have any info from Brico Depot but does for other Brico outlets. As Brico Depot have recently issued a new catalogue it may just be a question of "watch this space".

Mignonette You're really lucky if you've only been left behind once. It happens all the time at Calais at busy times due to the policy of only calling passengers to the boarding area 35 minutes before departure when it often takes 30 minutes to clear security and passport controls. An earlier poster said they were pleased the tunnel is being used more often - if you look at the stats on Eurotunnel's web site you will see that, in fact, volumes are falling consistently. The reason for the delays is that due to financial problems they have cut staff and cannot handle the volume of traffic at relatively busy times. A couple of years ago in an article in the Sunday Times one of Eurotunnel's directors said that they'd introduced the new hanger system as "The Shuttle is now too busy for queue jumpers" but conveniently forgot to add that if you cross their palm with a few quid they will let you jump the queue in any case (by travelling on what was then Club Class and is now FlexiPlus) and you can then be "all right jack". Regular travellers on any system will always get to know the tricks to ease the difficulties of travel (there are web sites devoted to this for air travel) and Eurotunnel is no exception. I won't pull the hanger change stunt for the reasons stated but I can sympathise with those who do.  

Before they started printing the location and date on the hangers we used to have a complete set - kept for sentimental reasons of course. It was put to me that Eurotunnel turned a blind eye as it was a perk for people who travelled often enough to build up the set. I wouldn't try it now because we are so often stopped either at security or simply by attendants controlling the flow of traffic and I have seen them looking at the hanger. I had one old hanger taken off me which I'd left laying on the dashboard when we had a security search. The guy was polite but said that the hanger did say that it was the property of Eurotunnel and he had instructions to retrieve them. They would probably know that you have pulled the stunt as they record number plate details at check-in and presumably on the train as well. I wonder what would happen if a member of the Frequent Traveller scheme was caught doing this with 9 of the tickets still outstanding.........

Chris The planks so far are for outside use only, shutters, faux colombage etc and seem to be ok. I made a set of shutters last year from the first batch I bought and they seem pretty stable and I made an external ledged plank door three years ago from some green oak I'd bought in France and air dried. The door is in full sun and allowing for the fact that the wood expands and contracts winter and summer it seems ok. As you say I wouldn't use it for furniture making! I'm just taking a break from making the mortices in one of the posts and it seems to have come up pretty well.