crossy67

As I understand it you would struggle to get more than 9kwh on single phase.  You could always get the mats to switch on at different times.

Don't bother to be honest.  I feel it's better to be honestly ignorant than dishonestly informed lol.

I am thinking of changing the boiler in our soon to be French house.  At the moment it has an old looking oil fired boiler feeding about 7 rads.  I am thinking of changing it to an old Rayburn type solid fuel heater that can heat the rads too.  My thinking is it could be left lit 24/7, could heat the radiators and possible the hot water so we wouldn't need the immersion heater or use it just as a back up and for summer use. We could also use it for keeping water hot for drinks and cooking big pans of soups etc.  I want to reduce my electricity usage as much as possible and I don't fancy the 75 cent/litre for oil.  Any one have any idea how much oil the average central heating boiler would use?  I was thinking 15 litres a day minimum but I may well be wrong.  The house is a big 3 story 5 bedroomed house with little insulation (yet) in the south Charente. Thanks for any thoughts or advice. Ian

[quote user="Will"]you could write any rubbish you liked in the headline and first couple of paragraphs, as long as you put the truth behind the story in paragraph 19, which no average DM reader would ever reach. [/quote] Love it lol[:D] That's why I don't bother reading papers, you almost always only ever get one side of the story.

[quote user="woolybanana"]student bedsits?[/quote] Good investment but high maintenance, which brings us back to weather you can DIY or not. Depressed areas, not my area.  Ok, it's not affluent but by no means depressed.  Only problem with the cheapie end of the market is they are not in the best areas.

Where's here Norm? I don't get this taking ages for prices in France to rise bit.  I remember seeing French houses advertised for silly prices like £5-15k.  They seem to have gone through the roof when comparing then to now.  There are still some cheaper areas in France but not many left, will these cheaper areas be subject to the same increases once the global economy recovers a bit?  (presuming that it ever does)

[quote user="cooperlola"][quote user="Cathy"]Capital appreciation will be greater in the UK because of the restrictions on supply of houses from British planning laws. [/quote]That was my instinctive reaction, Cathy. Tell me, even given the credit crunch, are there many places in the UK where one could buy a viable property to rent out, for £100k? [/quote] Yes, there are houses advertised for as little as £75k in my area in areas with high rentals, these are very interesting to me but the maintenance costs would just be too much for us when we make the move over to France next year.  One worrying thing for land lords in the UK is the out flux of migrant workers flocking back to Poland and leaving their rented houses empty.

How we've sewn the seeds of our own demise eh?  We all love buying the cheep Chinese goods but now have given them enough capitol to seriously challenge the worlds economy.

Depends where you live I would think.  If you live in France then buying to let there makes more sense, you are closer to keep an eye on your investment.  Then there is the question of maintenance, if your tenants have a problem in another country you are at the mercy of a trades man for what could be an easy DIY job.  I would think maintaining a rental property in another country could be costly.

And most men drink beer, eat nuts, watch foot ball and fart. [:P]

We have 12volt halogens in our loft, have been going strong on dimmers for 8 years now, not used all the time but still going.  You watch, now they will go pop.  We have the capless type bulbs in the Kitchen display cupboards and they are rubbish, gone through 4 bulbs in a year, we only have 4 in total.

Can't run 3 phase motors on single phase sorry. You can buy an inverter to convert single phase to 3 phase though but they are not cheap.  We used to use Mitsubishi ones, they were quite good.  A quick ebay search shows between £175-400, depends on the size of the motor, rule of thumb 750w = 1hp. http://shop.ebay.co.uk/?_from=R40&_trksid=p3907.m570.l1313&_nkw=3+phase+inverter&_sacat=See-All-Categories You would be able to buy a single phase motor for less.

The male ones will have fury plumb shaped fruit[:D] Sorry, only kidding, not much help.

Common rail fuel pumps can and are very fragile.  I know of two Vauxhall CDTi pumps that have failed through being run low on diesel.  One was low when parked up at night and would not start the next day, it had been sucking air.  I replaced the pump with a recon one (£650+vat iirc) and it was good as new.  The other had been sucking air for a short time and stopped, luckily the owner is in the motor trade and knows his local Vauxhall service manager very well so got it done under warranty, the van was only a couple of months old. We run 3 HDi Peugeots (same as many Citroens) and have had one lad run his van out of diesel, we filled it up and it did start and run but was never the same until we had the pump refubed because of a leak.  The Pug/Cit pumps do seem a bit more robust than some but for the cost would you risk it?  I have never heard of running low on fuel damaging injectors but I do know Pug/Cit ones are coaded to the ECU so if you damage one you can't get a second hand one.

Yes so back to the topic.  I admire the French for their willingness to demonstrate to influence their government.  It will be an inconvenience I am sure but what's a week or so's inconvenience when compared to another 2 years working life if you want to retire.  What will be next?  Another 2 years, then another? We all here the slur, cheese eating surrender monkeys.  Well what's worse?  Cheese eating surrender monkeys of one that eats egg and chips?  We don't even stand up to the people we appoint to carry out our bidding.  Good on them for having more spine than us.

You need to be aware of the life expectancy of deep cycle batteries too and the replacement costs.

I am lucky, or maybe not, try giving up wheat, it is everywhere.  At least not eating wheat prevents the symptoms but we still do not know what causes them.  I had been going back and forth to the doctor over 16 years trying to find the cause of why I feel sick all the time and after about 13 years I was given tablets that stopped the ill feeling.  I am wondering what other peoples symptoms of IBS are because to me it seems to be a get out of jail card if the cause of a gastric complaint is not immediately apparent.  I suffered for years, have had to fight for the correct tablets after a generic substitute was given to me because they are cheaper (literally arguing in the chemist that told me they were not available any more, lies, I get them now), taking the generic ones made me bring up blood.  I have had a camera and blood tests, nothing found.  I now avoid wheat like the plague unless I take my tablets and life in general is good.

That's the definition of Celiacs disease though.

Tell me more here. http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/2300707/ShowPost.aspx#2300707

Following on from a thread else where. I suffer from an undetermined condition.  If I eat even the slightest amount of wheat I feel bilious, sick and on many occasions I have vomited, this gives some relief for a short time.  My GP had prescribed me Lansoprasole which if given the correct brand (Zoton) completely cured the symptoms.  Lansoprasole is used it the treatment of stomach ulcers, I have been tested for them and am clear, I have had cameras down my throat, nothing found and I have been tested for Celiacs disease, also clear. I have stopped eating any wheat and am symptom free.  Giving up wheat has caused me to loose some 2 stones in a 6 month period, I have always struggled with my weight despite having a very healthy diet with almost no fried or fatty food and having an active physical job. So what are we, the undiagnosed to do, live life labelled with IBS?  What is IBS, is it an umbrella that all undetermined gastric conditions are put rather than proper diagnosis? Any one else out there want to share their experiences and findings?

Just wondering what are your symptoms?

How external do the external units have to be?  We are moving into a listed village and I doubt I would be allowed to have several ac units bolted to the wall.  We do have loft spaces we could locate units in though. Any one with ideas how this could work, maybe with ducting?

Interesting thinking about UK vs French. I am looking for a Grand Scenic 1.5dci, there is only one lhd Grand Scenic on Autotrader UK, it's a 1.9dci (not as good an engine) 2005 car with 88k miles on the clock in a dealer.  They want £7995 for it, ok it looks lovely but most cars will if given a polish. Autotrader France has them with the engine I want starting at E6690 with less miles.  You could spend way under the £1.2k difference on giving it a dam good service and make over and be left with plenty of cash left over, and it's already on French plates. I would take a good look at http://www.automarche.fr/ before making any decisions based on cost alone.

Heating oil or Kerosene will run a diesel engine, a friend of mine used to pinch the stuff out of his folks oil tank for his work van, he was supposed to fuel for private mileage.  His parents had the boiler serviced every 2 months trying to sort out the heavy consumption lol.  One big word of caution though. Modern common rail diesels run a very high pressure pump that relies on the fuel for it's lubricant, get the wrong viscosity or one with different properties under pressure or temperature and it's by by fuel pump.  Here in the UK you are looking any where between £600 and £1000 to refurbish one.  As a side note, don't let your common rail diesel run low on fuel for this reason, it ruins the pumps in seconds.

Xenophobe lol.