Opifex

We have an apartment built in 2008 and I am wanting to make a small change to the wiring. One of the circuits fed from a 16A ciruit breaker feeds two heaters rated at 750W each.  I would like to remove one of them and replace it with one or, ideally, two normal 16A sockets.  I realise that this would make the total rated load on the circuit over 16A and if fully loaded the breaker would (should?) trip.  Can someone please tell me if this is a safe and legal idea.  I'm afraid I don't know what size cable was used for the circuit. Thanks.

Recently two ageing ex-pats who have been in France for a number of years have spoken of packing up and returning to the UK.  One said that the regular drive to the UK to see the children and grandchildren would soon be getting too much for him.  The other said that he couldn’t stand the thought of ending up in a French retirement home and having to call for a bedpan in French. On the subject of the OP, I happened to speak yesterday to a property maintenance man who said most of his clients were English-speakers but that he supplemented the basic maintenance and gardening work with acting as interpreter and service jobs such as taking the car for its CT while the owners are away.  As others have said it would be difficult at present to start a business like this without good French.  Others have mentioned the dwindling English community but before deciding on the area it would also be necessary to judge how much competition is already established.   Good luck.

Back on the OP, some years ago I had a Belkin wifi device that said it could be used to extend a wifi network.  Why not try putting the question to Belkin and see what they suggest?  The Belkin website has a contact form.

I need to replace the hinge on a modern internal door with a metal door frame, but am not sure how to take it apart or where to buy a replacement.   A picture of the hinge is at http://s1239.photobucket.com/albums/ff517/Opifex/?action=view&current=IMG_3701.jpg&t=1297195633611   The hinge is held into the door frame by a screw.  Does anyone know whether I need to take the screw out completely or will merely slackening it release the hinge.  I am worried that if I take the screw out a washer or fixing plate may fall down inside the frame and be lost.  Can you please advise of any precautions I could take.  I would also be very grateful for any help with where I can buy replacement hinges.   Thanks.  

I emailed Expatshield with the problem and they suggested that  I could try downloading from  www.facebook.com/expatshield instead of  www.expatshield.com. Tried it and it worked fine.[:D]

[quote user="pachapapa"]Does the size of the file downloaded correspond with the size of the file for downloading on the server?[/quote] Good thinking!!  The file should be 260kb but I am only receiving 82kb. [quote user="Jay"] The problem is well documented, try looking HERE for the solution. [/quote] I read through the list and tried the suggestions that were appropriate but still didn't work. I've sent an email off to Expatshield to see if they have any other ideas.  Thanks for the help.

Hi, I tried to instal Expatshield on a Vista system but got a message saying NSIS error.  I have just downloaded a fresh copy and tried again but still get the same problem.  Any ideas please?

It's amazing how mention of Ryanair can spark so many posts!! We fly with the Ryanair several times a year and have never had any trouble with the service or staff. I appreciate that in exchange for a low fare I am not going to get anything more than a basic seat that will get me to my destination safely and, in all probability, on time. We always check that we have cancelled all the option boxes when making the booking, pay with a card that doesn't attract a surcharge, arrive at the airport in good time, and take our food and drink on board with us (in our single cabin bag). As for the staff being discourteous, I once noticed cabin staff being a little abrupt with someone when they stopped the safety announcement and walked down the cabin to ask two women to stop talking. I thought this showed a comforting regard for safety rather than a lack of customer care. On the route we use the cabin staff normally have to look after an almost full plane for 90 minutes and then get them off and the plane reloaded in 25 minutes. It must be stressful and it surprises me that they stay as cheerful as they do. The taxi we take to Luton is normally a new Mercedes, the driver is very polite, smartly dressed, and carries my bag, but he does charge more than the Ryanair fare to France. You get what you pay for.

Still in France at the moment so can't try the suggestions yet but I'll give them a go when we return to UK. Thanks.

I'm surprised no-one has mentioned the effect of car alarms in this discussion.  We come to France for several weeks at a time and leave an old Polo and a very old Porsche on the drive back home.  When we get back the Polo without an alarm always starts first time but if we've been away more than a couple of weeks the Porsche with an alarm hasn't got a hope.  I've always put the difference down to the alarm plus the fact that the battery on the Porsche is at the opposite end to the engine so you get a big volt drop in the cable.  I can't use a trickle charger because I don't want to leave cables trailing across the drive.  For about a year I have used a solar charger which has at least stopped the voltage dropping to the point where there isn't even enough power to unlock the doors as happened a couple of times before I got it.  

If you want more ideas you could look at  http://www.tilersforums.co.uk/ 

Thanks for the ideas.  Sorry I haven't come back sooner - I seem to have lost a couple of days somewhere - too much wine??

Hi, Can anyone recommend a French proxy server?  I've seen a few references to using proxy servers for receiving British TV in France but never anything about receiving French TV abroad. Cheers.    

We changed cars just before Christmas and last week I did my first long motorway trip in the new one from Calais to Gard with an overnight stop half way. On the first day I pulled into the first filling station we came across on the motorway and filled up with 95-E10. The terrain to our overnight stop was quite hilly and the weather was damp with temperatures around 6C. I set the cruise control for 75mph (120kph) and, except when we were blocked by lorries overtaking each other, the speed was maintained for the whole day showing an average of 70mph. The car did seem to be making heavy weather of the hills and the average mpg figure shown on the dashboard dropped as we went up a hill and then recovered down the other side. Overall the mpg was showing 48.8mpg when we had to pull-in for a small amount of petrol to get us to the overnight stop. This time I put in normal 95octane and the change in the car was remarkable. It felt more responsive, went over the remaining hills with no trouble at all and the mpg reading ended the day at 52.1mpg. At the start of the second day I filled up with Carrefour 95 and set off to do the rest of the journey. The terrain was not as hilly as day 1 and the weather was dry with temperatures about 12C. Again the cruise control was set for 75mph and the average for the day was 70mph. This time though the car never felt as if it was struggling and the consumption was just on 59mpg when we left the motorway. From the petrol receipts I have calculated the true consumption for the two days as 46.0mpg for day 1 and 56.0mpg for day 2. No doubt fewer hills and higher temperatures will have had some effect, but I am guessing that most of the difference between the two days is due to the fuel. I’ve found very little mention of 95-E10 on the forum so I wonder if everyone else is happy with it or just avoiding using it.

Sorry, mis-posted!

Thanks Araucaria, that could explain my question about deaths in 1919.

At the local armistice ceremony in France last week the names of all the fallen of the town were read out year by year.  We were surprised firstly by how many came from a relatively small town and also by the number who died in 1919.  Our first thought was that they must have died in 1919 from injuries they received in the previous year.  However, the local paper referred to the armistice of 11th November 1918 but in the next sentence said that it was 91 years (i.e. 1919) since the end of the fighting.    So, the question is did the war end in 1918, and the paper simply got its arithmetic wrong, or did the war really carry on until 1919?  I’ve asked a few people in the last week but no-one has been able to say which is correct.  

Thanks for all the information. Having accepted that I was not going to find any 40mm compression fittings I decided to go ahead and cut out the old pipe and replace with glued stuff.  The leak was where the plain pipe from the trap assembly went into the connector to the drain.  I found that this joint was flexible and with a little persuasion came apart.  I then found that the rubbery sealant that had been holding the water at bay could be peeled off the trap outlet and after a couple of minutes I had a completely clean pipe.  This got me worried as to why the original plumber had glued one end of the connector but not the other so I tried a drop of the solvent on the pipe to see if it would react and it had no effect.  After another trip to M. Bricolage I found an adapter that could replace the original pipe to the trap assembly and be glued into the new waste system.  Half an hour later the new connectors and a short length of new pipe were in place.  Unfortunately I must have made a mess of one of the new joints and it now has a new leak.  My option now is to either cut out all new joints and start again or to try and bodge it with a sealant.  I did find something in M. B called GEB Mastic Epoxy Anti-fuites that claims to work with all materials so I'll give that a try in the morning.

My elderly French neighbour asked if I could suggest something to cure a small leak under her sink.  When I looked I found that a joint was weeping at a straight sleeve-type connector where the trap was connected to the outgoing pipe.  Unfortunately I only had a ruler to hand so couldn’t measure the pipe sizes accurately, but both ends of the connector were about 40mm diameter, though the diameter of the leaking pipe looked slightly smaller than the other end.  The joint had obviously leaked before as some sort of sealant had been applied round the outside.   I had assumed that it would be a simple job to replace the whole joint with a piece of new pipe and use two compression fittings to compensate for any differences in the pipes sizes.  Being used to finding a variety of push-fit and compression fittings in the UK, I was very surprised to find that there were only glue-type fittings in our local M. Bricolage.  I then found the same thing when I went further afield to visit Leroy Merlin.  Can anyone suggest where I can get compression fittings for 40mm waste pipes?

I have been carefully following this thread as I was thinking of changing my UK-registered car for a French registered vehicle.  At present I am UK-resident but spend nearly 6 months each year in France and sometimes leave our car in France while we make trips to the UK by air.  As a result the car is in France for more than 6 months.  I was considering buying a French car but found the statement that “It is against the law for a British resident to drive a vehicle displaying foreign registration number plates in the UK” in the DVLA publication V100. I asked the DVLA whether this was the complete story and received the following e-mail: "Foreign vehicles brought temporarily into the country by a person resident outside the UK for their own use, are permitted to circulate in the country …..  provided they are able to satisfy the authorities ….. they are resident outside the UK. Normal residence means the place where a person usually lives for at least 185 days in each calendar year. Drivers may be asked to produce proof of their place of residence to the authorities of the country the vehicle is being used in." As Pickles says the chances of being caught may be small but I found an article in issue 31 of the DVLA publication DVL today that says that the vehicle may be clamped or impounded so it's quite a big risk. Assuming France has the same laws as the UK, it seems that if you live in the UK most of the year and have a car that is occasionally used in the UK but spends most of the year in France, then both countries insist that it is registered with them.  I can see a possible solution to this problem.  Would it be legal to register a car in both countries and change the number plates each time you cross the channel?  The UK plates can be used from the port to our French address and then I would have six month’s before they must be changed to the French ones.  Similarly the plates can be changed back the UK ones before I set out for the return journey. A simpler solution would be to carry on simply using a UK-registered car and hoping that the French authorities are not going to enforce the 6 month rule.  A few weeks ago I noticed a UK-registered car parked in a pay-and-display area with no parking ticket, but intriguingly did have a CT sticker on the windscreen.  From the amount of dirt on the windscreen it looked as though it had not moved for a long time.  The car was parked under the windows of the mairie and police station.  

Simon & Monica, I'm afraid I'm no help to you either. Welcome to the forum; if you've been lurking here for a while you'll know that sometimes things get tangled up with people having little digs at each other etc. I think it's a very good idea to spend the winter close to where you think you'd like to live. If you still like the area when some of the businesses are closed out of season, and when the weather might be cold and wet and still like it, you'll know more or less the worst it can get. Many places are attractive places to be in season, but close down for the winter, so that you have to travel for things you need. Good luck. [:)]