marco

Our lovely old house needs a fosse toutes eaux and we have been looking at a Compact'O 6ST2 model manufactured by L'Assainissement Autonome. The concept and specification looks spot on for our requirements , which are challenging because the only available site for it is small and at the level of our first floor. We've been quoted a very acceptable price to fit it and I'm almost convinced. The only slight reservation I have is that the company who have provided the devis are unable to show us a locally fitted installation. Has anyone got one of these or has any knowledge of their performance ?

Hi, In the garden of our house in Morbihan there are lots of holes in the grass. These vary from a couple of centimetres diameter to 3 to 4cm and they are dispersed every 20 to 50cms. Our thoughts are that they are probably lizards, which we have in abundance, or slow worms which of course are also lizards but legless - much like myself. The only creatures we've seen going in the holes are the occasional bumble bee but we can't believe that they would need such a large entrance if it was their abode. We are in the process of having a Fosse toutes eaux installed and hate the thought of evicting anything and wonder if we could encourage whatever "they" are to move on before the work begins. Any thoughts ?

We want to tile our cuisine with 6" quarry tiles which i had envisaged buying in the UK and shipping bit by bit in the trusty but ageing Volvo estate. With nearly 50m2 to cover this would take a fair few trips, because of the weight. It's just occured to the brains of the family that we might be able to buy non glazed clay tiles in France. She's had a look at a few Brico websites without luck. Does anyone have these or have they seen them for sale ? I thought they were essentially an English thing. If I can get them in Brittany it would be a great deal easier and would save the tired old Volvo from even more abuse.

There is an English product called Sempatap which is an internal insulation that is applied like wallpaper. The makers sent me a sample and it looks very good. It may be easier and cheaper than tackling the exterior walls. I don't know how to create a hyperlink on this site but the URL is : www.mgcltd.co.uk

In the restoration of my old house I want to put quarry tiles on the cuisine floor. The existing floor is concrete, level and fundamentally dry. It does have a small patch which is green due to some sort of vegetation but even this appears to be dry. There is no damp proof course as the house was built in 1880. I would like to put a liquid sealer on the concrete and then lay the quarry tiles. Has anyone any recommendations ?

I've nearly completed the wiring diagram. 24 disjoncteurs so far ! Haven't added the extras for parafoudre and switched sockets yet but I think the box will be well populated. Now for the telephone and network part !

I'm ready to buy a pre equiped tableaux de repartition for a surface area of 100+ m2. Firstly, am I correct in assuming that the area is the square metreage of all floors combined eg. 90 x 3 floors = 270 m2 ? My other question is to do with experiences, good or bad. I've looked at tableaux in Brico-Depot and there are 4 choices, all with same prefilled equipment but offered at alarmingly different preices, Nalto at 169 euros, Felten at 239, Siemens at 299 and Legrande at 399. They all apparently serve the same function. Has anyone any thoughts on this differential ? I know there is a vast difference in quality and price between a Lada and a Maserati but I would have thought that a tableaux is a tableaux. Any advice or experience of 'dodgy' makes would be much appreciated.

Thanks Alex ansd Sid. I'll do the light circuits in 10amp. Happy Easter.

I am rebuilding a lovely old house and I'm designing a completely new electricity installation, all as per the norme and using Thomas Malcolm's "Electricity in your French house" as a reference. He suggests that only 16amp disjoncteurs are used for lighting circuits. I'm quite happy with this but when looking at prefilled tableau de repartitions they all seem to have some 10amp disjoncteurs fitted. Can anyone shed light (!!) on what these might be used for. Thanks.