ssomon

That looks a bit like the van belonging to the man we met going through the bins at our dechetterie, who has a reclamation yard a few km from us. He came with his two sons to collect two massive stone fireplaces we removed, and left with the rear wheels rubbing the arches. And that was before the two large sons climbed in.

I know it's sometimes difficult to understand everything, ALBF. Some things are just beyond our ken.

A PAC - pompe à chaleur - is a heat pump, which is what we use for heating, although the term seems to have come to be used colloquially just for central heating installations in France, where they love acronyms. Ours are reversible air to air split units, using the outside air and treating the air in the house. In heating mode this requires the high pressure side of the unit to reach relatively high values in order to adequately heat the air in the house, which are not reached when it gets too cold, but the lower pressures reached in cold weather are able to heat liquid to a temperature sufficient for underfloor heating. Ceiling heating is also possible - Google it. The best solution for heating, taking into account the current costs of electricity and fuels to burn, is probably a heat pump system with underfloor (or ceiling) heating. This is expensive to buy and install, could make sense with generous subsidies, but won't provide cooling in the summer. For existing rather than new build houses where summer cooling is necessary, air/air reversible split units, multi-split or individual depending on installation constraints, are a good compromise. These should be inverter units with enough output to satisfy the worst winter condition expected, in which case they should work well down to lower temperatures than 8º. Check the specs for information. For very cold conditions ground source heat pumps will still work.

We have two ancient air/air split units, each consuming 890W, one at each end of the house. They came with the house, in 2010, and were installed well before that. Their nominal output (cool/heat) is 9000/9500 BTU/Hr, nominal COP is 3.25. I have replaced many parts during the last 5 years, including new compressors in both, and they still perform well. More modern, larger units, with inverters to vary the compressor speed would perform much better, as would units providing underfloor heating, either air or ground source, but we have what we have. As with all heat pumps the COP falls with the source temperature, and by the time it drops to 5º outside, the lack of heating is very noticeable. Also, heating stops for a few minutes whenever the units go into defrost mode, which occurs more often as it gets colder. I have no way of measuring the heat output, but we switch the units off when it is about 8º outside. Possibly the COP has not yet fallen to 1 (the same power out as in), but the units are not providing enough heat for us. At this point we normally fire up the pellet stove, but given the huge rise in the price of pellets, it is probably more economical to use electric resistance heaters, which are all 100% efficient, for the near future, as all the energy they use is released into the space they occupy. Calculations in 2008, before we bought the pellet stove, showed that it would cost about 25% less to run then electric resistance heaters. Using very rough calculations, the stove would now cost 25% more, with the inconveniences of that type of heating, so we will use electric resistance heaters this winter when the heat pump outputs fall, probably just in the rooms where we sit still or sleep. Maybe we'll have a mild winter anyway.

In the past it has been most economical to heat with the pellet stove once the weather gets too cold for our heat pumps to perform efficiently. However, as pellet prices have risen this year by up to 90% compared with a hike in electricity prices of around 25% I have decided to rely solely on electricity, using our heat pumps, together with oil filled radiators when necessary, until the price of pellets becomes viable again. At least I won't have to clean out the pellet stove so often

That's seems to be what he with the addled brain dislikes.

The wood pellet supplier gives the following information on paying by bank transfer (in fact, a payment to an unknown entity, with no possibility of reversal) Notre paiement sécurisé Avec SSL Le paiement par virement bancaire Vous êtes nombreux à nous avoir fait part de vos réticences à payer par carte bancaire sur internet. C’est pour cette raison que nous avons mis en place le paiement par virement bancaire. En utilisant le mode de paiement par virement, vous êtes doublement protégé : 1/ Vous n’avez plus à utiliser votre carte bancaire. La transaction se fera directement entre votre banque et la nôtre. 2/ Avec un paiement par virement, nous pouvons vous rembourser aussi facilement qu’un paiement par carte bancaire en cas de problème. Enfin, c’est aussi rapide qu’un paiement par carte bancaire. Vous recevrez votre produit immédiatement. Comment payer par virement bancaire ? Il vous suffira, au moment de la validation de votre panier de choisir le mode de paiement par virement bancaire. Après validation de votre commande vous recevrez les informations du compte bancaire sur lequel vous devrez procéder au paiement votre commande. Pour plus de facilité de traitement, vous mentionnerez sur votre ordre de virement le numéro de commande. La commande sera définitivement validée à réception du virement. Vous recevrez alors un mail de confirmation. A noter Les produits commandés sont réservés pour une période de 03 jours. Passé ce délai, et sans réception du règlement, les produits seront automatiquement remis en stock et la commande annulée.

Thanks. I put the site address into their system. The analysis, while not saying it is a scam site, was far from reassuring.

As pellets have become difficult to get this year and prices from my usual suppliers have gone rather high, I looked for alternatives. I found a company offering pallets of pellets at similar prices to last year, with free delivery - from Haute-Savoie!, so went through their ordering process for a 66 bag pallet. When it came to payment the only option is to pay by bank transfer to an IBAN and a BIC, and an email arrived shortly repeating these details. As I always pay for online purchases by PayPal if possible, with Credit Card payments as my second option, I didn't go ahead with the purchase right then. Today I checked the IBAN and BIC, to find they are for an Irish prepayment card company with an office in Paris. I also found THIS among other information, and decided to look elsewhere for pellets.

Never mind, ET. There will always be people who complain, and criticise what others do, without actually doing anything more constructive about their grievances.

Your kiln-dried, palleted firewood normally comes from hardwood trees such as beech and oak, which take many years to re-grow. Pellets are made from resinous wood such as pine, which is fast growing and easy to replace.

Make my day!

We ignored the advice that firewood heats you up three times, bought a pellet stove in 2008, and get our pellets by the ton. Since January 2011, the average cost per 15 kg sack is €4.55, and we have burned an average of 50 sacks per winter. They are very clean, and easy to store and use.

I'm all for UN FOB!

Could crevette be derived in some way from the verb crever? Most car drivers in the UK seem to call the remote control gizmos to open car doors etc. simply "fobs", so I think that would also be used for similar devices in general. Try referring to them as fobs to your colleagues. It might catch on. "Un fob" may sound appealing to the French.

Tu t'as mal dans la tête, non?

I see they have gone beyond simply having the labels on the outside to show off what you wear, they plaster the name all over the clothes. And the prices are beyond ridiculous!

Problems near us this year https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/occitanie/herault/montpellier/herault-la-secheresse-provoque-des-fissures-dans-les-habitations-un-dommage-difficilement-pris-en-charge-2599152.html#xtor=EPR-521-[france3regions]-20220821-[info-bouton5]&pid=459386-1651791101-1b2fba3b

We freeze soft fruit which doesn't spoil with freezing, when it's cheap - particularly cherries, and use it in fruit salads with whatever is in season, which we eat every day for pudding. We don't grow any of our own in our garden, which is large, but arid and baked hard for most of the year, so that even the herbs and garrigue bushes struggle.

Often they copy and paste a bit out of a previous post and stick their link somewhere in it. Maybe there is a 'bot which can spot key words and do this. It would be nice if editing were allowed for, say, 10 minutes or so after the original post, to correct errors or add information which was omitted, provided no-one else has posted on the topic. It's very confusing to see posts responding to something which has been deleted.

I understand that summer storms are very localised and unpredictable. All the forecasts for this area have said "Risque d'orages". We have heard and seen nearby thunder and lightning, but only had a few spots of fine rain here.

Northwest of Carcassonne, we had some rain during Saturday night, didn't hear the forecast thunderstorm, everything was bone dry before midday. The Aude is too poor to get proper weather, we just get what's left over from the other Departements.

Double post

Olimpia Splendids are available on Amazon France. 1.8kW (6,000 BTU/Hr) is €999. Largest, 2.3kW (7,300BTU/Hr) is €1,369, both with free delivery on Prime. Actually a bit expensive for me, as I do our AC&R installation and repair myself, so split units cost us less, but they are probably good value for someone who has to pay for professional installation. The Splendids are also a bit small for us. We manage with two ancient 9,000 BTU/Hr split units, possibly installed in 2000 or even earlier, which were in this house when we bought it in 2010. I have replaced the compressors and some electrical parts in both units, but I can't keep them going for ever, and I dream of two slightly larger new split units, which might even provide enough heating in the winter. With the current outdoor temperature well into the 30's I have the thermostats set on 24º, and the units run probably 50% of the time, cooling an area of about 110 sq m. The rooms containing the units are at 24º all the time, and the furthest away, the office and the kitchen, are quite habitable. This house is extremely well insulated, plus there is only one small window on the south side (and the north), none on the west side, and the shutters are kept closed on the east side of the house until after midday.

If you look at the installation videos on the site I linked to, you will see that the unit I mentioned above is simply hung on the wall to line up with the two 20cm holes, and can be unplugged from the mains supply, moved away from the wall to disconnect the condensate drain, and taken to a repair shop just as easily as a portable unit.