Halldfandid

Thanks Chrissie,Hope the sale went well. Back out in a couple of weeks for the final signing. A new era beckons!Irene

Hi Christie, Is this sale held annually? We have 200+ books (all modern fiction) that we would like to donate if there is a sale later this year. We have just put our house on the market so with any luck we might be ready to pack up by the summer time. Please let me know if these books could be of use to you and where we would need to get them to (we are near Figeac in the Lot). Thanks, Irene

Mmmmm...... edge of village..... overhead power lines... this is sounding all too familiar. In our case - why now ? Storms are nothing new - house was totally rewired 7 years ago - yes occasionally they throw the electricity off but we have never before had this inability to get it to go back on and stay on.

Neighbours may have been knocked our briefly by the same storm but they are not having the ongoing post-storm problems. Spoke with them yesterday. I think it is definitely a problem within the house and because it is non-specific ie no one circuit goes or seems to cause a problem just the main switch I wondered if the fuse ?? on that switch had been damaged.

Yes the incoming breaker switch is tripping and we reset it.

We have had endless problems with our electricity since storms on Saturday. There is no pattern to it - sometimes the power lasts 20 seconds before it cuts out sometimes several hours. I unplugged everything except the fridge and it was still knocking itself off at random intervals. We had to leave the house and come home yesterday - left the electricity on but I am sure it was off again within 10 minutes of us leaving the house. I am just about to get in touch with our local french electrician but before I do so - is the "main fuse box" the one with the main on/off and the circuit breakers for all the circuits an Interrupteur differential  or a  disjoncteur de branchement   or something else ? Is it likely that the "main circuit breaker" ie the one for the main on/off switch has been damaged by a power surge due to the lightening ? That's what it feels like but I am no electrician. Any clues before I contact the electrician would be most welcome. Thanks.

Ground source heat pumps pipes can be installed vertically in a borehole. I believe it is normally a more expensive option presumably because of the need to get boring equipment on site. However that is the option that we hope eventually to go with - just have some concerns about going into bedrock on which the house also sits - expected installation still 5-6 years away for us - I am hoping that it will all be a bit more mainstream by then.

Thanks Tony, That is all very useful information. Sorry for the delay - we've been enroute to "Figeac-ish"! Sun pouring in the windows so the boiler is not working too hard today. Another question - did you use a local French heat pump supplier ? We are directly north other side of Toulouse from the Ariege so if you used a supplier in the south west please can you let me know. Thanks again, Irene

I am very interested in this thread. We have a stonebuilt house in 46. Totally renovated over the last few years including extensive and substantial insulation, double-glazing etc. We installed underfloor heating (wet) which is currently powered by gas (tank in garden - no mains gas) but which we eventually hope to switch to a GSHP (that was the plan). Can I ask - was the 25k€ for the whole system including the underfloor pipeworks etc or just the heat pump and external work ? We also have a large standalone woodburner and I have to say that in mid winter when the stove is pushing out full capacity (12Kw), having the underfloor heating on too is total overkill - we are down to T-shirts! I must endorse the other comments that insulation is absolutely key - both in summer and winter - we are very glad that we did it. In our case there were no "internal features" to be saved - so we dry-lined the whole house and packed it with insulation - losing inches in the process but we were remodelling from 4 outside walls. I'd be very interested to hear experience from anyone with a GSHP installed.

I think that must depend on the Notaire. We bought (in 2002) using Immonot as our research tool (amongst many other property sites). I contacted many estate agencies by email. The Notaire was the only one to pay attention to precisely what we were looking for and then only send us details of properties that met our criteria. All the others either did not respond or did a scatter gun approach of sending details of every property on their books. Irene

The online capability for suspending phone lines seems to be working again this evening 3/9/2010. Irene

This is my usual approach too and I am having the same problems. I have also tried both Firefox and IE and get the same blank screen with both. Did you find out what the workaround was ? Irene

Thanks Clair - just the sort of detail I was looking for.

Can anyone offer any good advice on fishing in the Figeac / Maurs area  either any of the river valleys (eg Lot / Cele) or lake fishing. Friends are staying at the house in a few weeks and are keen to fish - I picked up the fishing map leaflets that the tourist office supplies but it is short on details for this area. Is it just a case of buying a permit from a local tabac and choosing your site ? I'd appreciate any tips. Thanks,

It is indeed a loooong day. Hope it goes well tomorrow. I think we will stick with Paris but go back to using the A/N104 which should keep us far enough away from the BP/A6B to avoid tailbacks etc. I'm looking forward to that new A86 tunnel opening at Versailles next year - that will open up a few other options. Hope the road is good to you tomorrow. Irene