Opel Fruit<P><BR>Opel Fruit, Dept. 53<P>

You could get the Telepeage if you use the tolls frequently - then you just drive through. Not for everyone but cuts the queues and the stopping.... http://www.sanef.com/fr/ecommerce/particulier/offres.jsp

Expect to pay about 63c/L now, and 69c/L in October. Total warned 75c/L by December possible. If it's any interest, electricity and Gaz de Ville are due to rise significantly soon too....

Most Bricos sell it. Or www.dabs.fr  

You must have a 8 storey building! I would check other apsects of the devis. It sounds like a "spot the desperate English" devis.

For the second time in about a month, I noticed the Gendarmes had set up the headlight beam test thingy just outside the Cherbourg port and were pulling EVERY UK plate! The fines are big, one understands, and there seemed to be a lot getting tickets.  

Pages for details here: http://www.grundfos-www.com/sololift/int/ or in French: http://www.grundfos.co.uk/web/homeFR.nsf/Webopslag/6AE76260D7580946C1256F90002B93DB We buy from a merchant. I suspect some of the Bricos do them too, but don't know for sure!

As I said, never known an RCB or MCB or RCBO or ELCB or whatever trip during storms. Even the one from last year on the 8th August, which was the worst here on record for some years. Anyway, this thread was intended to be a plumbing/heating thread...

Also make sure you don't ask it to do too much in terms of waste outlet lift. They CLAIM they can raise the waste vertically by 4-6m and horizontally 10-20m. They can't do this reliably! And when you try and get them out to fix it, they simply tell you that it was installed wrongly. And walk away. We have stopped fitting SFA units. We now fit Grundfos ones. German/Scandanavian.

Never known a quality MCB trip due to a storm. MCBs are designed to trip if the load exceeds a certain current for a certain time. They are thermal devices, too, so not "sensitive".  How a storm causes the load to increase is absolutely beyond me. In the worst case, a BIG central heating system would draw less than 2A (about 460W). If you have a 6A MCB, how the heck do you more than treble the current draw? I think someone's been to listen to the old wives...

Start here: http://www.castorama.fr/boutique/products/products.jhtml?elementId=CastoEL0113&navAction=push&navCount=0

Plenty of similar products....look in the cheese fridge, or like previous said, La Vache qui Rit is close or Super-U own brand "Fromage Fondu" with the pup on the lid is very good.  

I think Eslier is misleading people, you don't HAVE to register a Gite as has been explained. We pay a small amount of Tax (Impot) only, but then again we only take below the threshold.

Scale not our problem. Unit is almost brand new and we are in a very soft water area. Units are just rubbish.

We have a Sanipro with the same problem, plus when you use the shower with it, the warm water and suds cause it to cut out for 10 minutes. Garbage, absolute garbage. And SFA UK or France will not honour the warranty!!! Not a fat lot of help am I? Sorry. The non-return valve is in the elbow that leaves the unit, by the way. It is a crude flap valve. You could check is hasn't got any "sanitary products" or "leavings" stuck to it stopping it shutting fully! Some misguided soul decided to use IZAL R-Swipes (the greaseproof paper that doesn't remove anything, it just smears it around until it becomes thinner and thinner) on ours and made the thing cough like yours. And the moral to this tale is........  

Normal - the CE is steel, and you will get some light corrosion. Live with it, not a major problem.  

Our dept. is the same except Sundays and Bank Hols, nothing allowed.

I would say >95% of the goods are the same. I suspect there are slight stocking differences, but we haven't found any. And most of the prices are roughly the same in € as in £, so you save 30 odd %. You can also order off the website here.

La Mayenne....! Dropping the off-site Gite shortly (sale pending) - it's too much!

I think you have missed my point. I was advocating the use of electricity as a BACK-UP, not as your prime source of hot water heating. Therefore I was proposing an alternative form of water heating. Which is what we use, and fit. We own 3 Gites, by the way. If you are happy with your plumber, fine. That's your business.

Whoever fitted your system SHOULD have been cognisant of your needs... clearly not! You should have had a Ballon Rechauffage Mixte installed. You would then also have electric heating for the tank, both as back-up (your present problem), and as a means of heating the water in Summer when no requirement for heating and thus the boiler is necessary. There is very little price difference.... (You can put the tank on Heures Creuses tarif if that suits.) In your situation, I would get the installer back and demand he give you a system that suits your needs, rather than what he had in his store at the time....at a discount. On the other hand, it sounds like the guy is a bit useless....

Soft-solder is not allowed on Sanitary fittings here. You must use lead-free, which means 97% Tin - Hard solder. It is also NOT a good idea to use soft solder on French Sanitary plumbing, because the pressure is generally between 5 and 7 bar. Soft-Solder at 65deg C is only specified to 7 bar. Soft solder is fine for Central Heating and is widely used, for ease and cost. Injectors (Gicleurs) are not always available for every burner to run on paraffin. So my advice is to buy a burner/boiler sold for Red diesel fioul. Chances are you will still have to change the size of injector to suit the output requirements as I have already stated. They only cost 5-7 Euros. Unfortunately, few bother, to the detriment of the client's pockets or comfort. I have also mentioned the need for an inhibitor, and these are available with/without an antifreeze in them. Provided the system is adequately insulated, there should be no problems with freezing. We always use two frost stats, one sensing the air near the boiler if that is sited in an outbuilding or similar, and one on the return pipe in the form of a pipe stat. I'm not sure why the RCB should trip - the Central Heating should be on its own 6A breaker....  

The composition of all pool chemicals is clearly printed on the labels. It is relatively easy to make direct comparisons. It is ALWAYS more cost-effective to buy from Bricos or Supermarches than "Pool" suppliers. Try reading the labels before making glib comments? 

As far as I am aware, you cannot operate your AHI or ALI on a sealed system, and thus in theory cannot install it legally here. However, I would contact Villager and ask them for further guidance. The problem may be the need for at least one "heatleak" radiator in the circuit. This is also why backburners and AGA type things (yuck) are fairly uncommon, and tend to be installed by expats working in a "grey" area. If you wish to go ahead, I would suggest you bring everything you need that cannot be obtained here, like the header tank.  I think you will have BIG problems with a ballvalve here - 7 bar of mains pressure is just going to open it!!

Well water... Ours just fails the potability test - on nitrate and bacteria. However, we do use it for 1) Watering the garden, 2) Filling the pool, 3) As "Grey water" for the toilets. Our Town Water is supplied on a seperate pipe network to the taps, and obviously the Chauffe-Eau. Despite the apparent near potability, we still need to use a (fairly basic single stage) filter to catch what amounts to an awful lot of brown clag that gets pulled out of the well. When we filled the pool (15000L) this year, we went through 2 filter elements - it really was very mucky. Another point, you need a pretty powerful pump to get a good flow and reasonable pressure. And a 100-200L pressure-capable tank. Our pump was about 160 EUR, plus fittings. The basic filter was about 100 EUR, the tank and fittings were 450 EUR. And the pump is rated at 1.5 kW, so it uses a fair amount of that very expensive French juice! And you are "supposed" to have a method of chlorinating if you want to drink it.... very expensive and it does end up tasting like the swimming bath water.

Super-U also hire vans up to Luton size.