Gyn_Paul

[quote user="Jay"][quote user="Gyn_Paul"] [yes, I know a professional would have some snazzy frequency meter costing 100's of Euros, but you get my meaning, I'm sure] p [/quote] Why not buy one for about a fiver then?  LINK [/quote] ....because I had one and found it about as accurate and useful as you would expect something for a fiver to be! I have no trouble finding the orientation and elevation of the satellite by eye, and all those cheap ones will tell you is 'yes there's satellite-frequency signals of some sort being received here' - 'here' being through about 3 or 4 degrees of arc, with no differentiation of actual transponder frequency. That's no more help, really, than the time-honoured method of creeping the dish from the left-hand edge of the detectable signal to the right, then optimizing to the centre, and the same vertically, and with skew. p

Thanks Anton, classic fm it is then.

Now that there are so many Astras and Eutels all sitting up there in their individual 1cu km boxes - all allegedly at 28.2E, but now spread out in a line long enough to tax even my credulity - which transponder would you professionals (and experienced amateurs) use to fine tune a dish 'by ear' (I'm up on the roof, I can't see the tv but I can certainly hear it). CBS Drama ? Classic FM ? Something else ? 80cm dish, non-Sky receiver (so I can easily, manually set it to any transponder), middle of France. [yes, I know a professional would have some snazzy frequency meter costing 100's of Euros, but you get my meaning, I'm sure] p

.... and as for Sky letting us subscribe with a non-UK address... well it maybe getting cold outside, but it's some way yet from the sort of temperatures needed for Hell to freeze over.

Resiting the hinges themselves isn't that hard, it's the covering up of the original rebates which is tricky unless you're into marquetry. As for the doors; if you trim off more than the thickness of the bottom or top rail, you simply  take off the front and back (what are now) strips of facing material, clean the timber up a bit, apply some more glue and carefully tap it back into the bottom (or top) of the door. The 'filling' for the door is almost always fanfold cardboard and easily trimmed back a bit with a Stanley knife. p

You'd find this problem would go away if you turned yourself into a farmer. Where we lived before the plan d'urbanism also prevented any new building other than for farmers and for farm building. And yet - magically - 6 new, 3-bed houses were built within 50yds of us while we couldn't turn an old barn into a separate bedroom. Apparently these were all 'agricultural worker's accommodation'. yea, right! one man who worked in the local bike factory, 2 others who had jobs in the local town, an insurance agent and a lorry driver. Oh those sort of agricultural workers. Right.  p

You *can* buy the lead: my builder bought a roll to fashion a flashing to go between two adjacent roofs with alternating pitch, but it cost as much as a small family car. The zinc I have seen in strips of a metre x something like 250mm, or you buy it (as I did) in a big sheet and cut it into strips as you require. It will cut with either tin snips or a Stanley knife with a new blade in it (score then fold and it breaks). p

There is a wonderful German system - and just as soon as I find the link I'll post it - which, as you would imagine, is Tutonically thorough, with bases, and joins and panels and everything which fit together and interlock and overlap to such an extent that no drop of water would DARE escape its clutches. It was, however, eye-wateringly expensive, which is why I didn't pursue it further. The Yanks are great ones for making showers out of corners of their bathrooms (vis "This Old House") and they seem to lay thick ply over substantial joists, then about 100 mms of screed on top, then tile directly onto that. I don't remember how they seal the sides to the floor, but it seemed that the key to it was to have a sub-floor sufficiently butch for it not to flex, thus less of an issue. Personally I don't see the attraction: I've always found walk-in showers to be cold (once you're wet) and draughty. Give me a cubicle with a lid any time! p

[quote user="Tarrot"]I am going to look at the house again tomorrow and will be able to assess whether it's a case of plasterboard or brick / stone.  Again, many thanks for the helpful replies. [/quote] Care to take a picture with something against it for scale while you're there? I, for one, am now quite keen to see these Toksvig-sized sockets !

Is there anyone with a wood-fueled CH system using a storage vessel and a Laddomat?  (this will, I suspect, only mean something to those who have one!)  If so, for the lower temperature demanded of an underfloor system, is it really more efficient to have one Laddomat on the supply side and another on the delivery side, or is that going to conflict with the local mixing at the u/floor manifolds? p

Of course Danish sockets are small.... have you seen the size of the country? [:D]

Are there any Dutch second homers on here ? If so can you confirm my fears that it is only possible to get hold of a Dutch satellite digitaal box if you have a) an address in the Netherlands,  and b) a Dutch bank account? p

I love it that we're all such nice polite people on this forum ! (mostly [;-)]  !) p

[quote user="Théière"]That has alway been my thought too, total agreement, has to be so much stronger.[/quote] ....this was for 3 sides of a patio 1m50 high to build a conservatory on, so I also dropped lengths of rebar every couple of metres or so vertically through the courses. and tied it into  the ring beam steel (something else you can't do with the 'U'-channel). I'm fairly certain it ain't going anywhere now!

[quote user="Anton Redman"]If you use 'google.fr' then 'chainage parpaing' No videos but the Leroy Merlin guide and some other illustrations. Only thing missing is construction the top ring beam using the block with ' U' shaped channel[/quote] Round here (23) the 'U'-shaped ones are quite a price. Not too bad for a door lintel but the price for12m made my eyes water. I stopped the blocks at the course below then shuttered the next course, filled it with tied rebar, and then filled it with concrete. About 1/10th the price! I'm also happier that the concrete keyed into the holes in the course below better than just mortaring the 'U' channel to the course below would have done. I hve visions of the ring beam coming adrift of the rest of the blockwork otherwise. p

The one I installed a while back had a standard 40mm opening, with an internal constriction to reduce it to 32mm if needed. I have a feeling the exterior was fat enough to make an internal connection for a 50mm, but I might just be inventing that. The 'wings' of it are sufficiently springy to hold it in place while the glue goes off, but if you are plumbing this into a vertical pipe, then, additionally,  I recommend holding it in place with some orange builder's tape while it dries, as it tends to droop. Also don't be too generous with the hole: there isn't a huge overlap top and bottom. p

Moving/altering/replacing the pipework on the incoming side of the meter seems like a lot of fun. Since you have no way of stopping the flow, you could very quickly find yourself in a great deal of hot (that is cold in your case) water. Or are you one of those rare and fortunate souls with a stop-coque* in the road? (* If I spell it properly, it will be replaced by nanny with a line of ****'s) p

I have a feeling the 'semi-detached' bit is subject to local interpretation: I know of almost identical buildings which were deemed to be,  part of the house's 170, and quite separate from,  in different departments. So - again - check with your DDE. This is France, after all, where a regulation which is strictly  adhered to, and rigidly enforced in one department, is 'more honoured in the breach than in the observance', in another ! p

I bought mine (when I was replacing the original in the chaudier) from my local plumber's merchant: (and humungously expensive it was, too!), not something I'd seen in the bricosheds... might possibly have been Brico Marche ? or Leroy Merlin... seems a bit too plumbery for Point P. or Bigmat. p

Just one little thing to add... It sounds like the OP's installation was not done by him so he may not know that with digital receivers it's important to allow a few seconds after any adjustment for the circuits to 'digest' the new signal information. With a Sky box, for example it can be up to 3 seconds after moving the dish before there is any change to the signal bars. So if you move to much, too quickly you can pass through the 'sweet spot' without noticing it. Some are worse than others. My Euro1080 receiver, for example, seems to take a God's age before telling me I've got the dish back on target. Speaking of which... Can anyone help me source either from France, or on the internet, aerial mast brackets. I'm looking for a bracket which will connect a vertical pole (lashed to the chimney) to another vertical pole (the rt-angle pole out of the back of a dish). but it must have teeth to grip, as the bracket I have at the moment has only depressions to vaguely centre the poles, and no matter that I tighten the thing enough to bend the steel, it still gets blown off station  in a storm. p

[quote user="tj"]http://www.cdiscount.com/electromenager/v-110-0.html biggest supplier biggest choice biggest discounts[/quote] Ah yes, forgot about them... good recommendation. p

Our woodburner's smoke goes up a flexi liner to the concrete chimney capping thingy, where it is suspended level with the top of the brickwork to maximize the draw, so the chimney cavity is not sealed at the top, only by the plate at the bottom, even so, the radiated heat from the liner heats the brickwork up sufficiently to cause stuff to expand and contract (and fall off sometimes). I didn't have it swept before putting in the liner as it was 'the wrong time of the year' according to my chap (which means he's swopped his chimney vacuum for his paint brushes), so it didn't get done. So I expect we can look forward to a few more years of occasional bombardments! p

[quote user="Val_2"]Sheet steel for us too, in two halves screwed together round the flue pipe so easy to remove - makes such a difference to keeping the heat in the house. Can't understand some of these folks who stick a tiddly woodburner in a huge huge fireplace and all the heat goes up and out of the chimney, defeats the object of the exercise.[/quote] Doesn't half make you jump however when a piece of something falls down the chimney and lands on the metal register plate. Sounds like a small bomb going off !

[quote user="cooperlola"]I'm a big Boulanger fan  because, in my neck of the woods at any rate, the SAV is excellent - a real plus point over here. The other mob who've been great are my local Pulsat but that's very pot luck as they seem to be independents and thus will vary considerably I guess. [/quote] You're very lucky then Coops, because the SAV at Boulanger in Nantes is lamentable: they refused to help me with the broken pan support on a gas cooker I bought from there (still under guarantee) because they claimed it was 'decorative'!    Don't you sometimes look back on things and think, "how did I ever let them get away with that?"

I found a far better range, from a larger number of marques on the French on-line stores than the meager offerings in (even) the hypermarkets. Admittedly we live in a very sparsely populated part of the country, so I'm not saying this would necessarily be the case in a large conurbation. Try looking at: mistergooddeal rapidodiscount rueducommerce I'd try the other way round too. That is, start with the brand and or model you want, then search for it online 'moins cher'.  Kelkoo.fr is a good (but not the only) price comparison site. I've been out of the UK for so long now that I'm not in a position to price/range compare... but when I was last there, their seemed to be less of a differential the higher up the market you went. For example a cheap Candy washing machine was markedly cheaper in the UK, but a SMEG fridge-freezer, not so much.  But that was back then... p