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Gyn_Paul

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Everything posted by Gyn_Paul

  1. Tomorrow morning I'll be a bit more forensic in how I approach the problem. Up to now it has been characterised by trying every combination of turning the bottle off, resetting the detendeur, resetting the boiler (after 6 seconds of clicking, it turn itself off and needs the gas flow control to be turned off and on again to get it to initiate the spark cycle again). My gut instinct was as you described above, Chancer. in which case you would sort of expect flipping the det and resetting it within the 6 seconds of sparking would initiate at least a burst of gas even if the flow didn't hold, but no. These detendeurs are intended to be wall-mounted: anyone know if they are orientation sensitive? I've long since binned the packaging. At the moment it's free-floating on the end of one of those short high-pressure hoses. Oh and - yes - it's a new, full bottle. Bloody things : makes me wish I still had the 40 year old E.M Leblanc with its pilot light. As long as it had a new thermocouple every ten years, some gas and a bit of water it lit every time.  Much more forgiving of variations in pressure etc. It would still be going if our acidic water hadn't finally done for it.
  2. Querky one this... never seen it before. Because our conversion is l-o-n-g, it doesn't lend itself to one central source of domestic hot water, so we have tended to install multiple chauff-eaux as we've gone along. But have now reached the rediculous point where if I install another one - not only will it spend most of its time full, hot, unused and leaking heat, but when they all come on to heat up at 01:30  in the morning (with the dishwasher and the washing machine) it will tip the total current draw well above my max 60A (especially as cold elements 'spike' and draw more than their stated value) So... for two of the little-used bathrooms I intend to supply the hot from a 14kw instant gas boiler (what in the UK would be called a 'multipoint' I suppose). Eventually they will be fed from fixed 10mm copper pipe, but just at the moment it's bottle+hose connection. OK.. so plumb it it, connect everything up attach the flue (check it draws) test for gas-tighness etc, Turn on the water and - bingo! it lights and lots of lovely hot water comes out the tap (or shower in this case). Everything appears fine until the following morning when it refuses to light again. spark can be heard tick-tch-ticking, but no gas valve opening. The gas bottle, I should mention is propane fed into one of those 1/4-turn detente/regulators. no amount of turning the bottle on and off, or setting, re-setting the detente has the slightest effect. However I discovered by accident (I wondered if the problem might be liquid gas somehow pooling in the hose overnight so I disconnected it and vented it out of the window for 15 seconds) that disconnecting the gas line and reconnecting it restored proper service. This morning - same problem - take gas spanner and slacken, then retighten gas connection to boiler and all is well again. What's going on? what is happening over 12 hours?? and - most importantly  - how do I cure it? I can't spend the rest of my life letting the pressure off a connection every time I need a shower! Most confused. (I'm pretty certain it's not a boiler fault 'cos I took the second one out of its box and swopped them over and it displays the exact same problem) I await your collected thoughts.... paul
  3. Well I fiddled about with the regulator and got no further, then tried it with a 1.4kg Butane one (yes I know the pressure, and so therefore the air mixture, is all wrong) and it worked, so from that I conclude the original propane regulator is faulty: not-so-cheap Italian rubbish. Next I went to the shopping sheds and bought one of the safety spring-loaded regulators/stop taps which one fixes to the wall. These are plumbed in with copper pipe and have a 15/21 (1/2") male thread on each end.  So to go with it, I bought an extremely expensive no-time-limit 1 metre hose with a 150/20 bottle thread on one end and 15/21 ordinary female on the other. Imagine my surprise - neigh, joy and delight  - and therefore my bubbling good humour when, at the end of a 120km round trip, I discover that the so-called 150/20 bottle thread only fits the output of a tank regulator (not an anti-clockwise thread).  Has anyone ever seen a bottle thread to 15/21 hose of a decent length? The only ones I've come across are about 30 cms or so to connect from tall, thin bottles to a change-over thingy. What I need is about a metre long. And - what is the bottle thread actually called??? anyone know? p
  4. I'm installing a 23kW instant gas heater, to feed a shower and a couple of wash basins in part of the house which won't be occupied continuously: seemed to make more sense than yet another chauffe-eau heating up and cooling down without being used. All gone according to plan in that the hole for the flue is cut, and the flexi metal tube goes through the wall and out, and the water connections all fit without leaking (even though I broke my own rule and filled/tested AFTER 10 pm), and the temp gas connection hooked up (off to get the permanent 14mm pipe tomorrow). However, (sorry Michael Gove) it won't light even with water running through it at full bore. So stop and check everything... retry... no change. So I'm sitting on the floor idly cradling the gas bottle.... thinking.... and I happened to press the little button on the underside of the regulator and  - wooff ! life! flames! hot water ! just so long as I keep my finger on the button. So I took the regulator off the bottle, and searched out the fitting instructions on the bedside table and compared the data. Seems the boiler draws .84kg/hr of propane, and the propane regulator's max debit is 1.4kg/hr, so well within its design spec. Is this just a faulty one?  Is there a butch-er version on the market? I thought the ones with the 1/2" out, as opposed to a nipple were the butch ones. Oddly, it was working fine feeding a very old ELM Leblanc water heater of much the same size . Bemused. going to bed. maybe it'll fix itself in the night. p
  5. [quote user="suein56"][quote user="Gyn_Paul"] I decided that 7NZ was more exactly the thing.  [/quote] Gosh, not got one of those lines ... what's it for ? Sue [/quote] Now you're asking... can't get back in now I've e-signed it, but it was something like 'Monuments Historique' ...so repairing a 13thC church seemed about right! p
  6. Thank you both. In fact once you'd put me in the right place, I decided that 7NZ was more exactly the thing. Seemed to work: up popped the appropriate rebate in the resume, so it was probably right ! Going to be more organized next year (perhaps!) p.
  7. I donated a small sum in 2014 to the Fondation Patrimoine last year to the restauration of out local eglise. I received a recu fiscal annee 2014 back from them, and I understand if I include it on the return, I'll get part of it back (!) However - and predictably enough - it doesn't say where on the return to enter the sum. Anyone got any ideas.? I know this is late.. I was just about to submit it all having just spent the morning checking the figures and had totally forgotten about it (the donation was back on Jan 1st 2014 !) but having turned up the piece of paper just now, I suppose I'd better include it.
  8. [quote user="idun"]We left the BP. Not convenient leaving a bank, but we did it several times in France. Still, neither is being treat like a criminal. Wonder if the russian oligarchs have all this rigmarole, or even if they ask there 'their' money really comes from? [/quote] It's interesting that when I had to set up a virement recently to Netherlands to pay for a holiday let (only credit card or bank Xfer accepted), I tried to do it on line with my Credit Ag a/c and got to the final page when it said I had to go in to the branch to have it verified (which the lady at the desk did - with no Q's asked - with a few clicks of a mouse). The same operation attempted on the BP site generated a page of Q's all basically being, "please tick the box which best describes what you are using the money for" Since there wasn't a "this is my own damned money, and not an application for a loan therefore it's none of your damned business" box, I pulled the plug on it. p.
  9. If only Banque Unpopulaire were so easily satisfied: every 2 years they bully us into trapsing down to the branch and giving them our passports to confirm that: yes - we are STILL retired, and,  yes - those are still our dates and places of birth. Only next time I am going to be the one to supply the photocopy of the passport, which will have the number and the expiry month/day redacted.  I have decided that in these days of identity theft I am quite happy for an officer of the bank to view the actual documents, but unhappy with full copies of our passports to be sitting in their filing cabinets for years at a time.  Also, last time we were asked to give them a copy of our latest Impots sur Revenue, for reasons which the lady from the bank couldn't explain in either French or English ! We fudged that one and they never followed it up, but this year (it's bound to crop up again in the next 6 months!) I intend to patiently explain that if the banque feels it has a justifiable reason to see our tax return, then they should apply directly to the fisc for it. If they are happy to supply them with a copy, there is nothing I can do about it, but I'm damned if I'm going to volunteer MORE personal data to store forever in their unlocked filing cabinets, and be passed on to their pestering marketing department.  
  10. No. The miracle is that it works in any way at all. During the high winds recently the wind blew rain under the tiles in the loft/office/studio. whereupon the water ran down the inside of the foil insulation and dribbled down the face of the purlins and dripped onto the desk. all in all not much - hardly more than a tablespoon full -  yet it was precisely placed to run in through the vent hole on the top of the Freebox, and directly onto the circuit board.  At least some part of the circuits are fried and died, so no amount of  taking-the-mains-out-of-the-back is likely to help, I'm afraid (it's already running on one of my own, more robust 12v PSUs). Pity as the wireless range of this box is MUCH improved on the v1 box they routinely replaced last year. p
  11. My Freebox is on the blink: it works (just) wired, but not wirelessly, and - more importantly - no dial tone. So it needs exchanging, but when I log in to my Free account page I seem to get stuck in a loop of 'advice' pages, but not able to progress beyond that. Anyone able to post me a link to the actual reporting page, or (as a last resort)  a phone number? p
  12. Thanks for that. 'Aucun messages' apparently..but it still gurgles like FT with a message waiting... Does it never have a clear dialing tone? p
  13. Does anyone know how to access the repondeur on the free (Free) phone line on a Freebox? Can't find anything on line other than for Free mobiles. The equivalent of 3103 on a FT line is what I'm after. p
  14. Just been on Pinnacle's website, and it all seems to be either software or PC cards these days... shame, sounds as though it would have been just right.
  15. I am trying to set up a means of downloading to my network storage material from the sat box. What I need is a device which takes in either an RGB signal or Composite (or even -gawd 'elp us -  RF) and squirts it out as data a la USB into a HDD, or up CAT5 to the storage. Yes - a TV/video card in a pc will do this, but I don't have the space in the living room for a full size pc,  I do, however, have space for a set top box or some sort of black box. Does anything like this exist?
  16. I have a Sky plus box (and subscription to) which is currently giving up the ghost, which is a begger as it's got 98% of a hard disk of stuff I want to keep and/or view. However I also have an HD box. With the plus subscription card, one can view stuff, but not record anything but the free-to-air programmes.   Does anyone know if it's possible to upgrade the card to HD over the internet? (I have a satellite internet feed so have a UK ip address) I'm missing The Newsroom series 3 at the moment which is VERY annoying!
  17. Right. I'll keep an eye on the PSU, it may well be the culprit.  In fact, I now have so many items in my studio/office/computer room which need a 12v supply (and the transformer plugs of which are too bulky to sit side-by-side in multi pattress), that I'm thinking of building a 12v bus of about 30A to feed them all from! paul
  18. My 2nd generation vanilla Freebox has worked fine for 18 months, but now it's gone flaky. Seemingly every morning I look at it, I find the dreaded snake is, erm - well - snaking around the little display. re-booting it gives it the will to progress to 'PPP', or sometimes PPP+snaking, but often it takes 20 minutes or so to restore the time display and therefore the connection. Anyone else having trouble with this?  The Freebox phone goes off, of course, but the FT phone signal remains unaffected. paul
  19. So you have parafoudres fitted to your tableaux, then..... so the original question was... do they tend to trip out during storms or not?
  20. We live out in the sticks, - which is appropriate, as those are what our electricity is delivered on. So it follows that T-storms, as the meteo sites like to call them, will frequently put a zaaaaapp onto our mains, which - while it doesn't seem to do any damage - trips out one/two or all three of the ECLB's on my three tableaux in various combinations. This is a pain, of course, with timers and clocks and computers and printers etc etc etc having to be re-set each time, not to mention freezers and fridges, and the storms always seem to be worse here at night. We don't live in a zone where parafoudres are obligatoir, so I haven't rushed to fit one given the price, but I'm wondering if one upstream of the 1st tableau would cure (or at least reduce) the incidence of tripping? Oddly in the last storm, while all the boxes stayed on (the EDF one never trips) I discovered next day my Sony flat screen tv was as dead as a dead thing. The odd thing being that none of the other TVs was affected, and they all share the same satellite LNB and the same RF multiway distribution amp. Even more weird was the fact that when I came to take off the back and gouge out the power board some days later, I found it had recovered from its shell-shock and was quite prepared to work again ! Self-healing chips are a new one on me! paul
  21. The rubber gasket/connectors with a jubilee clip on each end are adaptable to quite a range of sizes, so 56 - 50mm is probably well within its range. I bought one for my soil pipe problem (see earlier post) where access/rigidity of existing pipes was a problem and it worked fine, it was actually labeled '110 -  100mm', but both ends were identical sizes with the clips removed. I would, however, advise against putting anything rubber into a cavity (wall - he added hastily) as the mice/lerois/fuines (sp?) will happily eat through rubber as I discovered having fitted one of those light grey 40mm flexis in a vile, inaccessible corner of a stone doorway (placco fitted before the plumbing in error), only to suffer a catastrophic leak about a year later.  Why is it leaks only occur in inaccessible places? paul My 100mm connector is now buried under 2 ft of soil by the way
  22. [quote user="BIG MAC"]If there is sufficient room you could use 'slip couplings' or make one out of straight joints by removing the ledge or 'stop' inside. glue a section of pipe inside the top of the branch to create a 'male' to match the 'male' spigot at the other end. Cut a section of pipe out the length of the fitting and slide the slip couplings up the remaining pipe at either end. Offer up the fitting and working quickly apply loads of pipe adhesive cement (You may get light headed lol) to the area the fitting will occupy and slip the joint so that it is half on your new fitting half on the old pipe and the fitting inclined at the required angle. Do the same at the other end et voila! one connection![/quote] Yes I thought of that - I've even got a coupling without the stops in the middle, my worry is getting sufficient glue under the coupling, not being able to plaster it on both the male and female faces of the joint. And as you say, you've got to be bloody quick!. I've done it with 50mm but never tried it on 100. Trouble is, once I've glued the two 'Y's in place, there's only enough straight pipe left between a 90 degree in one direction, and the concrete face of the fat trap in the other for one attempt.  I didn't realise how lucky I was in the UK with Marley pipe with their forgiving rubber gaskets... I'll see how brave I feel! paul
  23. [quote user="HoneySuckleDreams"]I have one of those rubber sleeves with clips. I bought it at Pum Plastic and used it for a couple of months until I replaced the whole fosse system. It's sitting in my garage doing nothing if you want it. Cost me around 70€ I think. I'm home for the weekend so I can take a photo of it if you're interested [/quote] 70€ ??  cor.. that's a bit steep for a bit of rubber... I had no idea they were so much.  I think I'll cut a big section out and pour a concrete 'regard' where the three pipes meet instead.  But thanks for the offer. paul
  24. I have uncovered the 100mm waste between the fat trap and the fosse and need to add a branch to it. However, it's concreted into the wall at one end, and buried in the ground at the other - so totally devoid of lateral movement. In the UK, I would have put a rubber sleeve with two jubilee clips on to function as a straight joint when I'd added the other components, but can't see any equivalent over here. Is the only option to cut the pipes as short as the depth of the socket (to fit it in) and then slide it back halfway? paul
  25. [quote user="Pickles"][quote user="dave21478"]You can sell a car without CT. No doubt some pedant will be along in a minute to inform us all that according to the exact letter of the law, you cant - as happened last time this topic came up iirc, but here in the real world hundreds of cars are sold every day without CT and nobody goes to jail. Just fill out the usual forms and carry on with life as normal.[/quote] [Pedant mode ON] (but to ask a question!) I must admit that I thought that you can SELL the car without CT, but it has to have a CT less than 6 months old in order to be REGISTERED by the buyer - so essentially it's up to them as to whether they accept it without a CT. Obviously, in the "normal" case, as a buyer you'd be daft to buy a car that does not have a recent CT and so, again in the normal case, if you want to sell your car you need to have a recent CT. The OP's case is not the "normal" case however, and the buyer would know that. [Pedant mode OFF] [/quote] Thank you Dave, and Pickles, That's both logical and makes sense.  Suspiciously so - how very un-French ! paul
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