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Peter72

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Everything posted by Peter72

  1. We have bedded our old reclaimed tiles in a thick bed of lime/sand at 1:5 laid onto wet PVA over concrete, our tiles are all sorts of thickness and need a thick bed. Grouted with a sloppy lime mix from a jug and the excess scraped off before acid washing and sealing with linseed oil/white spirit. The local advice is that too strong a fix will make the old fragile tiles crack. They look lovely. Regards Peter
  2. Reading the bags the 2000 is for thick layers and the 3000 is for thin skims, the C suffix is fast (court) and the L is the slow (lent), but slow is relative here. Some of the things that make plaster set too quickly are: Stale Plaster, buy fresh and dump leftovers Contamination from partly set plaster on tools and buckets Not enough water Mixing too vigerous, also beats in little air bubbles I'm sure that someone will add to this list. Regards Peter PS George, mix with a large wooden spoon!
  3. A rough guide is 35 watts M3 for north west France, works OK in 72,  bit more for the east and a bit less for the south. There are maps around with the areas marked, one published some time ago in Maison et Travaux or one of the many heating supplements. Regards Peter
  4. Paint again!, I hope I don't get my ears chewed this time. Sadolin lasts well on new wood outside in 72. For emulsion Wickes trade matt has good opacity and is cheap in 15lt tubs but does not like being left in a frosty garage, B&Q own brand, OK if you have the time for 5 or 6 coats. M Bricolage own brand Acrylic Matte BW, good opacity and quite reasonable, my current favourite. I refuse to pay the silly prices for the "Premium" French brands. Peter
  5. Do you mean plaster for internal use or render for external use?. For internal use Lutece 3000 L responds well to the water and marigold method described previously and with a little practice looks very much like lime plaster applied 100 years ago and great fun. Dont forget to cover everything in the area ( about 200 meters around the house should be OK) as the plaster gets everywhere and wear safety glasses, plaster splashes make your eyes burn as if you had rubbed them with a wire brush. You will also need a few bottles of beer or wine (to drink while waiting for the plaster to go off to the correct state. Have fun Peter
  6. This topic is very interesting, I haven't seen so much disregard for the "First law of holes" for some time. Keep up the bitching it is very entertaining. My favorite quote is  "you try to use green(fresh) oak for a roof truss,then it won't even be able to support it's own weight." and since I don't have any nice letters behind my name I wondered if someone could explain how green (ie live) oak trees manage to stand up? Regards Peter
  7. Do you need heating oil (diesel) or paraffin (petrole)?. the latter is on sale in Bricomarche or M Bricolage in ordinary or deororised forms in 5 or 25lt drums.   regards Peter
  8. Velux is certainly the generic term in 72, if you ask for a Velux you will be offered whichever make they have in stock. Lapeyre http://www.lapeyre.fr/Lapeyre/pub.accueil.PreHomeController.do?event=show stock Velux and their own brand.   Peter
  9. Peter72

    DIY

    If you have the time and patience you can teach yourself to do most building jobs at least as well as the "average" pro. You will occasionally see a "craftsman" who has a real talent for the job but that is probably because he has been practising for many years and has learnt from his mistakes, some don't. Do some research before you start and never skimp on tools and materials, even buy the best french electrical fittings they are worth it. The advantage of doing the job yourself to a professional standard, the term DIY should be reserved for the bodgers who can't do anything right, is that you get to keep all the tools (or boys toys as my wife calls them), your wife will not complain that the radiator pipe is slightly off level or the stairs are at the wrong angle because she will have watched you like a hawk to make sure you don't go wrong, and you will have immense pleasure in looking at your work, and checking that the pipe is not 2mm out of level after all. Also beware the local instant experts who can "guess" how to do anything for next to nothing. Regards Peter
  10. Why not connect two in series?, a small one fed with cold water by a larger one. When you only need a small ammount of hot water just switch on the smaller one, when you need lots of hot water switch on the large one as well, that will then feed the hot water through to the smaller one, they are quite cheap and not difficult to fit. Regards Peter
  11. If you look at the construction and repair of old houses they used whatever wood could be found. I have removed bits of Chestnut, and reused it, and even bits of Birch which the bugs loved and was only fit for the fire. The problem with green timber is cutting it, you can cart it off to the local sawmill, ours has a bandsaw with about a 1.5M throat, or attack it with a chainsaw as my French neighbour has recently done. I also saw the chainsaw method used on an arched green oak(ie freshly cut) beam for one of the Grand Designs. The oak I have bought in France for mantel pieces and to rebuild the Lucarne was certainly not seasoned it was quite green but is drying out and splitting gently. My carpentry with home grown green (Freshly cut) oak has been confined so far to making garden seats, the oak is very easy to work and saws and planes easily. However after a year or two it gets very hard but still keeps its shape. During this years firewood cutting season I intend to cut some larger oak beams to see how they work out and I also want to try shaping them with an adze. It would be interesting to hear from someone who has actually done this. So get the saw out and go for it. Regards Peter 
  12. I have an Ipaq 2210 with a SysOnChip CF plus GPS receiver and use it for various tasks. The basic set up is very sensitive and will quickly get a fix almost anywhere. However the Ipaq runs Pocket PC 2003 and I am afraid that this has turned out to be a bit of a handful. Some of the less savoury things it does is lock up and needs a cold reboot to reset. This then swaps about the CF card Com port to either Com 1 or Com 7 but you soon get used to these little things when using MS software. I have four different lots of software, Fugawi UK with the OS maps for Southern Britain, good for the UK and walking but will not work with non OS maps.  Fugawi 3 with the European raster map CD which I have given up trying to use, but this package does allow you to scan in maps and calibrate them, subject to copyright etc. and works well with certain popular maps of France. MemoryMap European with the Philips European map 1:3000000 scale which is about as much use as the free maps off the ferry companies. I also have the Michelin Software for France. Being a tightwad I did not purchase the voice command pack but the cheap (59€) version. The Michelin software is the best of the bunch I have tried and has successfully navigated me around Paris. It also gives an accurate position fix with street and house numbers for most towns. You will need a PC to run the software on and then transfer the various areas onto an SD card before starting off. I have the country chopped up into Departments that I normally use. You can download a free trial version at http://www.shop.viamichelin.com/. They also have ready made packages and deliver from Paris to the UK in 48 hours. Lots of gear and a forum at http://www.globalpositioningsystems.co.uk/ I shall watch this topic closely, I certainly will not buy any more software until I get a few solid recommendations. I do like this forum, it calls me "Junior" member, don't let on George! Regards Peter
  13. Dick, Don't forget we have 230V standard european electric in Britain now, also import lots of the French nuclear stuff, you can always tell, the wires glow a funny geen colour when it is passing through.   Peter
  14. Most of the links seem to concentrate on the fire risk of beams penetrating the chimney breast which is a real danger with an open chimney but should not be a problem with a lined flue. Most things I have read recommend about 30cm clearance around an uninsulated liner or use the insulated type, follow the manufacturers recommendations. However nobody seems to mention the dangers of carbon monoxide, known as the silent killer, and is usually produced by incomplete combustion of hydrocarbons. A good fresh air supply to the heating appliance is essential, the manufacturers literature will give you the minimum size of air vent required for the room and should be maintained regardless of how cold it is. I would also recommend a CO alarm of the type that wakes up the whole house before the lower limit of 30ppm CO is reached. Obviously the little cards with a spot that changes colour are less than useless unless you are going to stay awake to watch the colour change. Regards peter
  15. We tried wet sandblasting on a beam that had been removed which brought it up quite nicely, this was done outside,  however when we tried the same on other beams in situ it made a terrible mess, the sand would not pick up from the floor to the beam height and on the main beam, over 50x50cm, the paint absolutely refused to come off. Tried various decapant but no joy so it looks like back to paint. We do not intend using dry grit blasting due to the mess and dust, never seen it done in a domestic situation but several times in an industrial one and a bag of grit is about enought to cover the county in dust. For beams that are only "wormy" with little rotted bits we have used  nylon rotary brushes on an electric drill which was a bit dusty but very effective before oiling.   Regards Peter
  16. Blown air heating is popular in France when you have an empty grenier to run the tubes but it does smell of smoke and makes sooty marks on the ceiling and the fan sounds like a helicopter. Our French neighbours much prefer our hot water system.   Regards   Peter
  17. Peter72

    Lime

    The only lime I have seen on sale in South wales is St Astier, I am sure there will be some other but French lime is fine as long as you use the right one for the job. Have a look at http://www.lime.org.uk/ Or here for good info in english http://www.stastier.co.uk/ Regards   Peter
  18. I have in the past lugged Thistle board finish plaster to France but while plastering between old oak beams I ran out. So off to BM/Pinault?Whatever the new name is to try some Lutece 300L. After much muttering about the price, twice as much as Wickes for the same quantity but Wickes does not have a branch in La Fleche, I tried it and after finishing half the ceiling was converted to Lutece 3000L. I toyed with trying the rapid but the lent sets as quickly as I can work. Also bought a bag of 2000 but this seems to be for deep filling. Try a bag or two to see if you like it. Regards Peter
  19. A couple of years ago, when it was more DIY orientated, Mason Travaux had quite a good article about the different types of lightweight concrete. Apparently it comes with treated straw, wood chips, polystyrene or vermiculite depending on area/supplier and is available by the toupi. If you are interested send me an email and I will try to dig out the article, might take a while though.   regards Peter
  20. Has anyone tried the ViaMichelin country maps of France, Is it as good as their Mapsonic?. I would try the free trial download but it is not currently available. http://www.shop.viamichelin.co.uk/shopexd.asp?catalogid=194 Regards Peter (72) Will I ever finish?
  21. I can also recommend Crucial, I have a Lexar SD card in my Ipaq 2210 with all my Fugawi and Memory map maps on it. You could also try www.dabs.com and select their French site, I use them quite often in UK. Regards Peter (72) Will I ever finish?
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