Ernie

"Assemble them counter-intuitively; i.e.the collar of the lower section fits outside the upper section. This is because if you do it the other way round then condensing tar runs down the inside of the pipe and leaks out of the next joint, and then continues to run down the outside of the pipe. At best, dripping into the fireplace, at worst catching fire."   Listen carefully to that Gyn geezer. Strange though it may seem, even the most experienced of stove-fitters and suppliers can make this error.    

Yes, let me agree with Charles on this one. Definitely keep on the right side of the system and if there is any way in which you can get some funds up front, it'll help if there's some kind of shortfall. As he says.

Well put, Nick Trollope.

Hey, I don't get this Brits-are-better rubbish. We had a highly reputable, respectable Brit builder who had 20,000 sterling up front when he was about two-thirds finished on the job and from that point on, sent unskilled, incompetent Brit workers on to the site who did such things as: attach a gutter so that the rain went off the roof between the roof and the gutter and not into it; fitted a soak away so that the water was supposed to run uphill into the soakaway; slapped paint on the walls so that it sloshed over the new wood ceiling/floor above; fitted windows so that the panes fell out on to the terrace below; plumbed a bathroom so that the sink waste went into the trap at the bottom of the hot-tank, overflowed into the living room; plumbed a kitchen so that the dishwasher and the washing machine can't be run at the same time and there is permanent damp behind and below the kitchen sink; fitted a stove flue upside down so that it poured smoke and condensation into the room; fitted a shutter so that it was plugged into loose mortar and so swung free and was about to fall on the terrace below; buried 'Evrite' sheeting containing asbestos in the back garden, denied it, then said he'd remove it, didn't remove it and an exploratory hole in the garden has revealed it along with heaps of rubble from the works; attached electric rads using insulating tape; did the whole job without insurance; employed people without giving them congé; had to redo a tuiles courbes roof because it was fitted without roofing felt and leaked all over the living room but when you look at the roof now, the 'canals' between the tiles are more wiggly than snakes on a snakes and ladder board and French builders make special trips to our house to come and laugh at it, the floor-tiling was grouted with a grout that turned to powder and when it was redone the tiler shattered the edges of the tiles...shall I go on? I'm sick and tired of hearing Brits sneering at French builders as if somehow we Brits are superior, better, quicker etc etc. I sit in cafes and hear English blokes bragging about how they dodge the regulations, don't pay tax, aren't skilled at this or that but are 'picking it up on the job' and the like. Forget it. Some Brit builders are good, some are crap. Some French builders are good. Some are crap. When Brit builders are crap in the UK, there's almost nothing you can do about it, unless you insure yourself and the job before it starts - at a cost. When builders are crap in France, at least you've got a system of contracts and insurance that you can go through step by step before building starts and as it goes on, which can defend both builder and client. By the way, don't forget to make your client's insurance cover 'ouvrage and dommage' as well, so that you can deal with 'malfacons', bad workmanship as it goes on. We didn't and that's why we've got the mess we've got.

This is old history but legal matters, like good wine, take a while to mature. I think things are just beginning to hot up right now. The local mayor gave me a choice of four routes to take: avocat, mediation with the local magistrates, using 'assurance juridique' (if we had it on our buildings insurance policy) or going straight to the Gendarmerie. I'll leave you to ponder which of those four routes you would take and tell you which one we took when the whole matter blows...

Caribbeans, as you call them, have discovered that their history is tied up with a side of British history that the Brits find very hard to confront unless they can say on the end of it that Wilberforce saved them. To say that Caribbeans are demanding something that isn't 'British' is like saying that egg white has got nothing to do with the yolk.

Good to see that Brits abroad are getting slightly exercised about the need for British history. Something to do with links to the mother country and the like. How odd therefore that so many Brits at home find it objectionable that Jamaicans or Indians - or people with origins in those countries - should want to do the same.

The Villager Stove was bought in France, installed by a Villager Stove dealer. Originally, the flue was installed the wrong way up, but we noticed that and the dealer/installer was kind enough to re-install it. The stove is situated against a wall. The flue leaves from the top of the stove; there is about two metres of flue before it enters the ceiling/roof. However, I should have said that the flue takes a ninety degree turn before it goes through the ceiling and at this point the bend is rippled. Presumably, it then takes another ninety degree turn as it straightens up to go into the stack, but this is all out of sight in the roof space. Then there's a stack above that. At no point is there a little 'door' that I see on some flues. My question, therefore, is if I ask someone to sweep the chimney, will this be possible? Should I be worried? Should I get someone to come along and cut a door in the flue? Where should they cut it? Or is it possible to access the flue from inside the chamber of the stove? There's a plate between the chamber and the entrance to the flue, which is presumably removable with vast amounts of elbow grease, the right tools etc?

My Villager Stove has a flue that's about two metres long before disappearing through the roof. It doesn't have a little door in. As and when I want someone to clean the flue, how will it be done? Will it be necessary to take out the plate that's inside the chamber? Or what?

Have I talked to him?! I've tried pointing them out, I've tried asking him to do something about it, I've tried pricing the job as incomplete so that he doesn't get the full whack, I've tried pointing out that other things that he's done around the site are illegal, unfinished, dangerous, badly done, I've done face-to-face, I've done emails, I've done snailmail, I've hired in a surveyor to write a report, I've used the services of my father-in-law who is a quantity surveyor of some forty years experience. I've alerted him to the fact that he didn't have insurance. He went on got insurance. Who of course inform me that they can't do anything as it's 'malfacons'. For that I would have needed to have taken out 'ouvrage et dommage' insurance. Punters take note.  You must, must, must do this. We didn't.   So thanks for your concern, Catalpa.

OK, if it's 'interdit' and, (yes, I guessed as much), I want explanations please as to why my unbelievably reputable English builder, long established in France, a man of superb credentials, sagacity and good counsel to all who sit at his feet, a man with stern words for the mountebank, fraudster and cheapskate, a chef d'entreprise with a website to die for, should have  allowed his electrician to fit at least four rads with these duff connections (their leads trail on the kitchen floor) and perhaps did the same with four others (whose leads don't trail on the floor and are tucked up inside). Let your minds run wild, set your imaginations free and speculate about this great representative of English building skills abroad. (Hush, perhaps a fairy or small bird will pass on your thoughts to him...might he not perhaps find himself drawn to your words and read them himself?)

My builder/electrician lengthened the cable between the electric rads and the socket by joining cables together (I think, he just wound wires round each other) and wrapping insulation tape round them. Any views on that?

I have two limes next to a house in the UK. The advice given to me by 'arboreoculturalists' (!), architects and tree surgeons was always: don't chope down, don't leave to grow. Prune every other year to take the growth back to where it was. This way you avoid roots dying under a house and causing subsidence, or conversely a tree growing under your house and causing 'heave'. Judicious pruning, as it's called maintains the water concentrations under your property.

I'm afraid I'll have to be mysterious about this for a little while until the matter is resolved. Message boards have ears, as Shakespeare wrote.

Forgot to say that every person hiring a builder should not only ask for the devis and the attestation of insurance but should also take out 'dommage et ouvrage' insurance for themselves. Only then, will you be able to deal with 'malfacons' ie bad workmanship, as the job is going along - assuming of course that your builder, like ours, won't rectify something like plumbing that leaks. The attestation will not cover you for this sort of thing.  

How interesting. And I've heard of an incredibly reputable builder who behaved in the following way: 1. Drew up a spec. along the lines of a Brit builder and sent an estimate. We accepted this, not knowing at the time of the French system of a devis plus attestation. However, I did ask the builder if he gave guarantees with his work. He emailed back to say all his men were insured so it wasn't a problem. This reassured us and we let the matter drop. 2. Work went well for a few months and then ground to a halt. 3. When we made a visit around the time it was predicted (by him) to finish, it was clear that several major jobs hadn't been done and some major jobs had been done badly. 4. A few months later we discovered the whole routine of the  'devis' plus attestation of insurance that you should ask for. It turned out that he hadn't been covered by insurance and by now it was becoming clear that he was sending any old tosher and unskilled geezer up to do work like plumbing, painting, tiling, fitting stoves, rooves etc. 5. Eventually he took out some insurance saying that he had let it 'lapse'...i won't go on...   Yes, you can come across a builder who has a Siret number, who, if you met him in a bar, he would get all shocked and self-righteous about Brit builders working without insurance, offer advice here, there and everywhere about how to build this, how to repair that. And let's say, he might even have a website where he would sound just as worthy. And like us, you might believe him. And like us, you would have been had.

In fact, the builder was contracted to clear the site of asbestos. Issue one: did he do it? no. Issue two: what did he do with it? He buried it in our garden. At which point, the matter of what is or is not on our contract becomes irrelevant. He has committed an offence, and whether he was asked to dispose of the asbestos, was or was not paid for it are all irrelevances.

Hi Mark, And how would I know if I've got the right or the wrong timber-rotting type stuff on my roof now? It's black, and seems to have a thread running through it in squares. I've felt the bit of it that's protruding out from under the tiles and over into the gutter and it feels like plastic (not tarred felt) I don't know the make of it, though. Ring any bells? Or is it just a sheet of DPC? There isn't a one hundred per cent seal between the top of the walls and the roof, there are few gaps; but would it be wise to enlarge those (having asked and succeeded in getting the builder to seal them up!)?  

Sorry Gabe, I see now that you talk of 'canal tiles', which are of course 'tuiles courbes'. Many apologies for not reading your post properly.

Gabe, you don't say what kind of tiles you've got. If you've got 'tuiles courbes' ie the old (very, very old, Roman in fact) style of tile which is basically about one third of a cylinder cut longways, then they are never totally watertight against all weathers. The old way of laying these (over and under) has been updated with these flat 'unders'. This improves the leakage problem but doesn't totally solve it. As far as I can make out, you have two solutions: 1) a company called 'Onduline' make a product that is in effect sheets of corrugated plastic. If you want to keep to one hundred per cent traditional look, then you fit your under-overs on to Onduline. The snag (say some) is that you will get condensation. However, there are ways of avoiding condensation! Ventilation and a product I use in the UK which circulates the air. It's very cheap and has worked one hundred per cent in an outhouse I've got. 2) Use some kind of underfelt. Traditionally and cheaply and used all over the UK and in France is the great roofing felt beloved of pigeon fanciers, rabbit hutch makers for decades. It does have a lifespan, and will age and crumble after a while. It can always be patched. Alternatively, you can use any version of what builders put under concrete floors to stop rising damp. My builder fitted a roof with trad tuiles courbes 'over' and 'flats' underneath, he didn't fit anything underneath them and it sprung leaks all over the place. His first response was to say that it was because we hadn't 'maintained' it. This was after about nine months and there was a pebble in one of the canals. However, I popped over the road to ask the woman who has a long low pitch roof just like ours whether hers had leaked in the same storm, because her roof is covered in moss, full of pebbles. 'Mais non, monsieur', she said, 'mon mari l'a goudronne.' He had literally 'tarred' it, in other words fitted roofing felt underneath it, ten years previously. Same roof, no leaks. I put that to our builder who moved to position two: 'Ah,' he said, 'you didn't say that you wanted roofing felt.' We tried to point out to him that we didn't know anything at all about rooves but if he had asked us if we wanted a roof that leaked, we would probably have said no! Final tip: make sure that at the point where your unders feed into the gutter, that they protrude further than the overs. This way, they will deliver the water into the gutter. This is something practised by builders all over France but somehow escaped the notice of my builder.

Yes, the Mairie will tell you what's what. The key issue is where your nearest dechetterie is that will dispose of it. The further away it is, then greater the charges for a contractor coming to get it. However, if you're doing the sealing up and transporting, that's irrelevant. And ignore what anyone says, when they tell you it's not dangerous, they used to eat it for breakfast and the like. It only takes one fibre in the wrong place in your body and you're a gonner. How that fibre gets there is a complex matter and obviously, the more of the stuff you breathe in, the more likely you are to get that one fibre. But it doesn't follow that the only people to get it, are the people who breathe a lot of it in. Famously, it was women washing a partner's work clothes who often suffered.

The survey before purchase stated that it was l'amiante. On the contract it said he would clear the site including the shed which had the asbestos roof.

Thanks, painterman.   Very interested in anyone's thoughts on the merits (or not) of taking the legal route on this matter...

I've run this story on a couple of other threads but I wonder if anyone would like to share their legal thoughts here. I have been told by one of our builder's workmen that they buried under very little topsoil an 'Everite' roof containing asbestos in our garden instead of taking it to a dechetterie. They were contracted to clear the site including this old roof.  The builder has conceded  to a third party on one occasion that he had buried some of the Everite and would remove it. He's now decided not to. Anyone want to have a go at saying what our legal position is, given that we want the stuff out, done in the safest possible way and at no cost to ourselves? By the way, I did an experimental bore hole where the workman told me the asbestos was buried and I immediately found some, about fifteen cms down. In a part nearby, some of the Everite has come to the surface. Ernie.

Thanks beejay for the warnings and the finger-wagging. It wasn't us who buried the Everite. I was told by our contractor that the Everite had been removed. Some months later, one of the workman who had been working for the contractor told me that he and the subbie working under the contractor had in fact buried it. He showed me where. I did a little bore hole and sure enough there was some Everite. What's more some pieces have surfaced a metre or so from where I did the bore hole. The contractor in question has said 'I do not accept that there is a large amount of Everite buried in the garden.' Meanwhile, I overheard the workman and the subbie having a row on the phone, where the subbie started shouting that the workman for having told me. The workman explained that it was on his conscience. The subbie said that telling me had endangered his livelihood.   So, that's our problem. Some Everite in the garden? All the Everite roof in the garden? How to get it out? Who should pay for it? The contractor claims that we owe him some money on the job as a whole and claims that this sum (7000 euro) would cover the asbestos and all remaining unfinished jobs. (Yes, there are several unfinished jobs (which he admits) and other work of such abysmal standard that we aren't prepared to pay the full amount for.) Anyway, the spec said 'Clear the site'. That would mean removing the Everite to a dechetterie - there's one near Limoges that deals with asbestos. The Everite wasn't cleared. It was buried. In other words it's a whole new ball game and, we would argue, not a matter covered by the original spec.   All we wanted was to have a nice holiday home.   Very interested in all comments and suggestions on how we should proceed. By the way, the contractor and the subbie are British. The workman is French. I can't say anymore or this post will be deleted.