SC
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Posts posted by SC
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Unfortunately getting on junk e mail lists is a by-product of most amateur, and more often than not 'professional' website design that leaves your e mail address readable by harvesting programs. Once on the lists, there's not really any going back for most except to change e mail address, with all that entails. Anti-spam can be over-zealous, as you can read about on the Wanadoo / NTL thread in the computer forum, and personally I wouldn't want to lose a customer who might be spending a couple of thousand pounds, even if he is called Mr. Erection!. Things are much better than they were a year or so ago (before the Chinese government took action to close spam servers), when we were getting over 100 per day, now it's a dozen or so.
sc
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I'm not sure why you want a three phase supply unless it is for Option Tempo? If it is then you will save quite a lot on your standing charge and summertime consumption, but remember that the power is measured over the three phases, ie an 18Kva supply is limited to 6Kva per phase. (thank you, Punch, I think it was about four years ago!) If you use one phase per gite that's fine, there's no obligation to balance the consumption per phase. 6Kva per gite works fine for us.
All the financial advantages of Option Tempo can be wiped out if you need electric heaters and have gite guests during a couple of cold weeks in the November - March period and your rental doesn't reflect this. There's only one meter, and I think on ours you can read the usage of each phase individually if you wish.
sc
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According to the director of 'de particulier a particulier' estate agency publication, it's quite possible that the price of houses will fall by 30-40% in the next five years, like it did between 1990 and 1996, due to current overvaluation. This isn't what most of us want to hear!
Around here (South56), it seems to me that individual building plots in areas popular with the French, and properties for renovation in areas inland popular with the British, are both considerably overvalued in relation to the finished project.
I wonder if the price of properties for renovation has escalated out of proportion because most of us Brits don't look at renovated properties (and their price) when we're searching?sc
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Weber and Broutin terralit F was recommended to me by a large branch of Point as they had had problems with Parex (a cheaper product) and no longer stocked it. However as lots of posts here have recommended Parex, one should take Point's recommendation to me with a pinch of salt.
Terralit F is expensive at around 21 euros TTC a 25KG bag less any discount you can achieve, it usually has to be ordered specially as there are so many colours available, and if you don't like it, they won't take it back.
Having said all that, we find it to be an excellent product, and would use it again regardless of the price. Repointing a house is a daunting DIY task for a couple, but if you buy 'poches' (like an icing bag), cut the corner off at about 2cm wide, and mix the terralit much wetter than you would for trowelling, you'll find the product flows, sticks and builds beautifully. For easy to reach areas you can apply the stuff to wetted joints with little waste, virtually as fast as your helper can fill the bags.
You brush it in where necessary with a paint brush, then wait until it is hard before brushing it over with a dogs tooth scrubbing brush. If you want you could apply it with a poche, and then trowel it if the brushed finish doesn't appeal, but any trowelled cement product can vary in finished colour according to the amount of trowelling.
Choosing the colour can be difficult, as with paint finishes the colour can be stronger and brighter than the colour chart suggests, and it's a different colour when wet, so don't be shy about ordering just one bag to try first. We took along a clean sample of the original mortar to compare with the sample 'swatches?' of the product in the showroom.For tender stone such as tuffeau in the Touraine, the Weber et Broutin recommended product for jointing is arcaline 2 TF.
sc
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Unless you buy a 'divan' type bed, you'll be buying the frame, sommier, and mattress separately. The style of the frame, whether iron or wood, is a matter of personal taste, and provided it is strong enough, it won't affect your comfort, which will depend on the quality of sommier and mattress. Sommiers with greater numbers of slats are considered the more comfortable, and solid foam mattresses (latex being best) are better than cheap sprung ones (avoid) in our experience.
Anti-acarien treatments probably release pestisides, albeit at a low level.
Sommiers also have holes in their metal frames that accept legs bought separately in the furniture shop or DIY (same, but cheaper), eliminating the need to buy a bed frame, especially if you follow the current fashion for hanging a couple of pillows from a rail on the wall as a bed head.
sc
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It's to be decided at the meeting of Finance Ministers on (I think) 24th January.
sc
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"cut a hole in the floor and stick a grill over it !!!!"
Provided that noise between the two rooms isn't going to be a problem, and you site a smoke alarm above the vent in the bedroom, I don't see anything wrong with Dave's comment. You could site the hole against a wall, opening into a trunking that will direct the warm air horizontally into the room, frustrating peeping toms at the same time!
sc
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Just a point to help you diagnose your problems- partially blocked pipes, taps, etc don't reduce pressure, they reduce flow. Lowering pressure also lowers flow, but lowering flow doesn't lower pressure.
sc
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I'm not sure those figures are correct. Providers of services are allowed a turnover of 27000 Euros and the deduction for costs is 52%. The figures that you mention are for activities such as buying and selling, and for some weird but wonderful reason, letting furnished properties.
Steve
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John - the photos on your website make it clear that your gite is furnished and equipped to a high standard with good furnishings, and the books, pictures and toys make it so much more welcoming than gites with just the bare essentials, which in my experience often signals a more general lack of interest in the guests after their money is in the bank. The views from the terrace in particular, make me want to pick up the phone right away! I assume that with a UK phone number you must be relying on cleaners to handle your changeovers, and I think therefore that your quality survey is a very good idea - it shows your guests that you care, even after they've returned home. It's not surprising that you have a 'pool of renters'.
Ross - Owners can just pick comments from the blue and say they're quoting from their guestbooks. I know that guestbook comments often appear in adverts, but does anyone really believe them? I suppose if one uses the 'my favorite beach', 'we had a fantastic time at...', sort of comment, then it helps to set the scene. I wouldn't want to upset any of our regular guests by not using their comments on our website though, as you can be sure that they'd be looking out for them! You've made me think about it though, thank you.
I never found out if the comment in one of our guest books 'Don't go to Damgan in the mornings, because the tide is out' was intended to be funny or not!
Fortunately we do our own cleaning, and knowing how long it takes us, I dread to think how much we would have to pay someone else to do it to the same standard.
Steve
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We had a fire the flue very soon after we arrived and it was pretty scary. Ever since then we've swept them properly ourselves at the end of each winter, on the basis that if they're properly swept, they won't cause a fire so the insurance company won't be involved.
The insurance certificate with the buche de rammonage must be completed and sent to the manufacturer. The one's I've seen cover you separately for damage caused by a subsequent chimney fire that your house insurer won't pay for. At least that's what the big print says!
Steve
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Remember that the quality of your website will reflect the quality of your gite. One or two bookings can pay for a good, uncomplicated website that with just a few annual modifications can serve you for many years. It should cost no more than a year's advertising with, say LF.
Although we have had requests for brochures in the past, for us that has died out completely now, everyone seems to have internet access themselves or via friends or family. Guests seem to see our press etc adverts and then check out our website right away. Some still phone of course, to assure themselves that we're for real!
Steve
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Other economic commentators may disagree with the BBC's economist in the original post. According to Anatole Kaletsky (The Times, The Economist) conventional comparative productivity statistics give great weight to the manufacture and improvement of goods, and fail to make adjustments for the fact that much of the UK economy is now based on high value services such as law, finance, advertising, IT.
Lack of manufacturing investment also affects productivity, but whereas UK labour laws and company social contributions make it practical to hire (and fire) according to product demand, in France and Germany investment in automated machinery resulting in a lower unit labour outlay is the natural course (almost supply led?). There is also no direct relationship between productivity and profit as many hard working self-employed will testify to. Or turnover and profit - look at Carrefour vs Tesco.
If French labour and company law was similar to that in the UK, I think that many French companies, including some of the flagship ones, would soon be subject to takeovers from abroad, such is the scope in them for efficiency improvements. As it is too many foreign companies have had (are having - eg HP) their fingers burned for having invested in France.
In the meantime, protected French business seems to be indulging in a sort of economic colonialism, taking over companies in the liberal economies that it otherwise despises, the UK, US, Spain, and using them as cash cows. EDF recently took control of 100% of Belgian electricity production prompting comparisons with the French histrionics at the highest political level over the Danone rumours.
Steve
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<Or are you saying that either this is something different or an actual route has been decided?>
The article announces the opening of an enquiry (débat public) and three possible routes are proposed, they are of course, not very detailed in the map with the newspaper article, which states that more than 150,000 households will be affected.
Searching for 'haute tension cotentin maine' on www.google.fr will give anyone interested plenty of links.
Steve
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The rough route for the new lines between the new nuclear power station at Flamanville near Cherbourg, and the Rennes-Laval grid were published in Tuesday's Ouest France.
Steve
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AND the best place to ensure that we all have improved bookings in the future:
We currently have bookings for twenty two weeks for our three gîtes for 2006, nineteen of which are by guests who have stayed before, some coming back for the second time, others for the third, fourth, and in one case fifth. There will be more. The cost to us? Making sure that our gîtes were built, furnished, decorated, and equipped to a high standard, are thoroughly cleaned between guests, that everything works, and that they and their situation is as good as we advertise it to be.
Of four of our guest families who took a two-centred holiday last year, one stayed in a faultless gîte in the heart of the Dordogne (feel free to e-mail me, I’ve kept their website address), another stayed in Poitou-Charentes and spent a fortune on phone calls to the UK trying to get some hot water in a generally grubby gîte (an hour from the sea, advertised as 20 minutes), a third rung us up asking if they could stay with us after a freezing night in a gîte black with mould, and a fourth arrived at their gîte near Ploermel in Brittany to find it (including the beds) so dirty they left immediately for the UK, losing a week of their summer holiday. All the gîtes were British owned.
A letter in the current December LF, headed Holiday Dismay, chronicles a family’s decision to holiday elsewhere in future after failing to find a clean, well equipped cottage with a pool in different regions of France over the past six years.
Some of our guests go back to see mucky gîtes where they had stayed on previous years and complained about to their owners, to find exactly the same situation wrecking the holiday of another family staying there. Think about it, you plan and choose your holiday, you and your family look forward to it for months, and when you arrive its way below what you expect. Dismay is the right word.
Brittany Ferries’ Owners in France’s advertisers received a letter earlier in the year outlining an anticipated fall of 18% in trips to France (all operators) for 2005, on top of a 4% decline in Brittany Ferries passengers during 2004.
What worries me is that new customers may be put off booking decent gîtes like mine by their bad experiences elsewhere, evidently with a sizeable number of owners, and it is only a matter of time before UK consumer programs pick this up and publicise it with disastrous results for all of us.
So, if anyone reads this who doesn’t get at least a few guests returning to holiday with them, you’re doing something wrong - forget extra magazine and website advertising, spend the money in your gîte, clean it properly between guests, and reap the rewards afterwards.
Steve -
[quote]thanks for the info people, have armed myself with moth balls,traps and bio-stop will let you know which works on the crown green.[/quote]
Wot, not the explosives???? You'll learn!
Steve
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The symtoms that you describe are similar lto a flu/chimney fire, has it happened more than the first time?
It isn't dangerous to experiment a bit, provided you don't build up such a big fire that it gets out of control. We had a little solid fuel cooker once, on which the whole cast iron top would glow when the wind was in the west (Ok, it could have been the east, we were in the west).
If a fire draws too fast, either too much draught (oxygen) is getting in to the fire (poor door seals etc), or the flue is drawing gases out too fast, and once the flue gets very hot, boy will it draw! Or of course, a combination of both. In theory, you should be able to shut down a fire by cutting off the draught.I am not an expert but I've sorted out a few problems for myself- don't fit a double flue if it is insulated as the fire will draw faster. I haven't come across a flue damper, if by that the other posters mean a device that restricts the flue, that isn't part of the stove itself (I could be wrong, they may well be available), but fitting a damper when that isn't the cause of the problem could be risky (If the fire continues to burn too fast but the gases can't escape under all conditions).
Several DIY's like Castorama sell a flue balancing valve that lets air into the flue after a preset depression is reached.
Regards,
Steve
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<having said that i have quite a few friends french and english who know but don,t bother to have achimney swept by the rammoneur each year prefering tto clean themselves. after all problems will only arise in the event of the need to summon pompiers.>
I get the impression that most country folk have a family member who will issue a certificate 'after an event', but I certainly have no proof of this.
Incidentally the regulations state that you should have a non-gas flue swept twice a year, one during the period of use:
Le "règlement sanitaire départemental" impose les mêmes obligations générales sur tout le territoire. Il exige deux nettoyages par an pour les installations au fuel, au bois et au charbon, dont un pendant la période de chauffe, alors qu’un seul ramonage suffit pour une installation au gaz. Le "règlement sanitaire départemental" impose les mêmes obligations générales sur tout le territoire. Il exige deux nettoyages par an pour les installations au fuel, au bois et au charbon, dont un pendant la période de chauffe, alors qu’un seul ramonage suffit pour une installation au gaz.
Like you I and my neighbours just clean our chimneys once before the winter.
Steve
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<How do you recognise a "proper" mole hill rather than a surface run ?>
Sorry, it's probably a local description. What I refer to as a 'proper' mole hill is the pile of earth pushed up out of the run, usually 10cm and more high, and added to by the mole at each visit.
I refer to the ridges of almost unbroken ground pushed up by the mole as he burrows horizontally just below the surface, as surface runs. You can prang these moles as you would a flounder
, but I'm not suggesting that anyone does so. However 
if you keep an eye on a surface run and see robins and blackbirds following it, it's a sure sign that m.mole is working. creep up and you'll see him easing up the ground........Steve
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I've tried most of the common ways of ridding our gardens of moles. I've never got on with traps, although I know some people that do.
For me the Eradic détauper, available in agricultural suppliers, works within 24 hours every single time, provided there is a proper mole hill and not a 'surface run'. There is a small charge that is fired by a battery when the mole pushes fresh earth out of the run and I've seen them used by professionals on the television. It seems me to be an instantaneous humane death for the mole compared to trapping or poisoning.
If pets may interfere with the detauper, simply place an upturned bucket over it, it still works like that.
Good luck,
Steve
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J-
Whilst appreciating the convenience and time-saving of bringing from the UK if you are based there, this may save you some time and money-
White washbasins with for monobloc tap, wall hung about £14 (or buy a pedestal) at Castorama branches, usually/always in stock.
Chrome washbasin wastes if you're wall hanging from LeRoy merlin or La Peyre.
Monobloc ceramic action taps with brass , not plastic, lever and sts flex connectors, washbasin and sink models, about £8 from Weldom. (yes, £8)
Close coupled 3/6 litre (we call them pee/poo's) wc complete, about £35 special offer price in most bigger DIY's most of the time, and always in BricoDepot.Hope this helps.
Steve
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There was an advertisement in last Saturday's Ouest France for: entourage de porte arrondie en pierre daté 1741.......1300€
There's often old stones for sale in the materiaux-maconnerie section.
sc
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Here's one that we got recently, he didn't even hide the cc's, and it was sent to a couple of dozen other owners from Brittany to Provence.
"Greeting,Am Jose Thompson i have been trying to locate at least one owner of a nice villa or Apartment thati can rent any way,Dear Mr or Mrs, Am contacting you on behalf of the Villa or shuold i say house for rents that was placed on the vacation home rental web site,I am Jose Thompson from Brooklyn but we stays in here in the Great Britain for our business to be in progress.I am Interested in renting your villa /Apartment that you havefor rents i will await your mail for further details ok. in which i will be checking in and checking out in the dates below.Dec 1st 2005 checking inDec 31st 2007 Chacking out:Or Rather Dec 1st 2005 Checinking in:Jan 31st 2006 Cheking out:"Return address was a yahoo.it mail account.sc
TVA decision going to the wire!
in House Renovations
Posted
TVA on building decision now expected on Sunday, it's going to go to the wire. It's currently being held up by Poland and Cyprus. Poland's objections to many Frenchmen's portayal of Polish plumbers as a bête noir during the Euro constitution vote, may have something to do with it! Anyone know why Cyprus objects? (other than for short term trades, of course) This could be the Olympic bid all over again, there's a moral there somewhere, probably something like 'missing a perfect opportunity to keep your mouth shut'.[:)]
Bizarre, but at the same time as French minister and diplomats were making the big push for maintaining the current tva level in Brussels, Barroso got a good shouting at yesterday in the French Assembly when he told the French parliament to reduce taxes on business to create jobs.
À dimanche.
Steve