chenauds

Sorry to hear about your CH problems David. I installed my CH last year ( all hail to he mighty guru "opelfruit") but despite endeavours couldn't get the boiler to relight after cut off. After struggling with the permutations of fuel and air I gave up and asked half dozen plumbers with no success to look at it.  A local english speaking plumber, who said he was very busy but would drop by just to have a look on the following tuesday morning, to come and look at it for me, expecting much the same reaction you had. he turned up on timefirst) and asked who had installed it and I told him I had, hed took ouit the burner, cleaned it, attached his fuel pressure gauge and adjusted it, he said that this was critical, he then put it all back together fired it up and said I wouldn't have any more problems and I haven't in over a year now. When I asked him how much he said (drumroll) " Oh it only took a few minutes I won't charge you for that"!!! Pity you are not nearer to the Creuse otherwise Walther, the local plumber would sort out your problems. I know this doesn't help you but don't give up, there are helpful french plumbers around.

I bought my CH boiler and burner from leroy merlin ( up to 35Kw output) (Thanks and acknowledgements to 'opelfruit' the CH guru!) last year and installed it last september has run fine without any other than initial teething problems. The package (new) cost about 700 Euros, the 1000 litre fuel tank  for the fioul de chauffage was bought secondhand for 199 Euros  and the chimney bits cost about 30 Euros from local  bricolage.  Supplier (industrial diesel oil) also known as Mazout or Fioul de Chauffage from loads of suppliers including Leclerc. Friends of ours had a full CH system  installed by local plumber including a larger boiler than mine, 16 radiators including installing concrete base for the bouiler for 11,000 Euros, so your bit sounds a bit over egged!

Not sure if this is the right sub heading for my query - but here goes in any case! My wife and I have been in France for 6 years now, 5 years ago we both qualified for state pension with no problems howevrv, my wife had taken a work related pension earlier and so started paying tax on it in the UK. When we moved to France we had numerous dealings with the faceless ones at the IR and ended up in the usual unhelpful loop. As we are now permanent residents of France we declared and paid tax on ALL of our income including my wifes small work related one and our local tax office assures us that this is what we must do and that we must pay tax in France on ALL income. The UK IR people seem to think otherwise and after 6 years, tax i9s still being deducted at source in the UK. I must say that our dealings with the Bureau D'Impots has been both understanding , patient and helpful in guiding and explaining what we do or do not have to pay to the extent of rechequing our last year return and sending us a rebate of 250Euros as we had over declared. Is this double taxation right and if not how do we get back the money which we will have overpaid to the UK IR?

Took my wife's reliant Scimitar GTE for control technique two days ago. The tester said he suspected it would need new headlights fitted (they had the UK stick on plastic beam deflectors on). he put it on his light testing box and he came back with a big grin on his face and said look at this, and showed me the result, they are perfectly aligned and we got our CT with no further problems.  A lot comes down to the attitude of the tester. 2 others had refused to CT a UK  vehicle even though a requirement of re-registration. The chap we went to now CTs all our vehicles and if its a small thing light blown bulb, he will put a new one in for you, adjust lights if necessary or have no water in washer bottle,     I know,Iknow, should have checked! So much more affable than po faced UK testers. www.leschenauds.com

Lived here 6 years, 10Km south of Borganeuf. The weather is, if nothing else, surprising. yseterday started dull with drizzle then snow followed by warm sunny periods, snow again and then a beautiful evening. Generally the winters tend to be cold and dryish, Spring wet but, again surprising, with a couple of really hot days in Feb and March. Summers usually quite hot and later the odd summer storm which comes in like a lion and leaves like a lamb. usually ctober is glorious. certainly not boring and even when it's cold doesn't seem to be the damp penetrating cold of the UK. Not really a climate here, just weather otherwise it wouldn't be so grean and have so many lakes and rivers. We love it. www.leschenauds.com

I think that what is being referred to it "Troc de L'ile' at Zone industrial Nord in Limoges, Junction 29 of A20. Find your way to the huge LeClerc supermarket and you are walking distance away. www.leschenauds.com

Since french water heating systems are under mains pressure, you can situate the chauffe eau anywhere you like bearing in mind that the heater + water will be quite heavy. Ours is on a tripod stand AND fixed to the wall as belt and braces. www.leschenauds.com

Not sure what a "normal" french house is but my 35Kw output does a good job of backing up my main woodburner for my 4 bed farmhouse without drinking  mazout like a fish. No I didn't do any particularly sophisticated calculations, my house has thick but porous, to wind at least walls so the heat loss varies according to wind direction however, your technical explanation seems almodt to repeat what I said even though I'm an amateur.

Me again, sorry! Here is the viessman website. They provide documentation for their recent boilers but I think you would need to email them for a manual for yours ,http://www.viessmann.co.uk/

Just a ps. to my last post. Not a good idea to have thermostatic radiator valves on EVERY radiator. The main living room should have a wall thermostat without TRV. This could be contributing to your high consumption. I put in my own CH system with guidance from a forum contributor ( Opel Fruit)  who has produces a central heating FAQ in the forum. he's the guy who can REALLY answer your question.

Hi Sue, don't want to sound negative but I would have thought that a boiler built in the 70s deserved to be pensioned off by now. Over the years, technology has improved the  efficiency of boilers as well as most other things in our lives. It may be time to 'bite the bullet' and replace it. Don't know what output you need but the  35KW boiler I bought cost less than 500€. If yours is inefficient, you could easily recoup the costs in a couple of years if you live here permanently and use heat all winter. www.leschenauds.com

For a number of reasons, not least the hard soldering question but also the relatively high water pressure. I decided that my oil fired CH weould be on the UK system, soldered joints and a header tank rather than the mains pressure french system. It has worked fine this winter, I only fired it up in September but it did  "exactly what it said on the tin". www.leschenauds.com

I originally had the same plan as Thumper and I brought over a large "Villager" with back burner which I ran for nearly 2 years as the sole form of heating without initially plumbing in to a CH system. I eventually decided that I would keep the woodburner as the main heat source for the largest room and back up with oil fired to give background heat for the rest of the house. I'm no plumber but having brought all the requisite piping, pump, thermostats and radiators from the UK I decided to go for it. I started lugging the rads. into place last May and slowly step by step started the installation of the 14/22mm 2 pipe system fed  remotely from the mains by a header tank. It was done this way so that the water, not being under mains pressure meant that I could use basic solder joints without having to braze. The system was up and running by September, I took my time in sourcing an efficient but inexpensive boiler/burner  of about 36KW output and managed to get the fuel tank gratis. On starting up I had only one soldered joint leak out of over 120 and two compression joint leaks in both of which cases, I had managed to leave out one of the olives? It has proved a resounding success. On reflection, The good old "Villager" would have struggled to raise the entire house base level temperature to the level and with the controllability that the CH has done.

You must be extremely unlucky. I have, in the past always bought 2nd hand PCs, I still use one which is 1998 vintage and have just built myself a new one and I'm glad to say that I have never had a hard drive failure. Most of the manufactures publish on the web the MTBF (mean time before failure) of their drives which runs into thousands of hours. My business in the UK had 8 PC's and a file server, the latter ran for more than 4 years non stop when I sold the business, I reckon around 35,000 hours and still going strong. You should get on the the HD manufacturer and complain. It is a good thing that the prices have now dropped from the astronomic levels of 10 years ago.

We brought a new "Villager" woodburner with attached boiler to France 5 years ago and having looked around, it certainly seems more substantial and is a lot heavier than many of the burners for sale over here. We ran it for a couple of years without using the back boiler and it kept our 3 bed farmhouse generally comfortable during even the coldest periods. For this winter, I decided to install oil fired central heating to provide a background warmth to the upstairs rooms, particularly the bathroom which has always been a bit chilly. Now we are  vary comfortable  everywhere. The Villager runs day and night during the winter and is a doddle to control from just ticking over to blasting out heat and this winter, we will have used about 3 Cords of wood. Certainly wouldn't be without it and, although relatively expensive to buy, it has proved to be excellent value for money. If you buy one, do make sure that you have a number of strong helper at each end to load and unload it. www.leschenauds.com.