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friend of stouby

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Everything posted by friend of stouby

  1.   thanks Glynis....it may help if I knew what 'the ragodins' were. May I guess......moles or rabbits?? searched the forum for ragodins and only came up with one thread, this one!  
  2. Hello Jim I have the point about using your full three phase allowance by splitting the draw on the phases as equally as possible, but is there any advantage of having the same power coming into a property via a single or three cables? Or to have a three phase supply in a regular domestic property. There must have been a reason that the EDF fitted up 3 phase to start with I suppose?  A while ago a friend was told to keep his three phase set up against going to mono, I didn't understand that then but didn't have the chance to ask why. Thanks for taking the trouble. Jamie ...butchx5   sorry, I didn't intend to hijack your thread
  3. "It's more efficient and makes better use of your abonnement to try and balance the three phases and run part form each phase i.e. have a tableau with three rows, each running one of the three phases." Sorry to act dim La Guerriere, but why does it make better use of your abonnnement by balancinng the 3 phases? We move in next week and have to meet with the EDF sometime soon after, our fermette has 3 phase now so you suggest it may be better to keep it? Ta Jamie  
  4. Hello Chris, we are on a gentle hillside sloping back and side ways away from us. On the far side of the 2nd field behind us (about 200m away) we have seen on a large scale map that there is a small stream which ends up at a very large lake 2 km away.  In the field behind us the same map shows what may be a large pond, but although having seen a clump of some form of wild willow and that the ground is damp (seen from a distance) haven't seen any pond.  To the side on our last visit in early February the field had a small pond formed, but it did look as though it would dry quickly. Do to the nature of the bocage with hedges, it isn't always possible to see what is around a farm or in a field, but having spent a bit of time in the Bresse, north of Lyon, there it was always obvious that almost every small holding had a good sized pond, but I don't get that feeleing for where we will live. I remembered today that in the neighbouring village, about 1.5km away, there is a small holding with a good sized 'duck pond' ....for their ducks and geese! This has been built into the hilside as it is a raised bank on one side so must have been man made, when we move in I'll go and say hello and ask what they did to create it, as on the handful of times I've driven by it was always full of water. Thanks for your interest, hope the annswer wasn't too long. Jamie  
  5.   andyh4...we will be in the Bourbonais Bocage, about 25k SSW of Moulins, 03160 code postal Thanks to every one for comments so far, we do need some thought provoking ideas and are getting them too.   Jamie
  6.   well...2 reasons for not wanting butyl. We had a smaller pond at our last home in the UK which was clay lined, as it was in Essex that comes for free! Our intention was to create a natural pond where plants and other such things would grow into the bottom, also the water level would alter a little due to seasons etc. The result for us was wonderful in particular what grew around the edge of the pond. The second reason is, my brother bought the house from us and decided he wanted to see the fish he was going to introduce and fitted (properly) a butyl liner. He is afraid to walk in it (to clean leaves out etc) for fear of piercing the liner, and the pond now has crystal clear water which in my view it now looks sterile...but it is possible to see the fish that the Herons haven't yet taken. So, I guess it's down to preference really and don't feel that we can achieve what we want with any form of man-made material. .....now I do have some Irish relatives though  
  7.   We complete on our new French home in a week or so and are still at the stage of dreaming before the reality hits. Our first major outdoor project is to dig a pond, about 15 x 10m x 1m max deep. The soil type is unknown at the moment but have seen some mole hills in the field and it looks like they are pushing up seed compost! Also there is some form of limestone? rock not too far under the surface in at least one position as we have a large dip in the ground which one side has a rock face about 3 meters high. Whether this is a single piece of rock or not isn't known. Nearly there....Assuming that there is no clay at about 60 - 100cm down, what is the best material for making a pond  relatively watertight but not using a butyl liner? Importing clay?? I will post this in 'renovations' also as not too sure where this question belongs. Thanks in advance for any tips, as in this we are not sure where to begin. Jamie  
  8.   We complete on our new French home in a week or so and are still at the stage of dreaming before the reality hits. Our first major outdoor project is to dig a pond, about 15 x 10m x 1m max deep. The soil type is unknown at the moment but have seen some mole hills in the field and it looks like they are pushing up seed compost! Also there is some form of limestone? rock not too far under the surface in at least one position as we have a large dip in the ground which one side has a rock face about 3 meters high. Whether this is a single piece of rock or not isn't known. Nearly there....Assuming that there is no clay at about 60 - 100cm down, what is the best material for making a pond  relatively watertight but not using a butyl liner? Importing clay?? I will post this in 'gardening' also as not too sure where this question belongs. Thanks in advance for any tips, as in this we are not sure where to begin. Jamie           
  9.   ..what quantity is a complete load?  weight/volume? thanks  
  10.   The reason I asked the question in the first place was I had started to read Hepworths technical web site re their Hep2o plastic pipe  http://www.hep2o.co.uk/ It did appear that as a practical person (well nearly) I could plumb the majority of our new home yet it didn't appear as though many around this forum did that even though many are/have renovated their properties. The obvious benefit of no labour charges would negate the material cost by a bit...and I usually turn up to do my own work when I'm supposed to!                Not sure about the comment on when a pipe run is exposed, take it you mean if it was exposed and expanded rather than the visual aspect? Is it possible that the later generation pipe and fittings has overcome some of the problems with expansion?...hope so as I have a mental block on soldering and welding!!  Thanks for your input
  11. ...when push together platic pipe is readily available? Is it only due to cost or some other factor I'm not aware of?
  12.   ....and moving on from the unused coil, is there a rule of thumb for the cylinder size as they are used in the real world? or are the guides that are stuck on to many of the new cylinders fairly accurate? Thanks Jamie  
  13. Hello bakerino thanks to you too.....we want to live in this area and want to TRY to solve this or any problem locally...so for a few days we will try to work with people in the region... ...but if that doesn't work out we will look for the best help we can get in which case I'll gratefully take up your offer of a notary contact and I'll look through the forum too, as you can't get enough information can you, thank you again for that.   If our solution of a watertight document worked we would have the undisputed free use of all of the land in April 2008, so the concerns you had on the property you pulled out of wouldn't exist. I am sorry that this happened to you too, although it's not the end of the world it's also not pleasant. Jamie    
  14.   Thanks John We have paid the deposit and signed the compromise 5 weeks ago....but with Christmas, Notaire on holiday, delay while small parcel of land was starting to be registered, Notaire on holiday (again) so this hasn't moved as fast as it could have...up until now. One of our initial thoughts was were the vendors in breach of contract as they signed the compromise agreeing to no animals on the land and can't deliver this part of the deal? Also thought that there may be a way out for everybody, by having a local French Notaire to draw up a watertight document ensuring that the farmer neighbour must leave the land after 2 years....this would satisfy all parties maybe...the community as we have tried to help in a tricky matter, the farmer keeps his subsidy and gets another 2 years from this field, the vendors get their sale, we get the full use of our land in a time scale that we can easily live with?   Jamie      
  15. Hello everyone, We need some pointers on a land rights matter that I haven't quite seen anywhere on this forum, and I know there are some wise people out there. We have signed the 'compromise de vente' and apart from the current owner not registering the sale of a very small parcel of land for the neighbours to plant their fosse septique on  (we were shown the parcel before purchase and are quite happy about this), the whole exercise has so far been painless and very simple. I must say at this point that we have a stunning immobilier agent. But today....we received an email to ask us to agree for a local farmer, also a neighbour to be, to continue grazing cattle on the largest of our fields for another 2 years at which point we regain full use of this field. This is a small fermette with 2 Ha of land. He has been and is using about 80% of the land for cattle grazing up until we complete the purchase, maybe end March, when we expect to take over the property free of any rights or encumberances, including without any animals on it  (we had this clause inserted in the compromise...). The agent has recently asked the farmer to sign a document that he will not use or have any claim to this land after sale date,  which he has said he is very happy to do, but to date hasn't returned the document. This is what we are told has happened. The documents for the re-registering of the reduced size of the field that the neighbours fosse septique is in has been sent to SAFER, who have noted that the largest field with this property has had some form of grant paid for it to be farmed by the farmer neighbour until April 2008 and if he doesn't farm this he will have to repay some/all? of the grant.  The agent's solution is to allow the farmer to farm this field for another 2 years in which time he will maintain it to a high standard. This farmer has maintained all the fields to a high standard so far. Our thoughts are twofold. We really want to integrate into this rural communtiy and realise that we have to do certain things in a manner that they are done in the area, and how tradition dictates. We also realise that when we want to use this field for our own use in about 10 months time (we want to plant specimen trees on much of the land)  that we first will have to wait an extra year (not too big a problem as there will be much to do for quite a while), and second this may go horribly wrong and we never get the right to use this field if the farmer continues to want to farm it? We have read through many posts about this subject and feel mildly anxious about this. We have been trying for about 3 weeks to assign an English speaking Notaire, but after waiting for 2 weeks for an answer from one Maitre, we were then told he was too ill to work so we have now tracked down a second, but he failed to return our phone call so far!  It now appears more important than ever to assign a Notaire who can explain the law to us  in this little matter, but as we are buying in the north of the Auvergne between Moulins annd Montlucon, there isn't a big tradition of incomers into the area and therefore not too many local facilities aimed at us. I'm very sorry that this post is so long, but didn't know how to get over a strange situation. Thanks for any opinions or pointers you may have, so far we haven't either committed ourselves to anything, nor given the agent our opinion.    And last....one thing has puzzled us though.....when we signed the 'compromise de vente' at the agency office, we asked at that point for the clause to be added regarding no farming or grazing rights of any form to be continued after the point of sale. The current owner was present and this was explained to her. She, after consulting with her husband she agreed to this. She didn't live at the property but her mother had until recently, but had mannaged (very well) the upkeep of the buildings etc on behalf of her mother. The owner's husband was in the local farming industry but not a farmer.  Why did they agree to allow the clause to be inserted as they must have known that the farmer neighbour would continue grazing this field? Many thanks for your patience Jamie        
  16. ...thanks every one for a unanimous response    Jamie
  17.   Hello ...sorry for my ignorance in this matter, but was is a chevron in this context??
  18. Dumb question #79 Does anyone have experience or knowledge of what happens if you use a Ballon Rechauffage Mixte (hot water cylinder with a heat exchanging coil) without connecting up the coil system? We want to install the cylinder and use it only with the immersion heater system for the first 6 months and when at a later date we have the boiler installed, connect into the coil section then. Regards, Jamie  
  19. Thanks Alastair, most helpful. Have others had a similar experience with gas central heating or with oil? 
  20. Hello Opel We will be completing on a house sale in about 6 weeks and are about to decide on cylinder gas or oil central heating. The current owner has had an Antargaz 1000kg cylinder installed to run 3 individual flued gas fires plus an instant hot water heater but we will have the cylinder removed if we choose oil. You appear to favour oil over cylinder gas, is this due to better performance or are there other reasons?  If we decide on oil, we couldn't site the tank inside (as we don't have a suitable room) so it would have to be outside where we don't have any restrictions and there is plenty of space. Is this a viable option due to freezing weather during the winter? ( the fermette is 25km west of Moulins at 310m elevation). The handful of plastic tanks that I have seen have all been in a cellar or garage etc, is this for a good reason? Would like to thank you for your very generous contributions, hope to be able to do something for others too.   Jamie    
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