BIG MAC

I believe the expression is 'Home is where the heart is'.... they haven't yet come up with 'Home is the postcode at which one is normally resident when not on vacation' I noticed the remark re the Scots...yes many of us feel  fortunate in that we also call our home nation 'Home'...while the language used is English ...the sentiment is truly Scottish. I have nothing but respect for fellow residents of the British Isles who feel the same about their country. Sounds as though 3 houses Chiedfluvvie  needs to have things pigeon holed in their life, I suspect that is an indictment upon their state of mind rather than the more relaxed majority. The claimed 'right' to be in a fan club of one kind of says it all. There's folks who can start a fight in an empty room...it's an extraordinary talent to do so and still come off second best. And yes I am teasing

Knowing nothing of la situation politique en France....I can't help thinking a poison chalice maybe needs a poison dwarf drinking from it....Is this not a case of the job being a mare rather than the guy being that bad?....hang on...just getting my popcorn.....and off ya go! ;-)

France is a big place...just for fun I popped the address of our commune and that of the person moving the stove into Google for directions...533miles each way (About 9 hours) and €104 fuel each way plus tolls... Doesn't help I know but...how about phoning the local chimney sweep / liner installer and asking him to remove it? He will likely know someone who wants /. needs it  and will likely glean an install fee out of it.

In a single pipe system the single pipe will go up from the boiler / fire say in a lounge..and will tee off into the cylinder usually on a platform in a room above...the return will drop back to pick up on the return pipe below The pipe will continue past upstairs rads and tee-d branches will enter and exit at low and high level respectively to promote circulation in the rads...these rads will have flow restricted to them to prevent them being 'favoured' The pipe will get to a point where it needs to drop back downstairs at this point an upstand with an air emittance valve may be an idea...the water is getting progressively cooler ...but being 'pushed ' by the replenishment of hot..the rad just before the drop downstairs ideally should be in a bathroom and lockshielded in the 'on' position...the same pipe and rad set up continues down stairs..until eventually the pipe reconnects in the 'return position' picking up the return from the cylinder at the same time. Not the most effective of systems...needs to be run in 28 mm in the upper sections dropping back perhaps to 22 lower down (all tees being 15mm or rough French equivalency) No pumps. you could use a thermostatic blending valve to ensure that the dhw does not deliver scalding water...come the power cut break out your Hurricane lamps and toast your muffins...in relative comfort while arguing who goes out for wood. You will need a sizable boiler for this little lot say 16 - 17 kw....and a big pile of wood...yes the rads downstairs will be cooler...but then....the fire is downstairs making it warm anyway

Hot water is less dense or 'lighter' than cold....give it a path up and it will rise....thus displacing colder denser water which returns to be heated again...

[quote user="LesFlamands"][quote user="idun"] Les Flamands ours was really simple but it still needed a pump to circulate the water and therein lay the most simple of problems for us. The electricity going off, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours and as we have seen in the recent past, it can be off for days in very bad weather. And when it was off we could not use our fire, I would have loved to, but the water boiling in the system was frightening. My husband installed a system with spare batteries so that if the electricity went off the pump would change over to the emergency system. But strangely as soon as that happened we didn't have a cut in winter for a couple of years, and something went wrong with this 'emergency' system when he tested it. I would never have another stove with the heating linked in, for all it sounds like a good idea, I wouldn't. I now have two stoves and know that come what may, I can cook on them and heat the living areas. kiss is the best thing for me. [/quote] I have to agree that keeping it simple is often the answer. It may be possible using a large accumulator heated on a gravity circuit to overcome the problem of power cuts (from a safety point of view) and still have warm radiators when the fire has gone out - overcoming the two main shortcomings with wood burner central heating but the installation cost is high and as the boiler is not controlled you would still not be using the fuel efficiently. Stand alone woodstoves are a good solution for some houses but they are a lot of hard work. [/quote]  Two mains pressure cylinders in tandem as accumulators and a thermostatic blender to deliver hot water rather than the 85 degrees from the cylinders ...maybe 

There is a rule with goats....They are all hungry. Incidentally if anyone wonered how Fort Southwick's moat remained so bramble free...now you know. I don't know if the MOD still do this as I think they may have sold the site http://devonfinefibres.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/goats-for-scrub-clearance/  

I know the answer...you may not believe me but I used to have to arrange the clearance of brambles from steep banks on Victorian hill forts near Portsmouth...too steep for humans....enter the goats. Goats will decimate brambles..they love them. Just tether or fence them in and they will do a cracking job...no burning or carting away either. They will however eat everything so if theres a plant in there you want to save you would need to transplant it or wrap it in currugated iron or something...Local goat farmer will likely oblige if you give him a bottle.

And gravity is sucking energy through my shoes and making hair that was once on my head grow...err somewhere else......

[quote user="Quillan"][quote user="Bill"] solar arrays !   I'm  not sure if the french are subsidising, but many governments are...  seems to make a big difference, payback in this country is about ten years, disregarding inflation/deflation  of energy. farmer up to road (UK)  has gone barmy and spent 60,000 on one array on his barn.. put up the barn specially.. he is anticipating even faster pay back as claims agaisnt tax , and gets his vat back as registered.. If the gites are a biz niz, then perhaps the vat /cost is claimable . rgds bill [/quote] I don't know where you get that figure from but The Energy Saving Trust (UK) admitted that they got it wrong (June 2011) because they were fed untruths by the manufacturers, salesmen and installers. According to them the average price to the end user to put panels on an average semi in the UK costs around £16,000 and that the saving in energy bills is about £70 per year. A quick bash on the calculator and forgetting anything after the decimal point means you would get your money after 228 years. Personally I think even that figure is wrong from what I have read so I stick to my 50 to 80 years but then I may also be wrong. Most people do no understand this technology and that includes those selling it. Wild claims are made about payback, tax credits etc. The only truth is that you are helping to reduce carbon emissions. If you are extremely environmentally friendly and can afford not to worry about saving money then it's a nice thing to do. France however has the smallest carbon footprint in Europe because it uses nuclear power. Source [/quote]   Sadly the carbon arguement for PV doesn't add up either...I am with Quillan on this...the manufacture of the panels themselves is very carbon heavy as is their transportation usually from China etc.

Laughing with you here, not at you...What I proposed should work and not be as orrible as it sounds...couple of days work maybe, given the confined space.  

I should have mentioned evac tube solar...my apologies. I can see that this presents a whole aesthetic question of its own if there isn't sufficient room for a ground array ...pv is a waste of time at the moment

Fair point Quillan until you look at the size of the place and the ugliness (to my mind) of split air source kit in and on a main building. I dont know the relative areas however if you were to have 900€'s worth of kit to each renter x 5 plus the main house...then drawing about 5 to 6 kw to do it not to mention starting loads...I agree electric is really the only option and that to use it sparingly is sensible hence why I think solar is way to go....particularly in a guest house where hot water is a pre-requisite and is generally over produced or expensively produced 'instantly' ala combi boiler or plate heat exchangers.... Microwave water heating will be the future but not really viable just yet ...I think the Vulcara Mk4 is about as far as its got.  

Hadn't spotted this thread ..first off....nice piece of work originally...you must be proper narked at the expansion of water in the upper layer of the soils creating 'Frost heave' not the same as conventional heave which is usually a result of the rewatering of soils previously dessicated. For now I would suggest leaving it...the lower levels should be ok?...once the weather turns you could try to place some wooden folding wedges in the 'gap' then dig around your ring beam outside. once the beam and blockwork are exposed outside you could 'gun in' some mortar then knock out the thicker wedges, just leaving those required to restablish the bed joint thickness (They can be knocked out once mortar has gone off) You could then galv strap the outside using non ferrous fixings and insert a vertical layer of something like thin kingspan insulation backed out with pea shingle...this should help prevent adhesion in subsequent years and the very obvious 'heave' to which the structure has been subjected. The shingle will 'self compact' and allow reinstatement of your paving etc. The pavoirs may well lift above your cellar in future bad weather but short of putting in a deep sub base you may have to live with that one. Hope it helps....if it doesn't at least somone likes your efforts....

Wherever my family is..is home...That is why I am currently at home in Scotland..staying with my brother and his family while working here..'Home' otherwise is Portsmouth except when I am 'Home' at France...Home, to me,  is where you feel safe, sheltered and at peace. I think the concept of 'you are only allowed one home' somewhat lacking in imagination .

Air source would be too reliant on ambient temperature....in the winter it is going to struggle to pull heat out of -10 degrees so you could be gathered around the cheery glow of the electricity meter... Solar and overnight electric ia thermal store would be more efficient in my opinion...  

Apparently our 'Sabatier' knives are 'Diamont' and that is one of the genuine French manufacturers..regardless of where they come from ...they hold a very nice edge....almost in a par with my normark filleting knife...

Twin coil mains cylinders on overnight tarrif for dhw (one to serve each letting unit - sounds excessive but means you only affect one unit at a time when working on them or if you get a 'water greedy occupant' backed up with solar as most of your custom will be in the decent weather. This method should also provide some benefits to the main house in the winter  if you install a thermal store so that any over production of heat energy gets caught and used when needs be. For heating I would use air source in the gites as it can double as AC and you can advertise AC in the apartments as a benefit. For the main house I would likely go to Underfloor on a Solar / solid fuel combination thereby using the log burner or boiler to further charge the thermal store andthe heating running from it even if you have to use rads it's probably a good controllable set up....your major obstacle will likely be the cost of insulating properly (absolutely vital) and then the cost of the equipment which at current values may cost in excess of £10k not including concrete works or flooring... however....Gas and oil is not likely to come down in price over a ten year period. Overnight electric is reasonably priced and probably nuclear so less reliant on fossil fuel. Solar is free other than maintenance and obsolesence. If I win the lottery..the above would be what I would be installing!  

Is there a waiting list for them ...like a 'bardeaux queue' kind of thing?       I shall get me coat  

Better to have the system off for the simple reason - if you vent a lot of air out the boiler may shut down due to pressure loss...not air ingress. The weight of the water above you should in theory push the air out when venting 'downstairs' while upstairs you may need to 'top up' the system from time to time to raise the level of water..particularly if the boiler is below the level of the rads. Once you have bled all your rads - recharge the system via the filling loop to the level proscribed by the boiler manufacturer (Probably 1 bar or thereabouts)

Do pass on my apologies as without seeing the installation it's very much a shot in the dark. As a contractor however I can tell you that so often these days people are cajoled into changing boilers it's beginning to wind me up. I have a 15 year old Wrcester Bosch 280c at home ..I have replaced a pressure vessel and machined the flow switch 'flap' to give it a little more clearance, straightened a couple of fan blades (bent by me hosing moss of the roof and accidentally shooting water down the chimney....So about £70 in repairs thus far...I think I may have put a thermocouple in because I had it lying around...I can guarantee there would have been 'engineers' who would have told me 'scaled up' instead of dirt in flap valve body, 'leaking heat exchanger' for silly sod hosing roof and 'failed combustion gas test get a new one' instead of bent fan blade. Boilers are relatively simple things other than the electronics...whoever does your work I would tell them to explain it to you 'like you are 6 years old'.and don't agree until you truly understand what they are going on  about. Bon chance! Mac  

We just use the commercial colour coded nylon ones....and proper Sebatier knives which get placed blade up in a wooden knife block. A chef told me once...' Why would you put and edge on a blade then slide it into a slot in a wooden block'? his point being it dulls the knife and cuts the block over time....I expect a France Forum revolution of knife in block turning! ;-)  

Not sure what you are talking about in respect of a water tank as I would imagine it to be a sealed system ...the only tank in this case would be the ballon and it wont make much of a difference other than on overheat ie. if the temp sender tells the boiler to shut down because the water is too hot. actually ...thinking about it...worth checking that motorised valves are ok. Your boiler will be sized to heat the system and you have said you have isolated part of it...it may be that the boiler is measuring the temperature of the return water and is closing down on overheat. I would suggest purging the system and checking operation of diverters, replace thermocouple / s as possibly de sensitised, recharge- chemically dose system then balance it properly with all zone stats at proper set points.

I wont go into too much detail as your contractor should be appropriately accredited and know what he is doing ...however... The formation below the tank needs to be able to sustain its weight when full The tank itself will be 'boyant' ie when empty will try to 'float' so needs to be appropriately tethered as the ground is made up. When putting interceptors in I ususally cast an rc slab to formation with stainless shackles to ratchet straps fixed loosely..pour concrete into base and allow to cure then take up the slack on the straps so that the tank is secured into the ground. Then there would be formation of pipe access (usually a blockwork or concrete ring affair - to allow future access - purging etc) I don't think you would need geotextile in a fuel installation but worth checking (inhibits root growth) Once connections are made good and air tested the tank would receive fuel to say half a tankfull and the pipework wet tested and filters cleaned. Only then would I start to backfill in selected fill in  layers no greater that 150mm and compacted right up untill you are over the level of the bottom of the 'neck' of the service access in the top of the tank or say 500 below finished surface then backfill can be looser to allow vegetation some growing space....any intrinsically safe wiring and small bore pipework should be going in then back fill to finished levels.. It's a little more complex than 'dig hole shove tank in it' and I would want a Devis which detailed the methods proposed. I would ask your installer to include a three month period of aftercare in their price ie. any adjustments or filter changes which may arguably be 'service items' he carries the labour and materials for if needed.

Could simply be a ropey thermocouple duping the boiler into thinking it needs to fire ..then cycling till it hits overheat and conks out....or it could be a sticky fan ...could be a very cheap repair ....then again could be a pcb...lets think positive...worth getting a technician out sooner than later though.