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BIG MAC

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Everything posted by BIG MAC

  1. Aha! as I am not French tax resident I imagine the 7-figure Numéro de télédéclarant (from the form that they sent you to fill in to declare your income) Your Revenu fiscal de référence (from the last avis d'imposition that you have received) Don't apply to me, thanks anyway.
  2. I have fitted kitchens and bathrooms for years before embarking on a management (bleurghhh) career. I am meeting an expert on Saturday...just getting twitchy...excitable sod that that I am.
  3. Hi Pickles...I didn't even know I had one! how do I find out? (Thanks BTW)
  4. I have missed a trick. I have a redundant well at my place ..about 20ft deep we reckon and potentially suitable for ground source heating...question I hope to have answered this week is... Which is more efficient..to fit closed circuit system into the well as is or to fit it then backfill the well with sand and vermiculite in the upper layers...any experts?
  5. Hi once again, €308.26...Seems a lot for house and contents Assurance however it maybe that as we have quite a few outbuildings these ramp up the risk. Can anyone advise me the polite way to write to my Insurers and ask them what the 'Sums Insured' are? Thanks for reading
  6. Hi fellow sufferers. Can anyone enlighten me as to why the Finance Dept of Dogsville may want to liberate me of €150 without so much as a 'by your leave'? Is there a new tax that they are hitting us with? I have noticed since our Dept (53 incidentally) has started 'splitting up' the tax bills they seem to be creeping up every year...bad enough paying 53's without the near Germans too.
  7. Cheers Quillan I will do ,,, 'The book of Quillan' has a certain ring to it...it's what Tolkein would have written if he was wrestling a dilapidated French Farmhouse into the 21st century.
  8. It's all very interesting stuff this. I can build in a basic building environment management system as an enhancement to Quillan's friend's idea. As I understand it using an external unit internally or in a duct where it can be either to outdoor or indoor (ie an insulated attic with dampers and actuators where heat can be pulled from the upper reaches of the building - condensed and used to charge the thermal store) just need to figure if the gains and efficiencies work out but will ask the engineers at work whether it's a goer.
  9. BIG MAC

    Paint

    I am a hammerite smoothrite fan ...theres nothing better for ropey old metalwork..however doing when renovating our gates I bout some green paint 'pour fer' in France and its been brilliant. Two years on and thus far no sign of the fading you would expect... but then I did prepare the area well and spot primed it with zinc rich primer (from the UK)
  10. Hi Quillan, long time etc... The part of the house we 'live in' is essentially a patch up for now but done in a manner friendly to future addition ie ducts in walls and eaves ready to receive services, new kitchen has a false wall to conceal extraction etc (and to square off the most irregular shaped room) The heat pump and plant come into play when we do the adjoined hangar and while re roofing make use of its south facing roof slope (Thankfully not too visible from the road as PV panels on old buildings are hideous IMHO) Will check with the Mairie before hand as we front into the Commune. Chances are it should be ok as the roof in question is concealed by another two buildings 'end on' to it but not concealing the sun too much. Ground source bore holes will be sunk when we get the footings done for the replacement hangar walls ( corrugated iron is so 1950s) I did wonder about using our existing well as a borehole and passing pipework up and down it but suspect the powers that be would be very protective of the aquifer.
  11. We seem to have had a plague of flies this year ..our greniere is like the fly 'killing fields' with corpses a plenty (yuk) I can handle the odd fly but have good reason to live in fear of the mosquito. I seem to be very allergic to mosquito bites and if I get one chances are it will end up in a sore which lasts weeks ..I have one on my arm which has just healed leaving a scar from a bite at Easter!..Anything resembling a mosquito in my house gets squished...it's the law! This year I have noticed a lot of 'mosquito like' flies which when squished leave a stain like ash ..very black and nneeds to be cleaned quickly. I love France aat this time of year and I guess it's all the insects which allow the impressive displays from flocks of starlings picking up where the swallows left off..Discs for windows are on the shopping list ..what are they called?
  12. I still see a lot of talk about heating appliances, a little about insulation and very little about heat recovery. When we have finished our 'stop the water getting in works' it is my intention to use a VMC as a vital component in our heating strategy (along with Photo voltaic panels to offset running costs). A ground source heat pump and evac tubes to heat a thermal store once I figure most economic way of doing it along with the best insulation we can afford should see our log burners being a 'nice to have' and a good fall back for when it's really cold. I toyed with the idea of installing an air to air heat pump in the upper loft as a means of pulling heat back down into the lower rooms not sure if the benefits are there though. The secret has to be to insulate, insulate and insulate again then extract as much use out of the heat you generate.
  13. If you go for the 'riven slate' type of slips and once in situ do some random struck pointing you can get quite a convincing effect. Thing is 'period finishes' even when done well can look naff in a modern house. Have you considered timber like weathered Iroko (silver grey) as a more modern and relatively cheap material?
  14. Your loss is in the value of sending them back and hanging them...probably about £500. Tell Aussie to get them DHL'd pronto.
  15. They need to simplify the whole process and strip out as many Foncs as possible. A phone / PC APP where one can put in their earnings per month - less permitted business outgoings and then flat rated at 30%. Down then to the State to use it's buying power to buy the assurances just the same as we buy the NHS. It seems to me that you need to have a degree in nuclear physics or some such to do a tax return ..pointless over administration.
  16. I think I may have been but can't remember..perhaps a sign that having a brain injury isn't always a bad thing?
  17. I was all for Scotland being in the Euro ...now I am beginning to wonder if that's what Germany were banking on.
  18. Why doesn't the UK open a food bank in Calais and save the poor 'migrants' a commute? Thing that Pi55es me right off...These poor persecuted people have had to leave their country...so why didn't they stop at the one next door and claim asylum? They are not the UKs or France's problem sad though it may sound...we have plenty of our own.
  19. Cripes if I had only known there were such fun places...why oh why did I buy in the Mayenne?...
  20. When I have cleared the mortgage in the UK then my French winter evenings will be spent fitting out my workshop for a year or so and then when I live there..restoring old Jap motorycles..
  21. As a previous poster said, its important to set the sealed units up on plastic spacers and these are installed all the way round the window (top tip put a splodge of car windscreen sealant under the side wedges as it deters 'creep' ) No sealant at all in the bottom channel other than that on the face of the unit, this allows water to seep through the weep holes in the bottom of the window which in turn align with channels in the frame/sill. There's no need to have hideous drain holes visible if you are crafty with timber windows once they are assembled and in place simply drill angled weep holes through the frame and sill from inside but that exit in the capillary channel under the sill (That's the groove under the front lip) then clean out with a pipe cleaner soaked in Danish oil (other preservatives are available) blah blah
  22. Can't help thinking it would be a hell of a lot easier to simply have the same size fittings across Europe rather than mess around. I am with Anton in that the quality of Kite-marked fittings is far better than the French / Chinese badged as French fittings available from Cabines Francaise..
  23. Near us in Portsmouth UK there is a company with the strapline 'Get the Fog Out' As I am in 'quick reply' I can't do a hyperlink but if you cut and paste the following into your browser then you will see that here it's commonplace to do as you suggest. http://www.idealwindowsolutions.co.uk/condensation_removal_maintenance.html This isn't an advert for anyone in particular as its a generic thing but their little video may be of interest. I wonder if there was enough people with the same issues if they wouldn't send a guy over for a week,,,,
  24. I was thinking I am due a tax rebate as I don't keep Coos :-)
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