VandA

We have a 6 week corporate booking (which is fantastic) then a further week so at the moment nothing after sep 2nd. We'd really like to appeal to people who don't know the area so looking for ways to do it. Racing cards sound a good idea - I've a few racing contacts here so will sound them out about it... Thanks!

That would work! ;)

We've just opened a gite here in the Oise in the south of Picardie. We've love to encourage more Brits and Dutch and Germans to come an enjoy this fabulous part of France but so often it's just a place people drive through to get somewhere else. Anyone any ideas how to encourage them to stay?

Just filling in my tax return and noticed this section on 2042C "Investissements locatifs dans le secteur touristique ou les résidences hôtelières". Looking up the notes it talks about "réalisation de travaux de rénovation de l'immobilier de loisir dans/dehors une ORIL". Does anyone know anything about claiming this credit d'impot? Does it apply to particulars or is it just an investment vehicle like the Scellier stuff? We're converting a building to turn it into a gite. Would it apply to this? How would I find out about the ORIL areas? Or whether we are "dans toutes les communes inscrites sur la liste concernée en France par l'objectif n°2 des fonds structurels européens situées dans des agglomérations n'excédant pas 5 000 habitants."?

May end up there but was hoping for a bit more variety. Found this place - http://www.premierfurnituredirect.com - anyone used them?

I've been looking at the prices of bedsteads in France and to get something of decent quality it seems you have to pay a fortune! Is there somewhere like Dreams in the UK where you can get a decent bed for not too much money? Any recommendations?

You can but I quite like the look of this thing for maximum flexibility: http://www.outofeden.co.uk/productdetail.aspx?productcode=2999

The rooms aren't big enough for a double and a single. My thinking is that if both rooms have two singles in then we can join them together to make doubles in both of them when needed. There are some pretty clever things for joining beds together so that the join can't be felt.. Or would one dedicated double room and one twin room be better?

Just about to shop for beds (the gite is getting closer to being finished!). We have two bedrooms, along with a sofa bed downstairs. We were thinking of getting a double and twins for the bedrooms. Would you recommend getting two sets of twins instead for the increased flexibility? I'm not overly keen on zip link beds but would we lose bookings without the option?

Fi, It's not so much for the phone as for the internet I guess. I don't really want them having to share our wifi.

Just wondering what abonnement people go for with their gites? I'd be looking for no outgoing calls, just incoming and internet...

Works a treat - have set up another account, logged into it and logged out again and now it doesn't log in automatically. Thanks!

I've not yet found out how to point towards another location. It's a shame as it was a great little gadget - if you're away from home you could email a picture to it!

Does anyone know where exactly Orange is going in terms of its target market? Last year they stopped their blog offering and I've just received an email saying that their photo offering is changing, and that they'll no longer support their LivePhoto internet-connected photo frames. They seem to be doing a good job of pi$$ing off their clients! Does anyone know of another way of keeping their LivePhoto frame connected somehow?

Funnily enough I still use a lineone account that I last paid for about 10 years ago!

I've just read through all this again as we are getting close to opening and am still none the wiser! I still don't know where to go AE or micro... We already get French Healthcare as my main income is in the UK, where I pay my NI. I am resident in France though. My family gets its healthcare via me. Does that mean that we should go for the Micro regime after being registered and classified and just pay tax on 29% and no cotisations? Or do we go AE where someone has mentioned that you just pay 13% total in arrears on what the gite would earn?

Thanks AnOther - looks like I didn't search back far enough. Seems a daft system that's for sure!

That seems daft! If I want to share my signal with my gite it means guests will be able to access my account!

I've tried signing out, even signed in with a different account but even a totally new computer that's never connected to it before logs itself in automatically when it connects to the wifi!

Using a Livebox if I go to orange.fr when at home it automatically shows me as logged on showing all my account details and emails. This happens even if I give complete strangers access to the wifi. Is there any way of preventing this happening? It must be a Livebox setting somewhere...

We burn about €7k worth of gas a year so a 20% saving on that would pay for the new boiler pretty quickly! I just need to know whether anyone has experienced savings like that. Our quote (we've had a couple) is for a 72kW Veissmann boiler - the boiler itself is €6500 plus the chimney lining etc takes it up to €15k. Not sure if I can wall mount one of these and vent it outside or whether that is even an option! More investigation required I think..

[quote user="crossy67"]In terms of saving money by changing your boiler you are wasting your money. Boilers 10 years ago were iro 95% efficient, even if they were 100% (not likely) you would only reduce your fuel nils by 5%.[/quote] Our boiler is a little more than 10 years old and I suspect a lot less than 95% efficient

Thanks for that... Am trying to find some figures as it's an expensive job (€15k) so wondering how much we'll save per year.

We have a large house with a commensurately (is that a word?) large gas bill. Can anyone who has replaced an ageing (30 year old) boiler with a condensing boiler let me know what sort of savings they are getting on their bills? I'm just wondering where on the list of priorities a new boiler should be, in terms of payback time etc.

[quote user="Sc"]If you're going to have a website, choose a domain name that includes your principle search terms. Search Google for "gite in brittany" and you'll see what I mean. Steve[/quote] It's a very good point - trouble is we'd be a bit limited as we're not on the tourist track. I think we going to stick with 'La Source Tranquille' and make sure we get plenty of keywords in.