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Nearly Retired (I am now)

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Everything posted by Nearly Retired (I am now)

  1. Oh well! You live and learn. I thought 4.55 E was lot of money per bit. The priciest in Bricomarche (yes, yes, overpriced - but with 1 hour to go on a Saturday before the shops shut and a 10 mile journey, what is one supposed to do!). I though SDS referred only to the chuck type, i.e. 3 flat sides to the bit rather than round. Anyway, I think I've been drilling too fast - max revs at the highest speed - with hammer action on.  So next time it'll be slow speed and expensive bits  -  I'll leave the SDS until I need loads of holes doing. By the way, putting up and aligning the dish was a piece of cake. If you've never done, or are worried about trying it, just please give it a go - it's so easy...10 minutes and we were watching the football.
  2. What am I doing wrong drilling into my french house walls? It's much harder work than in UK. At home, my masonry drill bits last a few good holes before giving up the ghost. But here in Charente Maritime with 2ft 6ins thick walls of chalk (?) and sometimes render I wear out one bit per hole.   I put up a Sky dish at the weekend. It needed 4 x 10mm holes each 65mm long. Well, I used one bit per hole - that's 16 Euros of bits alone.   PS I'm not using cheap bits.
  3. As well as the "dead-load" (weight of floor, finishes etc.) you want to consider "live-load" (weight of people). Would your floor cope with a full room of party goers all dancing / jumping about in tune? Apologies for the mixture of imperial units, but trust me the following daft looking formula is a good rule of thumb for joist sizes - it's not a proper calculation but it just gives you an idea of what you may want. Here goes: take the span of the beams in feet, halve the number and call it inches. Then add one and round up the inches to the next whole number and that is the depth (in inches ) required of your 2 inch (50mm) wide joists. Example: Span is 11 feet, half is 5.5, call this inches and add one - so this gives 5.5 + 1 = 6.5, say 7 inches. Therefore for joists at 450mm centres you need 50mm wide joists of depth of 177.8, say 175mm. Get out clause: No guarantee is given or implied. No offer is being made. This is not advice to be taken. I know nothing. Do not rely on this information. Use a qualified structural /civil engineer to provied calculations. Sounds daft - but "educated" builders in London have been using this for years!!!       
  4. I've only looked in the Uk for a "Light Tube" and found them all (only a choice of about 3 companies) to be very expensive. Ours in UK lights up the first floor landing with a 350mm diameter tube. It cost about £550 + about £200 for a roofer too. It was made by Sunpipe who very, very reluctantly gave a 10% discount. I don't think they'll get cheaper until they are seen as a mainstream product.A huge amount of money to save on lightbulbs but I'm very happy with it. If I were to think of something similar again, I think I'd go down the DIY route and use glass roof tiles and make a wooden shaft (lined with foil) leading down to the room. This of course wouldn't do if you want to go round a bend or two.
  5. Thanks for the replies. My particular interest was use in the house where the signal might need to go through a couple of thick walls, but only a straigt line distance of say 8-10m. Sounds like it might be OK.   Yes we have an upstairs - a big mezzanine and that's where the base station will probably go.
  6. We're thinking of buying one of those wireless phone thingies that sit in a charger base station and can be used while wandering about the house and garden - I forget the precise name they go under. Anyway, the range is supposed to be around 300 metres max. and the one I have in England is fine all over the house and garden. Our Charente house has 2ft+ thick stone walls and I wonder if the signal will get through those. Before we go out and buy one (two?) Anybody got any experience please?
  7.   I've visited this site for over a year now and here's the first posting. We bought our holiday house in the Charente Maritime last October and are about to take the plunge and have a 10m x 5m in-ground pool installed. We've never had a pool before and know little about all the pros and cons. The two quotes we have to date are both around €30 000 including a 2m wide paved terrace all around.   If anyone has experience of pool installation and maintenance then all your views would be very much appreciated. Questions: What treatment system? How do you maintain it when you you only visit every 6 weeks or so? Does the pump system still run in winter? Is one pump/pipe at one end enough for a pool this size to keep it crystal clear and clean? All pools in this size seem to need a liner, but the frame can be steel, aluminium or concrete - is any one preferable? How much does one cost to run?   I could go on all day with questions but maybe a few "experts" can help with questions we've not even thought about.   Thanking you in anticipation and what a great informative site.    
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