Nearly Retired (I am now)

In the 1960s and 1970s it was GT this and GT that. In 1980s and 1990s we then had turbo this and turbo that - you know, turbo dog food, turbo window cleaner etc. It's now the turn of "digital".

What do you do with the ash that you have cleaned out of you fire in the morning? Mods. if this is in the wrong section kindly move it. It just seemed to follow on from other fire questions. 

Suandpete, As it happens I got here the night before. No show at 08.00, no show at 09.00, no show at 10.00. I phoned and they told me it would be 14.00. At 14.15 they arrived. Start time today 08.30 and the same promised for Wednesday. So far, quality and attention to detail is spot on. If there's anything more to say (which there probably will) I'll put it in the "renovations" section of the forum when I get back and away from this frustrating dial-up.

If only 40w is needed then I'll try and resurrect the idea I put forward a while ago. For those of us with holiday homes prone to the odd bit of damp but having no electricity on when away for long periods - why not solar powered VMC with a back-up lead acid battery? It would be nice to be running all the time, but if it was not sunny enough and the battery went flat there would be no crisis as it would all start whirring away again when the sun came out.

Maricopa - thanks for the good luck wishes. If they do turn up on time I think I'll have used up a lifetime's luck, so in that event I won't be buying lottery tickets anymore.

This year Armistice Day, which is a public holiday, falls on Sunday 11th. Does this automatically mean that Monday 12th will be a day off? I ask because my plumbers (I call them mine and even call them plumbers sometimes!) have promised a start to my work on Monday 12th and I plan to leave England on Saturday or Sunday to be at the maison secondaire for 09.00 on Monday. I have my doubts about them arriving anyway because we've had a couple of false starts already and I faxed a very threatening letter a week or two ago demanding a start on the 12th and suspect they've just said yes to shut me up. I'll phone them tomorrow (Friday 9th) to try and find out, but in the meantime it would be good for me to get an idea from the forum of what might happen or not on that day for most working folk in France.

"  2 I would have thought venting into the utility would be a bad idea. If the utility is colder than the kitchen, as  they often are, it will encourage condensation on the cold surfaces. " The house we bought came with exactly this system - the back kitchen used to smell lovely depending on what was being cooked. The water streaming down the walls and the steamed up glass in the back door was not too much to my liking though. I simply extended the vent with a 90 degree bend, a vertical length of pipe and poked it through the roof with a lanterne on top. Now it happily vents into the open air.

If effect rather than trendy appearance is required why not just put an extractor fan in the glass window like we all used to do before these hoods became the thing to have.

Mike, I have a cunning plan. Rather than wait to find an english sparks who wants to talk to you, why not phone a few of the adverts of english electricians. Just tell them that when you come you'll be working in the opposite corner of France and not competing with them.

I'm told that copper slowly dissolved by rainwater does a good job in preventing moss growth. So, theoretically a nice juicy copper cable run along the ridge line should allow for plenty of weak copper solution over the slates everytime it rains. I don't know how this idea works in thunderstorms with all that lightning about and I'd make sure your house insurance was up to date !!!!

"French" clocks.   www.rogerlascelles.co.uk     If you fancy a clock that looks french you could try this lot that I saw advertised in a magazine on Saturday. I have no connection with these people but will probably buy the red square tin Aperitif Pastis one. If I do I'll update on quality etc.

If we're talking good old gravel with a mixture of sand and stones (20mm ish) with a touch of moisture as you'd use to mix concrete, then you are looking at 1.8 tonnes per cubic metre. I guess you want to spread a few stones around a garden like I plan to do which would have less sand/small particles, be drier and nearer to 1.6 / 1.5 tonnes - I think.

We can now get through Rouen OK on the route described. However, I've found out (the hard way!) that it's possible when going south to go wrong just after Rouen when finding the A13 which leads to the new A28 and Le Mans etc. Just after the second roundabout, with no cows, you need to take a right hand slip to get on to the A13 which is sign posted earlier as for "Bordeaux Suivre Caen". If you forget this, as I have done, you come around a right hand bend after the roundabout and are suddenly presented with two signs: Le Havre straight on and Caen to the right.  PS The dual carriageway throught the industrial estate has a couple of manned petrol stations open on Sundays.

I'm still having problems getting the petrol saw to go and now my arms ache. Last week I saw a €59.50 promo electric 2000w saw with 40cm chain in Auchan Cognac and decided that £40 wasn't going to break the bank for an experiment. It's an Italian brand but made in PRC. I have found it superb for my simple task of cutting logs down to size for the insert. After maybe 25 logs or so the saw slowed down its rate of cutting and needed a sharpen. It does just what I want and is well worth the €59 to me for occasional use and I wish I'd bought one a year ago.  Lidl are doing a similar one now for €59 but I don't know anything about it.

A slight change of tack. Our house is used infrequently and we arrange unnocupied ventilation by wedging the insert door a little ajar, slightly opening a window behind the shutters, leaving veluxes in vent mode together with a few UK whirly vents in some windows. It's OK, but could be better. We turn off the electricity when away (which is most of the time) so haven't bothered to go down the VMC route. What about a solar powered / lead acid battery VMC system? Is there one? Can you design and make an effective one yourself? 

Do you know, I really can't imagine a French person speaking only French having any luck at all in your average UK high street Barclays, HSBC, Nat West etc.

Thanks too. I was very happy to help. That's what I like about this forum - masses of useful, helpful information.

I think I'd follow your method - sounds OK to me. Make sure you don't just acrow off the first floor and consider propping from the ground too. You don't want the floor bending too much. I'd think about a couple of little piers or maybe a chunky door frame to take any extra load if the blocks are really that thin. Otherwise your lintel ends won't be supported by much. As an aside, it's amazing how stiffer a wall gets with a coat of sand cement render on it.

Pedant mode on. Er....., as long as you like. Or until your money runs out. Pedant mode off.

Second hand LHD cars in UK actually seem to sell at a bit of a premium to those of us wanting one before actually getting to France and without all the hassles of dealing with car purchase in France. In UK I gave up looking for a decently priced LHD car and bought a good RHD Peugeot which will, one day, get to France. If you have the confidence I would suggest bringing your LHD car to England and then selling it privately on a forum or through Autotrader. I've read your post again and thinking about it I might even be interested in your car instead of our Peugeot - I reckon that shows the demand in UK will be good. 

BBond, No - we didn't need to provide evidence of income. We were just asked if the money for the house we were buying was coming from savings and we verbally confirmed. We showed our passports and paperwork (I can't remember precisely what now) about our proposed house purchase and then showed a British Gas bill as evidence of our UK address. I couldn't believe that a British Gas bill would be sufficient / proper evidence for a french bank, but it was enough. We might have shown a couple of our HSBC statements too. Since then we set up an account for our undergraduate daughter who was about to spend a year in Paris and it was even easier. When our current account gets more than a couple of thousand Euros in it we get a call to ask us if we'd like to transfer it into a saving account which the bank lady also set up for us. All in all - a brilliant service which costs us €3.60 a month. 

We simply wandered in to a Credit Agricole branch in our nearest town and asked to make an appointment to open an account. There was no way that our (lack of) command of French in those days would have allowed us to make a telephone call ! We came back at the appointed hour with plenty of ID, spent a good hour or more setting it all up and soon got a cheque book and card sent to our UK address. We now have a good contact in the bank who will happily take calls and faxes from us about our banking matters. We both speak different versions of franglais but always get what's needed sorted out. It's so much better than any relationship I have with our UK bank

I've made sure mine had no fuel in it and have done it several times. Nobody has ever looked though, so I don't know what they'd say if they found it. I always make sure it's deep in the depths of all the other stuff so a simple boot opening exercise won't detect it anyway.  

I showed our maire my outline proposals for a new swimming pool to gauge his reactions and to see if they'd likely be accepted. He was OK with everything on my sketches but suggested that I show a boundary wall height of 1.95 m rather than 2m. He told me it would cause less problems when he sent off the plans to the next level up in the process and then probably be simply passed through as OK.

I think I'd go along with the idea of a hot-air gun, a plastic scraper (like used to get ice off a car windscreen), a few litres of white spirit and an acre or two of kitchen roll paper.