dave21478

Melamine stratifie is chipboard with a pretty laminate face. Chipboard has its uses, but custom shelves and furniture is not really one of them, in my opinion.. Think wobbly old MFI wardrobes with shelves that start to sag and bow after a few months....... It can be done well, but it needs to be suitable thicknesseses and needs to be built in a way where load-bearing parts ie the shelves are adequately supported to prevent it all going floppy. Most kitchen cabinets are made of this stuff and they are pretty rigid but thats due in large to their construction and design rather than the material used. Depends on the guys skill, really. Personally, I wouldnt.

Mine leaks in heavy rain due to the flashing around a chimney not being high enough. Normal rain is ok, but a very heavy deluge means water builds up against the chimney and seeps down the back of the flashing. You will probably have a similar problem somewhere, where either wind direction or water quantity is the issue.

Its also pant-knottingly expensive in the DIY sheds. Bear in mind that the price many places show is per square meter, not per sheet. The best bet I found for exterior grade plywood was Reseau Pro, a builders merchant. They will sell to the public though. My experiece copied from another thread..... Plywood. Jesus wept. I needed 3 sheets of 18mm exterior grade ply and a single sheet of 5 or maybe 8mm also. Full size sheets....1.2m x 2.5m Went to BricoDepot...prices were ok-ish - dear, but what I would expect for France, but its not stated whether its interior or exterior grade. I asked the dummy but he didnt know. Since its not stated as higher quality I have to assume its interior grade only. Went to Mr Bricolage....there are wee samples on the counter of the wood cutting bit. 18mm exterior grade, full size sheet....76 euros or so. and the 8mm was about 34euros iirc. Damn, thats dear, but needs must. I asked for the 4 sheets. "Really? are you sure?" he said. Erm....yeah, thats why I asked for it! So loaded onto a trolley and he gave me a ticket for the till. Went down and the girl rang up the ticket......"That will be Seven hundred and something something something...." "WHAT???" 700+ euros. I told her it should be a tad over 250. She called the chap down. Turns out that despite it not saying this anywhere and despite the price on the samples being clearly next to the dimensions of a full sheet, that price is actually the price per square meter. So once again I walked out of a shop, abandoning my trolley at the till. This is not the first time I have done this in France and probably wont be the last. In a fairly foul mood, I was driving through an industrial estate and spotted a branch of Reseau Pro. I swerved in on the off chance. "certainly sir.... both sizes in stock.....that will be a total of 147 euros TTC". Sold.

Never mind in years to come, this is happening NOW and has been for a while. Plenty of employers check the social media profiles of candidates while considering their application and its not unusual for an employer to ask a candidate to "friend" the company facebook profile so that the hiring manager can see all the gory details people insist on posting online. Once its online, it doesnt go away - EVER. Those photos taken on a stag night may seem like a bit of fun, but do people want future employers to see them smoking weed and puking in a gutter? Most people dont even consider the future implications of what they post online.

People are shallow, vacuous, self-interested attention seekers, and posting thousands of photos to their social media profiles is a way of validating their lives...."look what I am doing, look where I have been, look at what I have spent my money on, look at the trendy restaurant I am eating in, look at me, me me me me me me me..." These are the same twats who film concerts or other events with their ipads - instead of actually looking at what is going on, they perceive it through a small screen in front of their face and later post it on youtube. The footage is invariably blurry and with terrible sound - absolutely no use as a document of the event, but perfect for reminding everyone else that they were there. Photography used to take effort to do well and cost money. Cameras were expensive if you wanted quality, film cost money and developing was dear - now, everybody has a telephone in their pocket that has a camera built in and a DSLR can be bought for under £100 and it costs nothing to use it.

Might be a silly suggestion, but what has your weather been like lately? Here we have had the longest, wettest period locals can remember for many, many years, leaving the ground completely saturated and there are an awful lot of problems where water has got to places it wouldnt normally. Perhaps this is a one-off in your case?

Common sense doesnt exist in France, but what makes it worse is people get uncomfortable and often hostile if you dare to question whatever shite they are spinning you. Exhibit A.... The guy from the mayors knocked on my door the other day and presented me with a shiny yellow plastic box. Whats this for? Its for recyclable paper and cardboard. Oh, ok. when does it get collected? Collected? no you have to take it to the recycling facility. the dechetterie? Yes      I would imagine the conversation generally ended about there for him at most houses. How is this better than putting the paper in the general recycling bin 100 yards down the road? Thats now for plastic and metal only. Thats not what I asked. Why is this a better system? its..... paper can no longer be mixed with plastics. right, so why not add another bin down there for paper? That would be too expensive How does that cost compare to the cost of giving one of these boxes to every single house in the commune? I..... So everyone now has to drive their cars to the dechetterie. Is that going to be better for the environment? Look, this is how it is and you have to do it this way or you will be reported. ok.    (reported to who I wonder? the recycling police?) So what happens at the dechetterie? is there a special skip for paper now? No, you leave the full box in a special area there and pick up an empty one. Its an exchange system? you know these boxes are all going to end up filthy and broken within a few months? You will be charged for a replacement box if you break it. If they are not assigned to anyone, how will you know who broke them? He was really quite angry when he left.

Was the scratch marked on the paperwork when you picked the van up? There should be a form filled out at collection where all existing damage is noted. If the scratch wasnt on this form, then you are screwed. From their point of view, the van went out clean and came back damaged - therefor you are responsible for the damage. Even if it wasnt caused by you it happened while the van was under your care. In theory, that particular van should have a log of all previous rentals and maybe the scratch is noted on an older form, but the chances of SuperU letting you see those forms is less than zero unless they know for a fact that the scratch is NOT noted, then they will use that as further evidence against you. Last time I rented one I had to edge it through some low hanging tree branches, which left a series of scores down the paint. 10 minutes with some white "scratch remover" polish covered it enough to pass inspection when returned and become someone elses problem. ALWAYS be very thorough when you check it out at collection and make sure even the slightest mark is noted, inside and out. Then when you return it, make sure they sign it off as being in acceptable condition.

If the Land Rover paperwork taught me anything about the DRIRE, its to just put down whatever answers they want to hear, and not stress about what is technically correct.

For anyone who might be interested, some more samples of the kind of genius-level work from amateurs and experts alike that I come across. Some professionals charged the client a high five figure sum for a kitchen installation a couple of years ago.... "Dave, could you have a look at these problems for me?" Light switch is now behind the fridge.... [img]http://s27.postimg.org/a4og2gm5v/IMG_20150216_090808.jpg[/img] Can I move it? well, I could, but the walls are all finished and painted, so thats going to be a nice mess. No photo, but when the same rocket scientists fitted the kitchen units, fitted the stone counter tops, fitted the stone splashbacks, did the finishing etc. I walked in and asked where the electrical sockets were. "err.....they are..... oh, sh*t" Morons forgot ALL the sockets, so had to add them to the bottoms of the high-level cabinets. But since everything was finished, just wired them to the wiring that was provided for the lights rather than run new gaines. Meanwhile.... Water has been pouring through these fuseboxes for so long, they have gone rusty. [img]http://s29.postimg.org/e2sza601j/IMG_20150216_091520.jpg[/img] Its coming in through a gaine that goes up to the roof - A blob of silicone will cure that for now. Speaking of fuse boxes.... Oooh, thats a biggun. What? your three-phase breaker keeps tripping? well yeah, im sure a bit of sticky tape will solve that problem. [img]http://s22.postimg.org/67bjsxymp/IMG_20150216_090916.jpg[/img] Surprised that hasnt burned by now. Moving on..... TV coax lead sprouting out of the stone wall with no gaine or socket or anything.... [img]http://s9.postimg.org/5f943705r/IMG_20150216_091122.jpg[/img] Interestingly, the wire plugged into the socket leads up to this beautifully installed lamp.... [img]http://s4.postimg.org/d8eq7dxct/IMG_20150216_091142.jpg[/img] Thing is....it switches on and off with the wall switch by the door - yep the socket is wired to the lighting circuit. Check this head-ache.... [img]http://s9.postimg.org/zcej5sjnz/IMG_20150216_091259.jpg[/img] I get to re-enact scenes from "Das Boot" here every few months when something inevitably fails.

I better avoid these then. I get seasick if I splash around too much in the bath.

The thermocouple is basically an electro magnet that holds a plunger inside the gas valve open. Pressing the knob down physically pushes a plunger that stops the gas flow against the body of the electro magnet, allowing the gas to pass. The flame heats the end of the thermocouple, generating a small current which energises the electro magnet so the plunger stays held open. Problems arise when you fiddle with your knob! if the knob hole is too deep or the knob skirt is too long, the plunger doesnt get pushed fully in. This is enough to let gas flow and the ring to light, but the electro magnet is not powerful enough to hold the plunger unless it is in direct contact. Something wedged in the bottom of the knob hole usually does the trick. Another problem is when the nut where the thermocouple joins the valve block becomes loose, this introduces enough of a gap for the electro magnet to not hold properly again. It usually needs a 7 or 8mm spanner, just make sure its nice and tight. On older cookers, the wiring coil in the electro magnet fails - generally speaking these are a fairly standard size so if your valve block comes apart, the coil can be removed, its a wee cylindrical cartridge with the plunger and an o-ring sticking out of the end. electro magnet... [img]http://i00.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/658/884/422/422884658_904.jpg[/img] thermocouple. One end in the flame, the other end screwed into the valve block making good contact with the end of the electro magnet. [img]http://i00.i.aliimg.com/img/pb/225/664/425/425664225_994.jpg[/img]

[quote user="AnOther"]Tailgating is already a specific offence which attracts a fine and the loss of 3 points so it just needs the will - and the resources - to enforce it ! Everybody seems to cite it as their #1 pet hate but IMO the risk of something happening because of a driver worrying about being tailgated and losing proper concentration on their own driving as a result is probably equal or greater than the risk of being hit by the tailgater so be aware but ignore them and just get on with your own driving [;-)] Q:  I wonder just how many have actually been hit from behind by a tailgater, or witnessed somebody else getting hit ? It's zero and zero for me. Oh, and as for phones in cars, I fully support a 100% ban on their use - by any means - whilst driving. [/quote] I got hit by a tailgater last year. On a single carriageway section of rocade, the dozy cow in front of me did an emergency stop on the carriageway to let someone out who was stopped at the end of their slip road. I stopped in plenty of time but the dis-interested truck driver who was following so close behind me I couldnt see his headlights didnt. My scuzzy old pickup took it like a champ with no damage, but the towbar made a real mess of the plastic front valence of his shiny lorry.

I had €9k wired to me from an anonymous numbered account in the Cayman Isles - that really knotted some panties at my rural branch of Credit Agricole. Sadly, it was funds being advanced by a client for work I was doing, but the bank still assume I am up to something and poke their nose in as often as they can. I regularly get summoned to "talk about my account needs" and I regularly tell them to poke it. I listened to their spiel once and it boiled down to them wanting me to split my money into 3 different accounts, which I would have to pay for, and manage myself, which would make my money less accessible to me and generally be a pain in the chuff, all for the "benefit" of about nine euros per month in interest. She was silent when I pointed out that the extra account charges added up to 11 euros a month.

Whenever I print a PDF, I have to check the "destination" is set to my printer. When you click the print icon or print from the menu, it will pop up a window that lets you select colour, black and white, etc etc etc and there is a drop-down menu where the destination for the file is. Check your printer is the selected destination. No matter what I set to default, every time I open a fresh PDF it has always reset this option to print to a file on the computer rather than the printer. Doesnt happen with any other software.

I hate French wiring. In UK I rarely saw any of the horrors I come accross quite regularly here. On next weeks job list is to find why a clients fuse box has water pouring out of it when it rains. Obviously rainwater is getting through a gaine somewhere. All the junction boxes I have opened in this place while trying to trace other problems have contained multiples of every single colour of wire available all so tightly packed I usually have to use a mallet to get the lids back on. In my current house, Ze Germans who lived here before and who were responsible for the....errr....."re-wiring" - [img]http://s7.postimg.org/6whzfalaj/DSCF0012.jpg[/img] - left it looking like this. Apparently finished. Note no earth connection and all the red wiring up to the old fuses by the ceiling was still all live. They had also somehow managed to get the live to switch to earth when they wired up a pair of switches in the pantry for a single lamp. I found this out the exciting way when fumbling for the kitchen light switch in the dark.... [img]http://s17.postimg.org/gl5ckzan3/IMG_20150213_174809.jpg[/img] The last house had the main fuse box directly above the bath. At least I wouldnt have to get out the shower to re-set it if anything tripped out! Not specifically an electrical problem but typical of the attitudes in a place I looked at a while back.... [img]http://s24.postimg.org/n77lxo5dh/fire.jpg[/img] "Yeah, its been on fire, but it still works ok"

I would strongly advise against using one of these third-party websites that will do it for you - Not only are you paying them a fee for not a lot of work on their part (they are just going to bang it in the post like Nomoss did or perhaps they will have their own computer link to the prefecture as some car dealerships now do) either way, its €40-€50 wasted, but the real risk is sending copies of your ID documents to a third party whos reputation and security are completely unknown.

The forecasters have been predicting the snowpocalypse for the last week, with nothing at all arriving until yesterday when we got about 10cm or so. Getting about was easy enough, but then the Mensa club members that run the snow ploughs did their usual trick of skimming off the upper 7cm and leaving a perfectly flat, very compacted sheet of snow which froze to ice overnight. I took the 4x4 down to town this morning and got on fine with decent tyres, but my neighbour has apparently dumped their van in a ditch somewhere. No injuries except pride. It was thawing throughout today but is now re-freezing, with freezing fog and more snow flurries forecast till the end of the weekend. The kids are in heaven - school holidays were due to start Friday but they have been given the rest of this week off too and they never got their holiday homework assignments before school was closed!

There should be a small metal plate on the rear of it stamped with model number etc.

There is no "law" about getting it done - as Chancer rightly says, your insurance policy is the only thing you need to check. Its a joke anyway - its not as if it needs an oil change and a new timing belt. An average boiler "service" consists of taking the cover off, blowing/vacuuming the dust off the exchanger fins, checking the system pressure by looking at the built in gauge, MAYBE squirting some leak detector on the gas fittings and MAYBE doing a flue gas analysis. Switch it off, switch it on again, check the pilot lights. Right-o thats £100 please. Its not even two minutes of work but they manage to spin it into an hours job to justify their prices. Obviously anything wrong with it is billed as extra. If its oil fired they might change the fuel line filter. They will probably charge extra for that though as that adds maybe 5 minutes onto the job.

[quote user="DraytonBoy"].... So why in god's name are millions buying the bloody magazine? ....[/quote] Because its an "important" issue and an awful lot of people are buying it to tuck it away somewhere in the hope that in the future it will be worth money in the way that the few surviving papers announcing various historical events are worth money to collectors today.

People have been doing nasty, repugnant shit to other people since cave-man times. Anyone who thinks that is ever going to change is a bloody fool. There will ALWAYS be slaughter, genocide, rape, pillaging, war and death. Breeding mates, territory, religion, resources, money....there will always be a justification. Firstly, its human nature, and secondly - more importantly - it makes some people rich and powerful. I find the best bet is to not watch TV and certainly never read newspapers. Granted, I am now hopelessly ill-informed about which pop start is shagging who and all the other tedious bullshit that is "news" these days. But I also dont have to put up with endless, pointless debate about the opinions, rights and wrongs of situations like the Charlie Hebdo attack. I barely know what happened and thats only from what I have picked up listening to others or through the occasional thread like this that I dip into on various forums. I just dont care enough to better inform myself. That probably makes me sound like a selfish prick, and you would be right - I am.

Yep, a well aimed burst from a machine gun could have had disastrous global consequences. I wonder if these idiots were annoyed they couldnt organise something in time or did they deliberately not, knowing that such an outrage would probably tip the likes of USA into all-out extermination mode.

At the restaurant, my pizza ovens went up to 450C I believe, but I got best results at around 350. They had stone linings though, and would take over an hour to get properly heated up, even though they were 380v. I have never tried the frying pan method either - might give it a whirl later in the week when my giant curry runs out. My home electric oven....well, I dont know what temperature it claims to get to as all the numbers wiped off the stainless steel control panel the first time I cleaned it! I just wang it up to maximum and let it pre heat while I prepare the pizza. I have one of those infra-red thermometers which I tried on the oven once. It ranged from 210 to 230 depending on which bit I pointed it at. I think the heavy stone base helped as a large thermal mass that would not drop in temperature as a metal oven tray would. I have recently acquired an old wood-fired stove thing with an oven in it. I am still getting used to it, and for the moment its like trying to cook with a nuclear reactor - everything gets burned to shit....Its either really low temp or flat out and almost too hot to approach. Need to work on fine-controlling the air flow and fire intensity. Bizarrely, I put a frozen sad-person lasagne ready meal in it last week and despite it being REALLY hot, the gruel was still frozen solid and only warm at the edges after 40 minutes in the oven! I think at very high temperature it warps the over door enough to let the hot air escape straight out. There is no kind of seal around it which doesnt seem right to me.

When I was a kid we played in muddy streams, cycled everywhere and did "normal" kid stuff. I lived in a leaky old house where the lino used to billow up in big mounds due to wind blowing up through the floorboards (great for playing with toy cars by the way!). Now...One guy I knew has married a clean-freak and their levels of cleanliness would put a NASA laboratory to shame. They have recently spent £1750 (more than I spent on my last three cars) on a vacuum cleaner that is some super-fancy thing that probably filters down to the molecular level. Their house gets stripped and cleaned top to bottom every single day. They all have separate indoor and outdoor clothing, everything is wipe-clean surfaces, there are motion sensitive widgets in every room that jizz a dollop of hand cleanser into your palm as you approach it (no need to even touch the machine!) which their kids are encouraged to do every couple of hours. I can confidently say their hall floor is probably cleaner than my kitchen counter. Anyway, the two kids are the weakest, palest, sickliest kids I have ever seen outside of a hospital ward - they catch every cold and bug that passes, both are allergic to pretty much anything with fur and one has serious asthma. I cant help but assume they have incredibly weak immune systems due to rarely encountering anything dirty. In fact, among everyone my age group who has produced children, sickly kids who never play outdoors are more the norm than the exception.