Sans Souci

I guess I should have clarified.  The opening at the top is narrower than the standard diameter of the flex tube where it connects to the insert, thus the need for the rigid, oval stove pipe.  When I questioned as to why we couldn't have just the rigid pipe for the last two meters, he just shook his head and said the issue was you needed to connect the pipes and shove them up the chimney and that could not be done with a flex pipe at the beginning. The rammaneure cleaned and certified the chimney, and thus I assuming that he shoved his brush all the way up.  I am going to give him a call and ask him why we can't just use flex tube and also the question about just dumping the smoke into the chimney after one or two meters of pipe as per the woodstove. We have had fires with no problem.  The last fires we had (after it was cleaned) smoked but that was the result of Souletis delivering end of the season green wood.

We had a devis from a local wood stove supplier to get an insert installed.   He was concerned that the openeing at the top of the chimney was narrower than at the base and initially said that his flexible liner would not fit - and therefore we could not use an insert.  He then thought of using a rigid oval liner which he felt would work - at twice the price.  All of my questions and "what ifs" were met with negative shakes of the head.   My first question was why do we need a liner if the chimney was certified by a ramonage to be in bon etat.  Apparently inserts need liners (that was the extent of the answer).  I then said can the flex liner go 5 meters up the 7 meter chimney and then the smokes just goes into the chimney for the last two meters.  His answer was that the liner needed to hang onto the top of the cimney to support the weight of the liner.  If this was the only reason, I am sure that a system of cables can be used to support the weight of the flex liner with having it reach all of the way up.  He did offer the solution that if we used a wood stove, we could have a pipe that went only one meter up into the chimney and close off the base of the chimney.  That would essentially dump the smoke from the wood stove into the chimney and prevent it from rolling back into the house.  I was about to ask the inevitable question of "why can this be done with a wood stove, but not with an insert", however my head was already hurting too much from banging it against the fireplace everytime I asked a question.  Any thoughts on if the answers were factual or was he just taking advantage of an American with an "Obama for President" bumper sticker on his car.  

Our old furnace has heated it's last liter of water and it is time to decide on how to handle our 7 month heating requirement. The plumber has quoted 8 000 euros for a replacement chaudiere and I am not apt to consider that much and we will also have to replace the radiators. As we are only here for 7 months - April through October and have 3 fireplaces, I was thinking off just using electric panel heating.  Someone then suggested to just use a moveable Delonghi style heater as it uses less energy, is more efficient, lower first cost and can be moved out of the way when not needed.  Seems reasonable. I am also getting a price on a pompe chaleur system which is a great alternative and cost effective with the French gov't tax rebates - but the supplier could not tell me if I would qualify as this is a maison secondaire and I live in the US and file taxes in the US.  Does anyone have any thoughts on this also. Thanks in advance for any advise.

Just started the demolition of my 400 y/o village home. Two bedrooms are below grade each with one below grade wall backing onto a village road. I removed the old wood floors in one bedroom as there were termites discovered during the inspection. Found out that the wood floor joists were sitting right on the dirt. I then removed the plaster wall which stood off from the stone below grade wall by about 8". Those the dirt floor and old stone wall are now exposed and ready to be renovated after the termite guy does his magic. The problem is there is moisture leaching through the grouting of the stone and the natural rock formation that the stone walls sits on. Some of the leaching moisture is - um, liquid. I can think of a number of ways to attack the situation giving the limitations that I have i.e. cannot dig up the exterior portion of the wall as it is a village street and cannot add any more windows as it is in the village. I am going to put in a concrete floor and on the walls I was either going to: A- Clean out and regrout the stone and then leave it exposed and have a fairly large dehumidifier operating on a humudistat. This way if the would be a sufficient amount of air circulation and if anything nasty started to grow on the walls, I would see it and be able to attack it before it just grew hidden behind a wall. The dehu should take care of the moisture rise and keep the bedroom (ours) somewhat comfortable. Or; B- Clean out and regrout the stone and then build another wall about 8 to 10" away from the stone. Install a vapor barier and then placo marine. I would then install a VMC humidistat controlled system drawing any moist air up into the attic and then exhausted to the outside. Any thoughts on pros or cons to either solution, or a recommendation for an Option C? Thanks for any opinions.

Thanks Cjlaws.  It confirmed what I was thinking but wasn't sure of the nuances of French legal language. You sound comfortable with Real Estate legalities.  To invoke the "requirement to complete", would I just notify the Notaire that unless the contract is completed with xx days, I will cancel.  I am trying to get the sellers to recognise that there is a sense of urgency to satisfy the clause suspensive, so that we have a house to move into when we return to France next month.  I don't want to create unnecessary angst amongst anyone, but I would like to i) light a fire under them; ii) do what is legally necessary to protect my rights and deposit should I find it necessary to cancel because everyone is dragging their feet.

I have a literal translation of a section on my Acte de Vente, but still cannot understand what it means. En Francais, Les presentes conventions constituent des leur signature un accord definitif sur la chose et sur le prix. Elles seront reiterees au plus tard le 31 Decembre, 2007 par acte authetique par Me. XXXXX notaire a xxxxxx que les parties choisessent a cet effet d'un commun accord. La date ci-dessus mentionee n'est pas extinctive, mais constituitivedu point de depart a partie duquel l'une des partie pourra obliger l'autra a s'executer. My translation basically says The present conventions constitute by their signatures, a definite agreement about the thing and the price. They will be renewed (or reiterated) at the latest by dec 31, 2007 by the acte authentique established by XXXXX and xxxxxx who were the parties chosen to this effect by common agreement. The date above is not extinguished but constitutes a starting point by which one of the parties are obliged to take action. This is well and good but I do not understand what it means. We have a clause suspensive on the contract which has not yet been satisifed. Does the above mean that the seller/buyer have until the 31 December to intiate action to satisfy the clause suspensive, or does it mean that UNLESS the clause suspensive is satisfied by 31 December, either party can take action (change/cancel the deal). Any brilliant French legal minds out there that can assist?

Thanks for the confirmation that once all costs are added together with the hassle factor, it is less expensive and better to buy locally. We are in Dept 24 - the Dordogne.  Sold our home in Beynac and bought in the village next door - St. Vincent de Cosse.  Not quite as picturesque as Beynac but there will be no tourists opening our front door and looking into our house.  We once had people walk right into our kitchen while I was sitting there on my computer.  I was about to charge a 20 euro admission but thought that would not go over well with the Mairie.    

We have lived in France for 4 years and just sold our house - with all of our furniture.  We have also just bought another house - unfurnished. We are considering buying furniture in the states and shipping it to France. Does anyone have experience with the relative costs of doing this and any horror stories that will help us decide one way or the other.  

Well - after 5 emails and after my last email was bounced because his mailbox was full , I decided to call the Notaire's office last week.  Spoke with his secretary and was told that the problem was that he was waiting for some remaining factures to come in before calculating the Plus Valu and my CGT.  He did decide to release 90% of the proceeds from the sale and hopefully will wire that to my bank shortly.  Everyone was pleasant and accepted the delay as standard operating procedure. Two interesting things though: 1.  I was required to provide a facture from the real estate agent who was involved with the initial sale of the house -  even though I provided the Notaire with all of the sales documents on the house that had listed the agents fees as part of the purchase price. This was the largest facture that the Notaire was waiting for. 2. The independent agent that audits the factures required cancelled cheques or bank statements to prove that randomly selected  factures were in fact legitimate and that the artisan was paid.  This is/was a problem as we thought we had no reason to keep our old bank statements and the bank did not send cancelled cheques.  We are still waiting for the head office in Bordeaux to find, retrieve, copy and sent this proof to the Notaire.  

Hi Tony, We are from a "small village in the Dordogne" near St. Cyprien.  Beynac. Probably either know you, or have seen you somewhere, or will meet you sometime. That's the way of the Dordogne.

I recently sold my house in France and have yet to here from the Notaire that the sale has been completed.  I was informed by the buyer that the property transferred on Dec. 4th.  Subsequently I have emailed the Notaire requesting an accounting of the funds and confirmation that the funds be wire transferred to our French bank account (we were not at the closing, having signed a statement allowing the transfer to proceed with us being there).  I have also had the buyer contact the Notaire (the buyer is bilingual) and have him ask the Notaire to respond to our emails - nothing yet.  I have had friends of ours go to the Notiares office and request that he respond to our emails - nothing yet. Unfortunately, although my wife and I can converse in French, we have a limited vocabularyare not fluent enough to be able to question what is happening without sounding With all of the above happening, I am not yet concerned as the Notaire has been around for ages and  is handling the purchase of our next house which is just awaiting a removal of a clause suspensive.  I am a little annoyed though with the Notaire's total lack of communication.  From the information gathered through our French friends and the buyer,  supposedly the Notaire is awaiting a facture from our last immoblier for their fees on the initial purchase in reduce the Plus Valu and therefore the CGT. The Notaires secretary said that he was going to do a partial transfer of  funds, which has yet to happen. My questions to any knowledgeable person out there is: Is there any legal requirement for the Notaire provide informationm to the sellers and to transfer our funds within a given time period Does the Notaire pay interest on any funds that he is holding (400,000 euros) Should the Notaire hold the total amount while waiting for a 20,000 euro facture. Should I be worried. Thanks for your help