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Yes, I think this may be our only solution (hopefully for the short term) unless anyone else knows differently!  Thanks Miss Babs.

We had a new tiled floor laid throughout in our holiday home in March this year - the heating was left on until May so that it could dry out.  We furnished the house in June and have visited 3 times since.  However, on each occasion, all the soft furnishings: chairs, sofa, curtains, cushions etc. are covered in a white mould and the fabrics feel damp to the touch.  The mould brushes off fairly easily and once the doors/windows have been left open for a while, the dampness disappears on the fabrics.  Because the house is quite new it is very well insulated and we are unable to leave the windows on "vent lock" as in the UK.  However, we do have 3 electric air vents. Has anyone else had this problem and found a solution?  Obviously the summer is now behind us and the weather will become damper and colder again - I am now envisaging several more months of this and our furniture will eventually be ruined.  We only visit every six weeks or so and although we do have neighbours who could "open the house up" for us, it is not reasonable to expect them to sit around for a couple of hours a day while the house "airs"!!  I do intend to leave the heating on low over the winter but this doesn't seem to help.

Thanks all for your most helpful and reassuring replies.  The other (French) builder we got the quote from has done work for us before and turns up when he says he will (how surprising is that!) but regretably we decided not to use him because, as explained, he would only quote for the whole job which is beyond our budget.  I will give the English guy an ultimatum (yes he is registered in France) and if nothing, I will then approach the French builder again and beg for a lower quote!  He is a reasonable and very nice chap so don't envisage any problems with him.  He is also partial to a small brandy and homemade sausage roll!!  Thanks again everyone and good luck George with your ongoing problem.

After 6 weeks I managed to get quotes for a small amount of building work from 2 different builders (one French, one English). I decided to go with the English builder as he was prepared to give us 2 prices (one of which would involve us doing the finishing off and thereby saving us a few euros)!!  I signed the quote and sent this back to him at the beginning of July with a note asking him when he could start the job - he replied "in a week or so".  By the end of July I still had not heard from him and emailed asking whether he was still interested in doing the work - after another 4 weeks had passed I got an short email back saying "yes, but he had been away".  It is now mid September and still no sign of the builder.  Am I within my rights to cancel my instruction for him to carry out the work and if so, should I send a recorded delivery letter or would another email be sufficient? 

I have now managed to sort this out in fact, as you say Annie, SAUR have proved to be very efficient and helpful.  I finally got through to a nice lady in the office who spoke English and she arranged for me to pay the outstanding invoice immediately by direct debit - this was taken a few days later. 

Hi Les Thanks for this prompt response.  Unfortunately I sent them 2 emails via the website last week and also gave them all my bank details via this so they could take the payment direct.  However, according to my account the amount is still outstanding and they haven't replied to either of my emails.  Couldn't see a link for English clients.  Will have to keep trying by phone. 

I sent a cheque to Saur in June for payment of the water bill - 3 weeks ago I received a duplicate bill saying they had not received payment.  I sent another cheque immediately having noticed that the first one had not been cashed.  Today I have received another bill which now includes a penalty for non-payment.  The second cheque has not been received either.  The payments were returned in the pre-addressed envelopes supplied to us but in addition, our address appeared incorrectly on the first invoice so I included a note with the first payment amending the address.  The address has now been amended so I cannot understand how they received this letter but not the cheque which was enclosed with it? Although I do not speak very good French I did intend to try to speak to them but I have been telephoning Saur continuously today since they opened at 8.00 a.m. but no-one answers.  Does anyone know if there is an English speaking helpline as obviously we do not want our water cut off!  Thanks in advance.

Am I right (or wrong) in thinking that you can buy a concrete mix whereby the sand and cement are already combined?  Just add water?  Our builder left a large heap of some grey (but not too fine) powder which I'm sure he used for constructing the walls - doesn't appear to be any sand in evidence, and where it has got wet it has set solid!

Proxima Thank you so much for this helpful email.  I must admit we did think that 1 metre of concrete was exceptionally thick therefore we will do as you suggest and speak to another builder and/or builders merchant.  The wall hasn't been constructed yet but will be made out of block, probably the open type so we could reinforce them as you suggest.  Am I right in thinking therefore that we could fill the void with hardcore (reinforcing with the steel rods mentioned) and then just put a layer of cement of between six and twelve inches on top?  If so, this would reduce the amount of cement required to between 4 and 6 cubic metres - quite a cost saving. We can't use the underneath as a store as its right at the front of the property and it will need to have the same wall finish as the house itself.  Good idea though!  

We are planning to extend our small terrace; the size of the new part, including two steps, will be 20 square metres.  Because the site is sloping our French builder will need to construct a supporting wall along the longest edge which will be rendered once finished. He estimates that we will need 18 cubic metres of cement to fill in the void.  The price for this cement alone has come in at over 1600 euros.  Can anyone tell us if there is a cheaper way of doing this (except hand mixing please!) - maybe it would be possible to use more hardcore (we think the depth of the concrete at its deepest point will be about 1 metre)?  Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks very much to everyone who responded - I did get mixed up with aluminium and zinc!  I would definitely prefer to use the zinc version rather than upvc so shall have to give the matter some more thought; at least I have a few months to brush up on my soldering skills!

Sorry to sound naive but I haven't a clue on anything technical either in the UK or (especially) France!  We would like at some point to connect our TV to receive UK channels but there seems to be some confusion at our local TV store in France. What actually would be available to us in South Western France (Sky, Free to Air, Freeview?) and do all of these require a phone line? Any advice, greatly appreciated.

Hi there We are hoping to install new guttering to our house in Loudeac.  The local Brico says that the guttering should be soldered; however, when reading up on this product in the UK via a very reputable, established manufacturer it says that sealant is sufficient.  Because our soldering skills are non-existent does anyone have any advice as to whether the sealant option is viable.  I appreciate we should probably have the guttering installed by a professional but we are skint and the cheapest quote we have had is 3,000 euros.  Materials for the same project at Brico will cost 420 euros.  All advice appreciated. Mark

Just thought it might be nice.

Hi all We are taking possession of our new build in a few weeks time and had decided long ago on a name for our house - the land itself had been known locally by this name for many decades so we chose to keep it.  However, we have noticed that another property (new build) in the next street has adopted this name so unfortunately we need to think up another.  I think we were fairly safe permission wise on our original choice but can anyone tell us if we need to get permission to name a house.  Obviously we are not going to call it anything along the lines of La Pondarosa or Thistledome but maybe there are guidelines/rules?  It is very rural with only 2 other houses in the street so don't think just a number will be practical.  Thanks all.

Hi again We do not have gas connected to the house (I had a nasty accident with gas as a child and have been wary of it since). However, if we bought a gas hob would it run on bottled gas? and could this bottle be installed in a kitchen cupboard under the hob rather than siting it on the outside of the house?

Hi Nick Our electricity is not yet connected to the house (new build) but the application form says 12 KVA - we do have all electric heating so should we be OK with the 6Kw hob?  Also, there is a 32A wall socket.  Thanks for your advice.

I really must object to your post NormanH.  We have lived in a very rural property "hot spot" in the UK for more than 30 years where many of the village houses are owned by outsiders (mainly Londoners) as second homes.  Although there is some resentment (especially because of the lack of property for young families and the hike in prices) the people in our village would not be so ill mannered as to park their vehicles on someone elses garden whether they were resident or not.  And they would be fully within their rights to call the police should they do so, especially if criminal damage had been caused to property/gates or fences - as in our case in France.  In addition, because of the additional business generated by these "outsiders" and the fact that some let out their properties, our post office and village stores have recently been saved from certain closure. We we purchased the property in France it was derelict and an eyesore in what is otherwise a beautiful village and had been unoccupied for over 50 years; because of its proximity to the village, the large area of land around our property was offered to local farmers and to the commune at a pittance we gather and a lot less than we paid for it - ALL PARTIES DECLINED.  Personally we don't care how we "appear" to the locals; they didn't want the property but from what you are saying they'd rather we buy it, make it look nice and then take full advantage of the parking facilites for free - however, most of the people parking on our land are not local anyway, just visitors.  Why is it that we Brits have to make so many allowances for the French and their "ways"?  We have done absolutely everything legally, been friendly to everyone, employed local artisans to carry out ALL the work. Spend our money locally, pay tax etc. etc.  Of course we understand that we are the foreigners here but there must come a point when you say enough is enough. Its a pity foreigners coming to the UK don't respect us and our laws/customs!  Who are the mugs here?  We certainly won't be putting up with this nonsense.  In fact to back my point up further; the previous owners of our property had a right of way over a neighbour's boundary.  As soon as the property was sold to us this boundary was effectively closed off.  So much for "changing the arrangements that have gone on happily for years". I'm beginning to think that British suspicion of the French is justified. 

Not sure if this is any help and our response would also depend on which region you are in as I think they are a franchised company and obviously each agency would differ. We approached this company at an Overseas Property Exhibition in London and agreed to meet their representative in France 2 weeks later when we would go through the procedure and have plans designed etc. (we already owned our land in Languedoc).  Can't remember the guy's name (could be Chris, he was welsh but living in France).  He was very helpful, took us around all his local current projects then gave us an outline design and cost based upon our initial sketch which was professionally done by their in-house architect.  We went back to the UK, agreed to go ahead with the company and waited for the contract to be sent.  That was in May 2005.  Despite numerous phone calls and emails we did not hear anything further from him for another 4 months when he decided that there was not enough profit in our project.  After making further enquiries we discovered that they did not have their own builders/tradesmen and most of the builds were sub-contracted out.  It transpired that the reason he did not want to take us on was that there were no available tradesmen in the Languedoc at that time and he would not be able to fulfil his timescale of 10 months.  It was a complete was of a trip and 4 months of potential build time so I have to say, we were very disappointed at our treatment by Andre Beau.

Thank you for your replies.  The reason we want to buy in UK is that the actual hob we want is not available in France; the closest one is double the price £285.00 in UK, 790 euros in France.  Almost all the other appliances are also double the cost in France so overall by buying all our kitchen appliances in UK we could save well over £1,500.  We have a lorry coming to France anyway so it won't cost us anymore to "ship" it. We think the hob we are buying is a 6 kw one (will check); we know that the wiring at the house is 32 amp so that will be sufficient; however, will we have to change the wire that comes with the hob or will we need an electrician to replace this wire with a "French"one!!  Sorry to sound naive.

We want to buy our hob in the UK as the one we want is not available in France.  Will we have problems wiring it up?  Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thank you all for your replies.  Looks like the range is out of the question without some serious aggravation and I've think we've had enough of that over the past 12 months!!! 

Hi there We had originally planned to install an electric hob with separate built-in double oven for which our (excellent) French electrician has connected two separate cables in our new build - the one for the oven being a 32amp.  My wife has now decided that she would like to look at having an all-electric range cooker (we have no gas at the property) but our electrician has said that this is not possible.  We realise that the range cooker's power rating is a 45 amp but we have been told by an electrician here in England that it is quite safe and common to install a range cooker in the UK even where the wiring is 30amp because it is highly unlikely that all the burners/both ovens and grill will be used at the same time.  All that is needed (he said) is for the circuit breaker in the fuse box to be upgraded to a 45 amp and that no additional wiring would be needed. Can someone tell us if this is correct as our French electrician says absolutely not.  It may be that he feels that he has completed his work and doesn't want to fiddle about any further with it.  Any advice/suggestions would be most welcome.

Thank you Frederick, fab idea - shall certainly try this out especially as cost so reasonable.  Hopefully it will do the trick and we can grow plants up them!! Also very much appreciate everyone else's suggestions and we shall certainly speak to the local police should such a situation occur again this summer especially as, I would assume, they caused criminal damage by removing and breaking our gate.  Would love to know where you can buy a stinger!!

Thanks all for your helpful (and amusing) advice.  Yes, we do own all of the land and there is no servitude on it - our notaire has checked this.  Not wishing to go into too much (boring) detail - we have come to many compromises with our neighbours (all on our part) from allowing them to graze their horses (we have a legal agreement so they cannot claim any rights over the land) to giving them a 2 metre strip right at the far edge of our land to extend their driveway.  The sentiment that we are just looking after the land doesn't seem to work both ways - when our electrician/septic tank installers came to do a survey they were refused permission to "stand" on a strip of land which was owned by our next door neighbours!!  In fact he stood on this very strip for over 2 hours watching every move just in case they came back! Returning to your suggestions, we could not accommodate a parking area as most of the "unobstrusive" land is at the back of the property and in order to access it they would have to cross newly laid lawns/borders/driveway (we saved hard to afford this (10,000 euros) and we would be devastated if they were ruined).  There is only one access point to our property (there being fairly wide ditches all around) so all these cars would have to use our driveway and pass right in front of our house. One idea would be to extend the ditch, effectively making a "moat" and installing a drawbridge!!!  I will let you know how we get on once we have installed the NCP sign!  Thanks again everyone.