Dave

Hi,has anyone here ever de-registered (is there such a thing) with the Chambre De Metiers and then started working and being paid by Cheque D'Emploi, or does anyone know if it is possible? and also can anyone explain how Cheque D'Emploi actually work (for the Employer & the Employee) I came to France not to earn my fortune and I wanted to be legally employed here, I duly completed a Stage at my local Chambre De Metiers and started work, as I say I did not want to earn a fortune, but the cost of the social charges has far outstripped my earnings, I only earned €14000.00 last year and I have paid €6000.00 in cotisations* (can't spell either) I am not complaining about paying my way but as you will see from the sums this does not make any sense to carry on. I would like some advice if possible? thanks Dave

Only surprised that nobody won anything for Bobc's response...he he

Thanks guys, for the prompt replies but my wife and I decided to go with a similar suggestion, we measured along the beams and made marks every 20cms then i stood on the ladders and measured between the beams at these points while my long suffering wife transferred the shouted measurements to the piece of board, decide to go for 120 mm across the board, easier to handle. we have covered about 1 third of the ceiling now, after 3 hours..not bad we thought and the filling left to do along the edges doesn't look to too bad. thanks again Dave

Hi all, we are trying to come up with an idea as to how we can measure the plasterboard before cutting it to fit between some wonky beams in what is destined to be our new kitchen, we have screwed some timber along the beams to fit the plasterboard to....have both thought of some ways of measuring/marking the board but now would like to know if anyone out there has done this before and what you actually did ....please! we don't expect to get a perfect fit but would like to make the effort.... best regards Dave

Hi, we had smells from our fosse and it was caused by the flushing of the loo, whenever it was flushed it caused a vacuum on nearby waste pipes from the bath and sink that siphoned the water out of the trap thereby allowing the smell from the fosse to enter the bathroom, i cured it with some 'anti syphon' wastes bought from the UK, since then i have seen in a friends bathroom a waste pipe from the sink with a vertical 'T' that had a small valve at the top, this does the same job as my 'anti syphon' wastes from the UK. of course if you have NO live waste pipes yet this is not the cause, did he install a breather pipe before the fosse, ours is discreetly hidden on the outside end of the house to a height of around 3 metres, knowing this forum I am sure that someone with more knowledge than myself will give you some advice, i wish you good luck with solving your 'smelly' problem. best regards Dave

Hi, we live in the Lot (46) and we were fortunate in that 2 year ago when we started our renovation (still not finished) we had a dump that was just an open pit and you could drive up any time of day and dump anything....that is now a thing of the past and we now have modern recycling depots here, but nonetheless we are still able to go there and dump just about anything.....ours have special containers for asbestos and others for plasterboard, metal etc. If you are still driving a UK registered vehicle I would advise you to take with you some proof that you live in either the local commune or the department, we keep our attestation for the house purchase in the car, even though we are on local plates and have visited the depot on numerous occasions, the guy at the office always comes out and asks what commune we live in....but never a problem, we have been with trailer after trailer of plasterboard and stuff, never a problem, just ask locally or look out for a sign saying 'Dechetterie' happy renovations best regards Dago

Hi, I read somewhere (may have been elsewhere on this forum) that someone had used a thinned down solution of Yacht Varnish, i think that you have to expriment with the percentages so as not to end up with shiny stonework, i have to say it sounds like it may work, you could probably apply it on a still day using one of those cheap 'airless' electric spray guns that are sold on some of the outillage lorries.... good luck, let us know how you get on. Dago

Hi, a friend of ours in the Dordogne had an infestation of termites, they came to their notice in May when they came out of the woodwork and took flight like large flying ants, he said that the beams were covered in them at this time, they had a full treatment done and kept their fingers crossed, the next year, in May out they came again! Most reputable companies provide a guarantee once they have treated and luckily our friends were covered by such a guarantee. This, i am happy to add took place 4 years ago and to this day they have been clear of termites. We had a survey done on our house, paid for by the seller and required by law i think, but as with all 'surveys' there will be some small print somewhere that protects the surveyor from any come back if the survey is subsequently found to be wrong. I am sorry that all of this is of NO help to you whatsoever except to say that it could be that you can at least see that there is this problem and you CAN have it treated, you could look for another house that comes up 'clean' but in a years time...out come the termites, it's all part of the 'fun' of starting a life in France....kind of comes with the territory... I am off now to do a search on Google to find out if I am in a RED zone....... good luck Dago

Hi all, my wife worked at a local pig breeding farm running up to last Christmas (before anyone asks she cleaned the offices....i just know how your minds were working....) at Christmas she received a quarter of a pig (nicely butchered and bagged) also 2 kilos of sausages and a voucher for €50.00 that could be used at a whole range of well known stores....unforunately the farm has now closed (breeding now being cheaper in eastern europe) but not a bad Christmas 'box' for the 'Femme d'menage' excuse my French... regards Dago

Hi Ron, sorry to hear of your problems, as well as taking Baz's good advice about switching to AVG i would also suggest that you take a look at www.mozilla.org and maybe download and use their new browser called 'Firefox' it is so much more secure than IE which sometimes allow these 'diallers'to be downloaded and installed on you PC without your knowledge, i use 'AVG' and regularly run 'Adaware' and always found elements of 'low risk spyware on my PC but since installing and using 'Firefox' 'Adaware' finds nothing, the download is free and installed easily on my WinXP OS PC...good luck.... Happy surfing Dago

I agree with Bones on his points, besides which I thought that Advertising was 'verboten' so is Bobc's link to his business Web Site in breach of that rule? "only asking" regards Dago

It is unfair to suggest that if a builder can start straight away on your building that he is in some way 'dodgy' or 'no good' Builders too suffer from being let down by over ambitious clients who agree to work being done at a specific time and then letting the builder down by declaring that they "do not have the funds at the moment to carry out the work" I would also add that I am neither a builder or am I affilated to any in any way. good luck with your search. regards dago

Sorry, should have added that.....the grass in question (i won't call it a lawn) is in the southern Dordogne south of Sarlat, very stony ground, lots of moss and weed.......... regards dago

Can anyone tell me? Is it tool late or too early to think about feeding/seeding grass areas, i don't want a bowling green but just SOME green stuff to cut next year.....! regards dago

Hi, this will not be of help to BigJim with his need to send and receive large music files (but they are working on it, i recently downloaded 'Onspeed' costs £24.99 for a year money back if you don't like it. it WORKS........i have a very slow connection speed here in the Lot sometimes down to 12 kbs. so going to the bank web site, meteo, ebay anywhere was slow. it works by compressing images on the sites even further and you can suppress 'popups' and some'ads' when a site opens the images are all pixelated but are unimportant, it's just quicker. if you get to a site and you want to have better quality images you can easily bring up the 'settings. window improve quality and then 'refresh' the current site....hey presto. Give it try, works with most browsers, Firefox, Opera, IE 6. Go have a read of the reviews om site at www.onspeed.com the download is small so is easy to install, for IE6 users there is no configuring of the browser it integrates in automatically. Happy surfing

Sorry, don't know about roofing...but it is Alt Gr + $ to get the € symbol.   best regards  

We had EDF come to our house shortly after buying to do a survey for a new meter, we agrred the Devis and within two weeks two really friendly guys came along, asked where we would like the meter and promptly installed it. They left us two large wire 'tails' from the meter with a domino block on the end expllained how to isolate it by the flick of a switch and then told us that we could simply connect wander lead to the 'tails' to run our power tools, kettle etc from. We quickly learned not to use too many high energy consumers at one time (don't put the kettle on with the toaster at the same time, it simply trips the main disjoncteur every time, as far as we understood we ahve only a 3kw 'builders' supply at the moment but when we are ready can apply to have the supply increased, thus far NO problems...The French Tax Man...now there's another story...!   bon courage!