HQ

Thanks Steve! That was a very helpful overview. Key message is to insulate. The house will be for mixed use but primarily a summer home. If I don't put in some CH would there not be danger of burst pipes over the cold winter (it gets quite cold in Bourganeuf, I heard)?  Sounds like I have to put my school cap back on. Where can I find the equation/formula/help on the caculation of the heating requirement? The building is stone-built and rendered (personally I would prefer to keep the stone face but too late now I guess) with a basement cellar and some of the ground floor is parquet, with one tiled (old kitchen). I would prefer to have UFH but don't want to lose the parquet - is this a feasible solution. Obviously budget is a constraint but if the cost differential is not huge then it should certainly be a consideration. HQ

Thanks everyone for the helpful advice. Sorry it has been a while - been out of the country (and not for this reason unfortunately). I appreciate the advice to stick with the French standard (do as they do and all that) and I am not planning to buck the trend. I suspect they are also pretty much the same anyway, given the close proximity(?)  Getting decent and trustworthy advice about the options available was all I was after. However, as I cannot do this very well just yet (negligible French, don't have any contacts, not over there most of the time, etc). I was hoping to accelerated the research process. Maybe an even more basic question I still need to understand - namely what is the process to decide on what heating system to use? Could anyone help? Are there anyone of the forum who is located in/near Bourganeuf and have some good tradesman that they would recommend? Hung

Err, maybe I am not asking the question correctly Has anyone put in new heating system recently and what considerations did they ahve to go through? Not being a lmber am I on the right track in my thinking or am I limited ot what is the norm in the UK (perhaps there are French systems that are not common in the UK)?? Any advice from experts out there?  

Hi everyone A newbie to the site, so be gentle although I have read many-a-posts and have found them informative and very interesting. We are currently in the process of waiting for the Notaire to finish off the paperwork and hope to collect the keys next month. It will be our holiday home (for now) and is located in Bourganeuf, 23400. However, there is quite a substantial amount of work needed not all of which are decorative - we are quite capable with the latter. Items on the big wish-list include: Remove a separating wall between kitchen & dining room Move an internal wall Close off several internal doors and create 2 new ones New central heating New bathroom/shower room and a cloakroom New kitchen One of the key changes we will need to put in is a heating system. At the moment there is none (or rather some old electric heaters and balloon-type for hot water). We are looking at options although the variety of choices from this forum seems to make it rather mind-boggling - being not a plumber and all. The simplest option seems to be just keeping the existing electric system and replaced the heaters. This would be very straight forward although doesn't give much flexibility as there still need to be a solution for DHW, etc. Another option we are exploring, given the existence of a fire place in every room, is to install a wood-burning stove combi boiler either in the kitchen/diner (where we expect to spend most of our time) or the living room and to have wet radiator system. This would be identical to what we have in the UK, except for the stove. However this will require quite extensive plumbing for the entire house but it would also solve the DHW issue. If necessary we could also have a simple log-fire in each room although more likely for aesthetic than functional. Some searching on this site and the web seems to throw up quite a few other alternatives although I am unfamiliar with most of them. Does having a "generic wet system" as above a good solution or are there more suitable alternatives? Would appreciate any advice, Hung