JohnRoss

Yes I am inclined to agree. Problem is that the advice often given here is to use the rate you got when the transfer of dosh from the UK took place which is fine if you have a pension or some such transferred on a regular basis like once a month. 40% of our income comes from sale of units in a bond and as such is paid directly in euros to our French bank so no problems there. Most of the rest of our income stays in the UK in sterling and comes across in a single lump once a year when we feel the rate is as good as it is going to get though no crystal ball here. Last year in September we got 1.135 but would one use this figure to convert UK pensions which are paid in sterling throughout the year, I think not! I don't think working out a conversion figure on a monthly basis based on web exchange rate sites is sensible as you still would not know what rate firms like HiFx would have offered had you made a transfer each month. We used to do that but the UK bank exchange rate was not that good compared with larger amounts transferred less frequently. All in all still very confusing each year!....................JR

As usual I asked my local tax office about the exchange rate to be used and got this reply to my email: Monsieur le taux de change est : £ X 1.1972 =  € Cordialement, Contrôleur Principal des Finances Publiques This would appear to be the rate some sites gave on the 30th of December 2011 a date that I gather some tax offices use when asked this question..........JR PS Just thought I would get the ball rolling this year!

It might be that the battery is the weakest link and they say that should it fail they will come and get you and sort it out, replacement, towing etc. Not sure what happens at the end of the battery life. I assume you just rent another. If you regard the battery as the fuel tank you still have to pay to fill it with electrickery every night I guess.................JR Not sure how much the Lithium ion battery would cost if you could purchase it, quite a lot I imagine.

Anybody got an opinion about the Renault Zoe all electric car. Sounds ideal for a second car for local driving, shopping etc which accounts for 90% or more of our driving each year. The only one I have seen has been shown on the Renault Sat' channel and the programme schedule does not seem to agree with what they show so difficult to find. The rental for the battery is the thing as the monthly charge seems more than we spend on diesel most of the time. Longer trips other than to the local shopping area would seem to be a job for our Scenic as charging points seem to be few and far between in France as yet! I note they want a fee to reserve one for test drive and possible purchase but still interesting..........................JR 

Thanks for the interesting comments. One thing I have noticed is that since deleting these trojans I have received no scam or spam messages. Until today I have been receiving two or three emails from Nigeria every day for months now offering me vast sums of money if I give personal information. Not to mention people who want to send me compensation from the UN or an ATM card worth millions if I pay a fee in advance. They really must think that I came down in the last shower of rain but sadly some folk are taken in.  Any connection do you think or just coincidence?......................JR PS Spam and scam emails started up again today so guess they all decided to have a day off, i.e  indeed just coincidence.  

Sorry a bit confused, which software has no new dates and offered a defragmenter and new version of what? I did run another MSE full scan and 2.5 hours later it reported finding another trojan WIN32/ALUREON.FE which has some worrying characteristics however that seems to have been deleted  by MSE ok. I wonder that and the SMART HDD trojan are related in some way. I must do full scans more often methinks!...........JR

Yes MSE seems quite good but whilst it found the bug it could not delete it. It appeared to do so but then SMART HDD started up again. Interesting video by the way so thanks for that. If it is that recent then maybe Spybot will be updated so that it can also find it soon. I update Spybot and run it and CCleaner about once a week. Full scans on MSE take for ever but I run a quick scan everyday. MSE updates seem to be automatic on a daily basis. I think that SMART must get into the run on startup list which must be why I could kill it in Safe Mode as it would not have been running...........JR 

  Just to warn you we had a Trojan or Virus called SMART HDD appear on our machine yesterday. We have no idea where this came from it just appeared. What it does is put up a window which shows a scan of your computer and suggests you have problems with the hard drive and then invites you to purchase the appropriate software to get rid of the hard drive problems. The text was in English. I noted that several desktop icons had disappeared.   Now from what I have found out this is a scam. There is nothing wrong with your hard drive other than this virus/trojan. It was found using our virus scanner but normal deletion methods prove ineffective. I got rid of it in the end by starting the computer up in safe mode, holding down F8 during start up, and then doing a search for SMART HDD in the search box you get on clicking the Start button. Having found and deleted several related files and then checking the run on start-up progam list using CCleaner and running the virus scanner again to confirm that the Smart HDD sofware had gone I used system Restore to set the computer back a few days. All the missing icons reappeared. After that Updates were done on the virus scanner and Windows and repeat scans were run to make sure all traces of the bug had gone. A hard disk Defrag was then initiated. What worries me is that we had not done any downloads or clicked on any new links that could have resulted in this infection so where it came from is a bit of a puzzle. Has anybody else had this bug here in France of late?.....JR   PS Microsoft Security Essentials finds it so might be worth doing a scan of your machine. Spybot did not find it.

I also live in 79 and interested in that you refer to varnish being effective. I have not treated the lambri that I have put up but have coated it with two coats of Chêne Doré varnish on both sides. The lambri supports were the yellow pretreated timbers from a brico place. I have only used the insecticide on old timber including roof beams...................JR PS I have noticed that many paints and varnish now seem to be water based and not oil based as they once were, does that make a difference to their protective properties?

Well I am not sure but all I did was to apply the stuff in the evening and left it overnight with the window ajar and it was dry by the next morning. I don't remember it having a strong smell and none when dry. I think someone told me about it on this forum so maybe they could give some more information if they read this...........JR  PS Found this http://www.dyrup.fr/_/media/FR/docs_telechargeables/fiches_techniques/grand_public/xylophene/GSB/XYLOPHENE%20BOIS%20PARQ%20TRI%20ACT%20GSB%20FT%2009.pdf  which suggests 48 hours before painting on top of it after two coats and wearing protective clothing and a mask with washing of any skin like hands that has been in contact with it. I just used a paint brush and washed my hands afterwards. This site gives info in English and warns that the product is very toxic but I was not affected at all! http://www.france-renovation.com/beams-and-woodwork/12  

Someone told me to use this stuff http://www.dyrup-revetement.fr/xylophene-interieur.html and I painted it on with a brush as did not fancy spraying it because of the risks to health. Probably ok if you wear a mask and gloves etc. Even then I did not want to linger in the room having used it. A builder once told me that woodworm prefers old wood to new wood but who knows. They have it at Bricomarché and I used it to paint some old roof beams that the worm has had a go at. Time will tell if it is effective but no visible frass so far. When dry the wood took a coat of varnish with no problems that I could see.....................JR

Yes and thanks I have expanded the header information by clicking on Details at the top of my AOL email and the return path gives, I assume, the email address of whoever sent it. The email address was through Bellsouth which would seem to be an ISP taken over by AT&T so I have sent details to their abuse site. Mind you they only sent an automatic response and like the phishing one set up by the City of London police that is all you get. I always FWD emails from scammers that have some indication that they might have come from the UK, telephone numbers and addresses, to the UK site but I don't know if it helps them or if any action results from this. These people really are a pain and most of our received scam type emails come from Nigeria these days, about two a day. Most scam and spam emails get picked up by AOL and put in our spam box but not all. Trouble is that you have to look in the spam box and at the contents before deleting as genuine communications find their way there quite frequently too. Notifications from Total France get put there for example! This spoofing episode is something new for us however and let us hope that it does not continue!.......JR PS Thanks to Baz but I don't think changing the password would help from what I have read about this.

Both I and a nearby friend have been receiving what I gather is called self sending spam which is a form of spoofing. What happens is that you receive an email which appears to have come from yourself. In both cases they appear to have come from a Canadian drug company pushing stuff like viagra. Whilst the contents of such emails might be offensive to some folk what really concerns me is the fact that spoofing has been used. If my email address can be spoofed to me it could be used to send such emails to other people. I gather spoofing is illegal in many countries and I have reported the matter to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) via their website set up for that purpose. Has anybody else received similar emails here in France and what did you do about it? I suspect that someone has got hold of an email contacts list that contains both my and my friends email addresses. Yes I could change our email address but not convinced from what I have read that would solve the problem plus the problems changing the address would cause.........JR  

Thanks for the suggestion but we too tried some mothballs some years ago. I think all these things, like disinfectant spray, ultra sound, mothballs, which we also tried, may put them off a bit in that they move to some other part of the house. I have tried to find points of entry and block them but as they have tunneled into the cellar and then into the inter-wall spaces I don't think you could ever keep them out. I have also seen them creeping through gaps in the roof tiles. One local firend has had their roof covered in wire mesh and the tiles put back on top and claims success but I am not that convinced! I am really concerned that they or their mouse brothers may chew a cable and cause a fire! Our three cats are not that interested and they cannot get into the inter-wall spaces anyway. They, the cats, brought in a snake the other day however and left us to play with it!......................JR

I think it was so the heater could turn on automatically during cheap rate periods. Heures creuse http://droit-finances.commentcamarche.net/forum/affich-3894159-heures-creuses-edf ..................JR

Not that I would want to but having started some electrical work, see posts in Renovations section, I have come across further evidence of these blighters nesting in the interwall space in our house. The previous owner had rebuilt this place erecting internal walls and placing thick sheets of flammable polystyrene in the interwall spaces as he did so. The loir have chewed this up making nests for themselves which is fine except my fear is that they will decide to chew the electrical cables in this space. Now we have had loir caught in humane traps baited with apple every year for the last 11 years. Each one caught gets a free ride to the woods to be released several kilometers away.     We have also caught the odd mouse and one very large brown rat on one occasion. In the first few years we were catching more than 20 loir  (large grey edible dormouse) each year and have got the number now down to about 5 a year. All humane efforts to deter them have failed to eliminate the problem. Ultra sound has had little effect so what does one do? The guy in Bricomarché indicated in no uncertain terms that poison for loir was no longer allowed as they were now a protected species. I have seen poison for loir in Bricomarché and Le Clercs in previous years but not now. I would not really want to put poison down for several reasons. Apart from it being plain wrong to kill these creatures I worry that our cats might catch and eat one that had been at poison bait and die as well. Owls that sit on the beams in our barn and other birds of prey that eat loir would also be at risk. If you put poison down for mice and rats might not loir eat it as well. It is difficult to know what to do for the best. One hears of stories of house fires being started by such nibblers........................JR

Many thanks for this useful information which I have copied to keep for future reference. I have found since posting that I can run the gaine under the beams in the inter-wall space so no need to drill now but from your info it looks as though my proposed 18mm hole near the wall end of the beam would not significantly weaken the structure anyway, thanks again.............JR.

Many thanks and yes there is a fourth purple wire which I assume was intended as a control wire although it is not connected at either end of the circuit. I did check for continuity of the earth wire to the system earth and it is so connected. I will remove the flex outlets and replace with 16 A sockets as you suggest. I will not be connecting more than one socket on each different circuit and they will be useful for vacuum cleaner use if nothing else..............JR

Some confusion here methinks though I am grateful for your info folks. Three heater points each on its own circuit wired in 1.5mm back to the fuse board. Each circuit has its own fused breaker, 3 of them one for each circuit, and each one rated at 10A. Only one socket will be connected at each heater point........JR PS From what you good folk have said sounds as though this may be ok?  

Yes my understanding was 2.5mm for power and 1.5mm for lighting however I remember reading somewhere that you could put one socket on a lighting circuit. Now these were not lighting circuits but individually wired small panel heaters.........................JR

Apologies if this has come up before but I have 3 heater points in the house and sometime ago I removed the wall mounted heater panels and noted that the wires were 1.5mm. Each point is wired back to the fuse board separately and each one has an individual 10A fused breaker switch. Can I mount a single 16A 3 pin socket at each heater point or is this against the regs? I don't see them being used for heavy loads at all and usually much less than 2kW...........................JR

Thanks and the hole will be close to the wall, 4.5 cms from it, and my concern was if there were French regs from an electrical safety point of view. The beam is 19 x 8 cms with the longest dimension vertical as you might expect. The hole will be 18mm.......JR

Is there any reason, (regs or something else) why I should not drill a hole in a wooden beam supporting a floor and pass flexible electrical conduit (gaine) through. The beam will not be significantly weakened by this. Thanks in anticipation..........................JR

For what it is worth last Winter we went to visit a friend who had a heat pump system running but he told us he needed his wood burner running in the coldest part of the year as well. I think that the heat pump system is ok as background heat but some additional heat source would also be needed at the coldest times. This sytem was reversible to provide cooling in Summer. No good during power cuts of course!..............JR

I was saddened to read this post and we had a cat shot at point blank range by a neighbour in the UK with an air gun, pellet went right through the stomach. The cat survived but from that day on the cats stayed indoors with an outside run available to them. Tthere were no problems in them adjusting to their new circumstances.   On moving to France we noted that our only immediate neighbour was a hunting type with a pack of dogs housed in his garden with many types of fowl running about. He also has two teenage sons and their young brother who runs around all day taking pot shots at things. So outside runs were constructed for our two cats with free access during the day and there were no problems. Our boys lived to a ripe old age and have now been replaced with two white jobs from Chat Libre Du Marais http://lechatlibredumarais.fr/ and one moggie who adopted us. You can see their mother on their web site on the right of the picture.   We try to get on with our neighbour and don't complain about the noise made by his increasing number of dogs, he was here first after all and although his way of life is not ours we keep our opinions about his desire to blast away at small furry animals to ourselves. As a consequence we have found him and his family helpful and we have a low key good relationship. We are going to have him and his family as our neighbours from here on in as it were all things being equal.   Indoor cats need to have lots of places to hide and play with each other. Shelves at various places around the house are a good idea so they can move in three dimensions. Also a 30 minute playtime everyday is a good idea with prey toys on thick string, rolling tunnels, soft toys and scratching posts. Our cats show no sign of stress or depression and we hope that they too will have long lives...............JR   PS Pic of our white jobs renamed Darty and Kulani   http://lechatlibredumarais.fr/toutes-nos-actions/animaux/82-les-fils-de-rose