Blackadder<IMG src="http:forums.livingfrance.comimagesline.gif"><BR>Blackadder<BR>Keighley and Creuse

With no figures quoted its hard to answer. In your position I'd want 10yrs worth of living sat in the bank. And that simply gets you to the youngest being 16! and is obviously looking on the glum side re employment. It seems you may have picked the wrong area if you would want to remain in aviation...around Toulouse may have been better? How about a happy medium and you trying to get more leave in place of some salary, that way you get more holiday time whilst remaining a wage earner? We went through the same predicament a gcouple of years ago and after finishing our bran we'd have had about £50k in the bank. Our kids were 7 and 9 so we reckoned that we'd have been skint after 5 years and that prospect brought it into focus. We're now working towards an early retirement at 48 and 49yrs and being in a position where we don't have to work beyond if we don't want to. I guess the bulk of the sound advice above is don't do it! Head or heart???

Never looked into it myself but a friend regularly travelled with discovery and large trailer....freight with the tunnel and paid very little..The reason being that freight keep the tunnel going through the non touristy times of year and the tunnel know they can't charge a fortune or the truckers/freight companies will go elsewhere

I'd look at a 'log boiler' and stock up on wood over the next few years as most sensible folk in countryside france seem to do. A simple system where you do one burn a day that fills a hot water tank, you then use that water through the day....works that way in winter, in summer it may last 3 or 4 days dependent on use. How about linking it to a solar panel or two...theres a kit for 2000euro at one of the big diy stores. Oil WILL no doubt become more and more expensicve and we'll no doubt be held to ransom by the middle east in years to come. Interesting times ahead

How about trying Haven Holidays or one of the other campsite places scattered across france??

Decathlon

Its really one of those 'get what you pay for' things. Try to get the foil stuff as above, its so easy to fit, takes little space and in the long run, will save you money on heating, other more bulky stuff will be more difficult to fit, may need wooden frameworks etc and so might not be as cheap as first thought

A bit difficult to advise without the details of amounts involved, but I am not asking for those figures! Will it be a real knock losing the deposit? If so, work out how much its going to cost getting an advance on your existing mortgage, take the house off the market for 3 or 4 months over winter, tell the building society you have had a change of plan etc to secure said advance and in March when Daffodils are flowering, saps rising etc, put house back on market having now bought French pad. If its not a huge amount,,,ours was £1,900 as it was a £19k barn, so wouldn't have broken the bank, i would lose deposit and take house off market for a few months as above. All IMHO

I believe that this generally well balanced bunch of folk on this forum represent the silent majority of maybe 85 or 90% of Britain. Its the vocal minority who get their voice heard and the PC Brigade who propagate it all for their own ends. I can fully believe that it was the dealers who 'restored' order in Birmingham, it certainly happended in Bradford in 2001. I was there behind a shield for a number of 16 hr days and saw and heard it first hand...lots of police on every street corner in the ghetto = no drugs sold! I hope that the French authorities, unlike the way it seems to work in the UK, tell it how it is and don't bow to media/PC pressure. The press have alot to answer for, there big bold headlines that are read by all, but the meat of the articles is glossed over by alot as they turn to the sports page/tv page etc. I recall one recently where an early teen lad was 'locked up for hours for building a den' My old dad had glossed over it and suggested the Police had better things to do. I explained it as it actually happened.   Lad takes saw and axe to a neighbours tree in neighbours garden, chops half of it down and makes den, neighbour speaks to lad who swears and goes home, neighbour ends up ringing Police as he's at his wits end with this 'family'. He also has to pay a tree surgeon to come and make good the damage as best he can! Police come, straight up case of criminal damage, takle Statement and lad gets arrested. His parents cannot be contacted and Police have to use emergency Social services and solicitor for good measure. Lad gets out a few hours later. Differant tale to the headline! When he looked at his lovely garden and imagined some scrote hacking away at it with an axe, my dad shuddered and said ' they should throw away the key! A bit of a digression but you'll get my point, 9 years, 7 mths, and 12 days to go, but i'm not counting.

peterw.....at last you have addressed 'the minority of bike riders' as opposed to 'most' which is how you addressed us in your opening post. I am a bike rider, cyclist and car driver. I filter on my bike, never more than 15 mph faster than other road users, (22 yrs a biker and never been knocked off) i occasionally go through red lights on my push bike, the reason being that i am slow off the mark from the lights and the last time I was knocked off, from behind, was by a blind motorist who 'didn't see me' and then tried to blame me for it. (His 8 points and fine at court may have changed his driving viewpoint) I run the odd red light through self preservation and if i get stopped and done, so be it, at least i'd be alive to grumble about it.... As a car driver I do 20,000 miles a year, there are some good and bad drivers about. I am not one of the 'most car drivers' you refer to. You'll twig that its YOUR suppositions that have ellicited responses from others. Talk about being tarred with the same brush.

Not much help to you but...its a problem we are having, our solution is to transfer a larger amount using one of the currency co's in the magazine, much better rate of exchange...say 1.46 as opposed to 1.40 but its down to whether you have the lump of cash to sit in your french acct. If there is a cheap, frequent way, i'd like to know as well

As a regular Gite renter, all of the above is so true. Would definately go for two 2 bedded ones with an interconnect, on both floors!. You need somethin unique or special to get return business and advertising in the right places for your desired market....round there I'd look at the obvious, water sports magazines, cycling mags, walking mags. Do 'guided rides/walks' not necessarily guided by you but with maps and route cards done, lots of homework at this stage will make or breaqk the project i feel. The old saying 'you're along time dead' should be turned on its head, cos you're along time alive so go for it and enjoy yourself. You'll never know unless you try.

I suspect we'll have this roller coaster of prices between the ferrys and flying from now on, thye can blame it on oil prices etc but they now have a captive audience. They may well have 'undercover staff' flying or mingling with the passengers to get the feel of how many are visiting their second homes, a large propertion and Bingo, they know we need to go out there regularly and so can push prices up until we move from one carrier to another. This isn't quite so bad as far as Limoges, but for those who use say, Carcassonne or Perpignan???

Your local Mairie will obviously know, plus it gets your faces seen by the staff/mayor etc. We only visit our 4 walled barn 4 times a year but always call in and they make us feel 'at home' They obviously appreciate our feeble attempts at French, one of the staff (unbeknown to us at the time) owns a Gite with the Gite de France scheme and we now use that for £200 per week, certainly beats a musty old caravan when we have the kids there..plus we catch up on bits of gossip pertaining to our build. Got to be worth the effort in my opinion. Show them you're making a big effort and it will reap rewards.

Its got to come down to how many miles you intend doing, (oh and what budget you have) How many of you there are, whether you'll tow a trailer/fill the car with pets etc etc. Size of engine is codswallop, a new 1.9l can push out 150 horse power, top 130 mph...which just means it'll cruise very happily and quietly at 130kmh.... and the torque they have makes overtaking a breeze.  Oh and it'll do 50mpg or is that 6 litres per 100 km??? Most modern cars (certainly over the past 4 or 5 years) are fine but you need to be doing in excess of 15000 miles or 24000km a year in the UK to make a diesel worthwhile, France may or maynot be similar. Us???? I run a diesel estate and do 25000miles a year, the mrs runs a Yaris petrol and does 6000miles a year. We both get 45mpg. Happy hunting

Our plans were 're drawn' by a french architect exactly as an english archi friend had done them, he did a few site visits, sorted out the PP in its entirety and presented us with a few nice sets of plans incl computer graphics of how it will lok. Total was 2600euros. We always knew we'd need plans done by an archi as the floor area is 240m2 and we thought the final bill was OK.

43000 EUROS!!!! Wow, thats the system we were looking at, we reckoned on 15000Euro max for the lot incl underfloor heating. A 2.8m x 2.8m solar panel and piping comes in at about £2500, it should simply link into a large boiler that could also have an oil fired side/solid fuel side and also an electric emersion heater, so 3 in 1. I really can't see where he is coming from with £30,000. Unless yours is a 20 room chateau?? Does he give a breakdown of pricing?? I thought a full plumb would be maybe 10,000euro...all you need to add is a solar kit at perhaps 4000euro.....

Tent still in use a fortnight ago. Car hir...used Hertz with only a 10-15 minute wait, last time used Argus rental and that went through europcar, more used that than Hertz so i guess I may go back to Hertz...until that gets busy again....not too bothered about a short wait tho'

Make sure you plan your fuel stops right. You wann land in France with a near empty tank and don't forget that if you are on a Peage and come off for fuel, the saving you make will be negated by the slight extra you will pay for 2 'short' peage journeys as opposed to one long one. It all adds up

W/E 10TH TO 12TH June the show does a 3 day live version from Excel at Londond Docklands. Tickets are £15 on the door but ring  0870 9063833 and quote 4 homes and get them for £9. We are calling in on our way home after a fortnight in France. No connection with show/C4 etc. Just save a bit of money.

Where is the cheapest place in either UK or France to buy all the associated products for underfloor heating of a barn?...i.e the flexible pipe, manifold,clips etc etc. Obviously a warm water type, not electric.  

In the UK, the figures are between £400 and £1000 per sq metre, dependant on location (obviously London is more expensive than Lancashire) and finish required. Also to factor in is whether you go architect as project manager, builder or do it all yourself. The above are from Homebuilding and Renovating magazine. I imagine in France most things will be cheaper incl Labour. I imagine around £500 per sq metre being the 'ball park' figure you talk of. We have a 4 walls and a roof type place, in  first class condition , we are seeking quotes to put a fosse in and then do the interior of the barn. I have sussed out individual prices and put them together adding 10%, i got to around £50-£55 k, First 'ball park' figure a builder gave me with a straight face was £150k!! I would warn about being seen as a 'money cow' (no offence and may have wrong expression) as it appears at first glance to me that that is how i am being viewed. My building society manager would have kittens if i went asking for £130k as opposed to £30k Get everything in writing

Evanier....South Africa to Calais for a day trip,,,now thats commitment for you!

We had one 18mths to 2 yrs ago for a 140m2 barn, adding a garage, fosse etc, full plans and the permissions gained was 2800euro. Very good service, an architect in UK was impressed with the package we got from him. We are in 23 but architect was in 87, just North of Limoges

Thanks for that, i did think it actually a fairly sensible thing to do for a builder who may spend 3 or 4 hours on a site visit/costing to charge a nominal fee. I will discuss with them.

Bobc, i presume i'd be ok parting with money to a builder on the artisan anglais site if they were already known to the mairie? I know one chap on the site who lives in Gers, He is a life long friend of a neighbour of mine. He has been a builder all his life, is trustworthy and not a fly by night by any stretch of the imagination. I'll take it on board about the site, but a sweeping 'don't use 'em' statement is quite unfair on some of the artisans on the site.