fatscoleymo

This is our 3rd year and all our income is received by bank transfer to our Uk account. Very easy, trouble free way and very convenient for your customers. Not had a single problem. Moneys in our account usually within hours of the customer arranging it and i can confirm receipt to them often the same day. it's the way to go!

This has had me thinking - just out of interest has anybody taken legal proceedings or had them taken against them for any reason?

Cheers teapot - I'm going out this pm to shop for cya and javel. Once again, thanks

chemgeek  Did the bucket test and got a measure of 6.7ppm chlorine after 45 mins so water seems ok just no chlorine. We did manually dose with chlorine all through 2008 - the swg control box stopped functioning altogether so we new for certain is was kaput. At the moment just about finished pumping out 1/3rd pool and will refill today. That should get salt concentration to around 4000ppm which is what we want. Thanks for help.

Hi  Norman - yes the 'joke' wasn't was it. Anyway we got sorted and all advice and comments helped, yours included.        

 would politely suggest that you are in the wrong business.. You should never have got into this situation. Why did you let it develop? And as for asking advice on an Internet forum where you know nobody, that suggests that you have no idea about what you are doing. Leo - the comment that I have no idea what I am doing was strange. Please explain to me how to get to 'know' people on an internet forum without starting to post? Was NormanH omnipresent on the forum and knew everybody before he made his 1st post? Isn't this what forums are all about? I explained what had happened and asked if anybody else had been in a silmilar postition to offer advice. I also made it clear that this was our very 1st let. Rookie. Brand new. Perhaps he was having a bad day. Like I was.  

Hi teapot. Having slept on it I'll think I'll pump out 1/3 pool and replenish. That should get the salt concentration down around 4000ppm. After all the costs with replacments I'd rather spend 30 euros on water and a bit on heat than risk damage to the new unit. Where will I find cya? (Cyanuric acid) I don't believe I've ever seem it in the pool shops I frequent. Does it have another name or term? Ordinary Javel - what sort of amount into my 43cube pool.? I've never checked but I suppose it may come in different concentrations? Standard sand filter - I changed the sand the begining of last season after we got rid of the pea soup. Next time get Zeolite? (Is that the correct name?) Thanks very much for your help.  

I'm taking Cendrillons advice and starting on the Cognac. Cheers to all for your help.

chem geek thanks. The pool has a bubble solar cover on and had a winter cover on before that. I shocked the pool with granular chlorine before closing, added hivernage and did add more chlorine a couple of times during the winter - I was paranoid about having another 'pea soup' like we did last year. I'll try the bucket test and report back.

Thanks teapot. The swg does not have a superchlorination button but the unit is sized for pools of about 80 cube (nearly twice mine) and produces 20 grms per hour (from memory) so max. should give a very good output. In normal operation I am planning on running it in frequent short sequences once I get agrip on its output capability. The manual has no mention of any heat cutout. TA is 144 So pump out and reduce salt content?

Thanks teapot (and also for comments on the other thread). Its an Aquasphere unit - made by Zodiac and the cell is identical to the Zodiac LM series which is what it replaced so that I've now got a spare cell. Salt concentration is 4000ppm @27degrees. (How does temp affect the reading? up when it's warmer ?) Done the salt test again and got closer to 6000ppm this time. PH is reading 7.5 Ziltch stabiliser (cyanuric acid) I've yet to see this for sale anywhere, any ideas? Would a 1.5 litre of Auchen nettoyant gel Javel  (Contient Hypochrite de sodium - 1.10g de chlore actif pour 100g de product) be any good? (Wifey might not notice I've nicked it from the utilty room) Thanks for help.  

You're right I did. It gotta be something to do with the Norman conquest hasn't it. I've had a funny few days - please forgive.

Now that we have got rid of our unwelcome guests (see my post in Gite Owners) back to the pool. Story from the start: We had a new saltwater pool installed in May 2005. All ok. In April 2007 when I opened up the Chlorinator was breaking down, and eventually gave up. Just inside the 2 year guarantee period. Trouble was the installer was going through major troubles at the time and I got no real help and was unable to get a replacement under warranty. Having checked prices of cell / box etc. just decided to manually dose with gallets. Opened up in April 2008 and decided that the cell was the problem (corroded terminals very evident) and took the plunge and bought a new one - 650 euros thank you very much!. It made no difference so decided it must be the box. Went to supplier again and asked to buy just the box - was told can't do, you've got to buy the whole system. 1500 euros quoted!!!!. Would not take back the brand new cell ( only installed a few hours). Feeling fed up decided once again to dose with gallets for 2008 season. This year as we're renting we wanted a saltwater pool so looked around and obtained a virtually identical unit from Australia - just about £400 all told delivered here in France. Good news. All fitted. Thats just to show you how frustrated I've been about the whole thing. Now up to date. I put 5- 25kgs bags of salt in the pool (about 43cubic mtrs) when I  took off the winter cover about 6 weeks ago - I wanted to see if the new chloinator was working. I struggled to get a salt measurement (I relalize now that the water was far too cold).  Today I've raised the pool temp form 16 to 20 with the heat pump.The chlorinator is certainly producing a mass of bubbles from the plates in the cell  but I can't get a chlorine reading near the input jets to check. I've also checked the salt level and it's very high - about7000ppm. Also checked cyranuric acid level and this is negligable. I guess I should shoc with granular chlorine pretty quick Question: can I get away with this salt level, or must I pump out 1/2 of my now warmer pool, refill and get it to around 4000ppm?(Methinks I must) Sorry to witter on, it's been a stressfull week so far.

Ysatis - Haroldh was the less than helpful person who posted the 1st response to my initial post. After reading his reply my wife made the comment ' why is there never a Frenchman with a bow and arrow around when you need one?' If only I had been that quick.  

Catalpa  - thanks again for your help.

Just spoken to the guy that made the booking and said I hoped he understood the situation. He said no problem, in fact we'd done them a favour - they didn't want them here but couldn't find a way to get them away. They just turned up yesterday expecting to stay the rest of the week! Families eh!

Meant to leave our site address - www.chezrivieres.com. They got this for £250 this week - if only they'd been a bit more sensible we might have let them use it some more.

Well  - result! At 10am I asked to speak with the 2 people who booked the cottage. Others wanted to be present but I insisted on just the 2 and asked them to come away from the rest.  Told them we had a misunderstanding - they had booked the cottage and facilities for 4 adults and we now had 6 adults and 3 kids in a six bedroom let; my liability insurance was invalidated by the number staying; the pool was now 'closed' and I should not have let them badger me into opening it. Told them it was not on. They said Ok they wouldn't stop overnight but it was still ok to visit? I said no, only the original booked party could use the facilities - they would find that lots of gite's had this proviso.Told them the visiting 5 would have to leave as soon as they had got their stuff together. All very politely. No agro back - not a wimper. By 11.10 they had gone.  But my oh my had they come for a holiday!!! They carted loads and loads of stuff to their Citroen C5 estate - it was chocker. Bedding, a bed (big sort of soft dog bed thing), towels, suitcase, bags and bags, crates of beer, etc. etc. The large cool box wouldn't fit in the back and had to go on the knees of the kids. They all made a big fuss of saying goodbye where we couldn't help seeing  - lots of big hugs etc.  For our benefit we think. They only live 15 miles away!!!!  I only hope now that the remaining 4 don't start to 'accidentally' spill drinks, damage paintwork etc. to get back at us. We'll carefully check and do an inventory before we had over the breakages deposit. I am now going to revise terms and conditions and make it quite clear what we will accept. In future we will be strong from the outset with no grey area's. We have learnt a salutory lesson on our very 1st gite rental - others take note. Thanks to all who responded (except Harold) - your advice  and experience was very welcome.    

Thanks Catalpa - your right on the nail and I'll be taking exactly that approach in 15 mins time. As I said this is our very 1st let in our 1st season - quite a baptism of fire.  I guess we were trying to be friendly and accomodating - lessons learnt. Thanks again for taking the time to post.

Thanks Ysatis - you've addressed the question I asked and offered advice which is what I was looking for. I'm tough enough and they will find this out shortly. They did stay the night. The 1st night we let them stay as it was late arrival, a family birthday and suprise reunion - they seemed Ok. It not a question of money - there are 6 adults and 3 kids (7 -11) in a six bed cottage and it's not on. They arrived yeasterday with pool toys and badgered us into using the pool which I had only just opened (and which was not included in the rental price at this time of year and they knew this) despite our reluctance because of unsure, possibley very high chemical levels affecting the kids and the fact it is only 15 degrees. Reasonable people would have accepted this. We also have a hot tub, roof terrace, large gardens and large pool terrace - so I think they have decided to decamp here from home only 15 miles away and bring the kids over for a cheap mid-term break. They told us that their house is small with little space around it - obviously not big enough to accomodate family, hence the reason for renting our cottage.. They have not even asked if it's ok for the'others' to use our facilities - just got on with it. I'm going to talk to them shortly and tell them our contract was for accomodation and facilities for 4 adults - not 6 adults and 3 kids. I'll ask the additional lot to leave and tell the original 4 that they should visit their family at their place - not the other way round. They have pushed their luck too far. Fingers crossed.

[quote user="teapot"] Yep, How did you get on with your pool? You are in business, never, never turn down money. You didn't ask, they offered it. You feel upset now because you didn't take the extra, before it's too late go and negociate, even if you hate them you will feel better.   [/quote] Pool 1st - still trying to sort it.  The money for the 1st night ( and tonight if they stay) I will take from the 'security' deposit we have therofore I don't feel upset about money. Just wonder if anybody else has had to deal with this sort of thing.

Look everyone, this is our very 1st let as I said in my post. Yes we do have a contract. They are English. We have their money. There are 6 beds. All I ask is has anyone had to deal with this sort of thing before, and how did they approach it.

Well Norman, thank you very much for your constructive reply.  I hope you are not representative of the rest of the people on this forum. Anybody else got anything to say? Post edited by the moderators. Please do not use explicit language or vulgarities (whether written in French, English or any other language).

Saturday we had our very 1st visitors arrive.Their booking was for 4 adults.They arrived at 10 15pm brought by the rest of family (2 adults and 3 kids) they are visitng. Shortly after they asked if it would be Ok if they (the rest) could stay just for the night so they could have a drink together.They offered more money. We said yes to staying and  not to worry about the money. They all went out Sunday lunchtime and just the 4 guests came back. Monday the 4 left at midday and were not back at 11.30pm went we went to bed. We think at least one of the kids had stayed over and since midday we've had 5 adults and 3 kids, now joined by dad after he's finished work. They are now all having a bbq, drinking and we think that a stayover looks on the cards. We're being taken advantage of - any of you had to deal with a similar situation? Thanks  

Hi guys hope you can help. I think that our saltwater pool has chlorine in as I added  granulated chlorine a couple of months ago 'just in case' (Last year when we opened up we had pea soup so didn't want to go through that again). However both the tablet and electronic readers show no chlorine. Am i right in thinking that very high concentrations bleach out the strips thereofore giving a false reading? The pool temp is now 15. Should I just wait and keep testing and hope that I'll eventually see a high level that will keep coming down? PH and total alkinility are Ok.   Thanks