No experience with Heating AT ALL

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Gidday,

I'm an Aussie currently living in Queensland Australia (Beautiful one day, perfect the next!).  We have already bought our house in Indre 36 and are flying over to live on October 5th.

My dilemma is that as we will be refitting the house, I am spending the next 60 days designing kitchens, bathrooms, loft conversions etc.

I am up to the part where I have to come to some decision about the type of heating to go into the house.  As we will be coming over in October, we will need to get the heating installed as the very first thing before anything because of the onset of winter. 

I would just like to throw my ideas out there as I only have experience with cooling a house, not heating.

The maison is a two up, two down with a further loft conversion of another two rooms.  There are currently electic heating points throughout the maison.

Ground floor:

• Kitchen is room one down 4m x 4m - No idea of what sort of heating to use here.  Possibly use electric wall heater or extract some heat from upstairs wood combustion fireplace.
• Lounge is room two down where we will spend most of our time with TV, computer, etc 5m x 4m - Want to put in a nice gas fireplace here to get quick heating.  There is already a flue which leads to the chimney.  Gaz will run to two large gaz cylinders on the outside of the house. Will be double glazing window and carpeting floor.  Also will have electric wall heater for if gas runs out.

Level 1:

• Salon is room one up.  As this is the door where guests will enter from the road and there is already an existing fireplace there.  It is a very open but small area (4m x 5m) with stairs leading up and down. I would like to put a nice combustion fireplace in here.  As the kitchen is underneath this room woud like to consider piping some of the heat downstairs if possible.  I like the idea of having a slow burning combustion stove here, as this room will only be used when entertaining but also serves as keeping a reasonable level of warmth as one needs to go through it to get to most of the other rooms.
• Bedroom is room two up.  4mx4m - We thought that as this is on the same side as the lounge room we could have a smaller gas fireplace here and run to the same gas cylinders.  Can vent this to the chimney.

Loft conversion:

• We have many friends who will be regularly flying over from Australia to stay with us.  There are two bedrooms to be fitted into the loft area and another bathroom.  As everyone will be visiting in Summer we aren't concerned too much about heating these rooms and thought electric wall heaters would do just as well.  The stair well will have a hatch which can be lowered over the stairway to close this area off when not in use and therefore save in heating costs in winter.

Firstly, since you have taken the time to read this lengthy post, let me say 'Congratulations' and 'Thank you'.  Just wondering if you could let me know if I'm totally out of the ballpark in my conception of heating.  Also, my budget is only going to be between 3000 to 4000 Euros in which to buy three fireplaces (2 gaz and 1 bois) and three or four electric wall heaters to use in existing connections.  Am I a lunatic Aussie who  has had their brain fried by too much sun?

Lynda (Richards wife)

 

 

[Alexis]

I don't have any heating.  I know.  So poor!

EDF/GDF will plan all this for you if you contact them.  I don't know what their prices are like but you don't have to say yes at the devis.  Other folk will know more.

We don't have gas here.  There isn't any room for an oil tank so we will probably be going that way.  Don't talk to me about wood!  So much work and nowhere to store it here.

For when it gets cold, we have a parafin heater for downstairs.  Just a normal, cheap one and it works great.  We have been using it for what, seven years now?  Only problem is when it is cold in summer and you can't always get the petrole.  We close off the rooms we don't use.   It is a big house and we don't heat everywhere.  Well, just the kitchen and the bedroom actually.  Bedroom has a little electric heater on low.  If cold we put another jumper on.  Just like in the olden days when the windows used to ice over in my childhood.   

I would suggest you buy one for October.  They always come in handy.  Some of the expensive ones can be regulated and left on all night etc but we just have the basic model but it heats the room quickly and sometimes we have to switch it off because it is too hot  Oh.  With buying the petrole, you also know how much you are spending and don't get an enormous electricity bill.

[Ron Avery]

"As we will be coming over in October, we will need to get the heating installed as the very first thing before anything because of the onset of winter"::

Hey Lynda , admire the optimism, this ain't OZ or the UK where you can just pick up the phone and the heating engineer/plumber is there tomorrow 

This is France, you'll be lucky to get a devis (estimate) before the onset of winter, and the heating will probably be started in May in time for the summer

Plumbers get really busy around October time with everyone cranking up their old C/H systems, I'd buy some really warm, clothing if I were you and buy some of those oil filled rads, you could try and get a plumber on board now, but that is difficult as they are all away on their Hols for a month

[Teamedup]

Gaz fireplaces, I haven't seen them in France.

Do you need planning permission to covert your loft? Don't go by what the immoblier who sold you the place said, you should ask at the Mairie about this. Helas just because a space is there it doesn't necessarily mean that you can make it into a living space.

I also agree with RA, if you haven't got anyone booked already to fit some of these new things, then it is unlikely that you will get anyone round until maybe year. Artisans can easlily be booked from six months to a year.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Wow...Ron!!!  Buy in October and not installed until May!  In AUS, you would order today and be installed within the week.  Thanks for that piece of information as to the slowness of French Tradesmen.  There are already electric wall heating plugs through the house, so we'll just get some electric radiators straight away and use that until next Summer when the tradesmen go back to work.  It means I can concentrate on other work first and leave the heating until last.

Teamedup, Thanks for bringing up the Loft conversion.  I have been reading lots of posts and I already know about the permits that will be required. As it's only for guests anyway, if it doesn't happen I'm not to worried.

Has anyone else heard of gas fireplaces? 

Back to the reason for my post, I was hoping to get an opinion on my heating options for the rooms and whether it seemed reasonable or am I somewhere out of left field in my thoughts?

Kindest Regards,

Lynda (Richards wife)

[Teamedup]

In fairness I wouldn't say that french tradesmen were 'slow'. Good ones tend to be very very busy and have long waiting lists for their services. In general it goes, the longer you have to wait the better they are....... there will always be exceptions ofcourse, but as a general rule it usually works.

[Tresco]

Firstly, I agree with the comments about the waiting times for good artisans.

More importantly (sorry Lynda)

Is that you, TU?

Does sTeamedup mean you are coming up to boiling point?

Will we have to shorten your name to Stew?

[Poolguy]

G'day digga

looks like you doin it tha tough way.

This kinda work is not easy for us here on site.

If you want get everything stated from Oz then you'll get a few in the long series of shocks that is to be your life in France.

I can say from experience that France bears very little resemblance to Oz. Almost nothing is the same. Be prepared to have your expectations dashed at every turn, that way when something works out you'll be have a good day.

Next how's your French. If you've got the lingo then you rowing the front of the boat.

Bring lots of pressies from Oz, little koalas and that sort of junk. they absolutely love it here.

On the heating front. your going to get a shock with temperature too. The centre gets really cold sometimes well below zero - there was nearly a week at - 20 last winter. Brisbane to Indra.... you gotta choose well because you'll need very rad you can find. The price of running bottle gas, oil or electricity will kill you. Most French burn wood. The new system on the block is woodchip burners, or wood pellet for smaller houses. I would STRONGLY recommend that you invest in at least 1 wood pellet heater for the beginning. The other stuff is a waste of your money. With oil you'll pay from 500-2000 euro per winter depending on the size of the space you heat and more if water is included. Pellets would be half that and chips half that again. Oil is going up here it 1 euro per lt for deisel and about 60 cents for heating oil. Thats a 50% increase in a year and its not slowing down.

If you want info I'll send you some links.

Andrew

 

[Jhc]

Hi admire your enthusiasm.  We have been here several years, though not yet living in the house that will be ours - doing it up slowly.  I can recommend the paraffin heaters which others have mentioned and we will also be installing 2 woodburners which will be on 24 hours a day when it is really cold.  We should be OK with that and our house is about the same size as yours sounds.  I don't know anyone with gas fires either, though that does not mean they can't be found.

However - I just wanted to say that I think anyone who starts renovating and altering thier potential home immediately they move in is foolish - especially if it is liveable enough to do without.  For example, it's great to see where the sun comes in all year round as you may want extra windows to take advantage of it.  And coming with the idea of putting carpet in a downstairs lounge is a v British/Aussie idea.  I don't know anyone, French or English, who has carpet downstairs.  In the last storm we had 10 days ago when the rain bucketted down so hard I could not see my hand held out in front of me - the rain poured in through the front door as I was going in and out through it several times trying to attend to things getting blown around in the garden - causing me to say later as I was sweeping the water out that I could see why all French folk in our area stick with lovely tiles on their ground floor (before that event I though it was for ease of cleaning because of all the muddy feet in winter!)  Houses in France are so v different to Aussie ones (and I have lived in NZ so I know the type) that I think you would be wise to wait until you have had a winter here before getting too far on in your ideas as it is likely to be a steep learning curve.  Good luck though!

[HELDAV]

Hendo

Would appreciate it if you could give me some info on Wood chip/pellet heaters.

 

 

[just john]

[quote]G'day digga looks like you doin it tha tough way. This kinda work is not easy for us here on site. If you want get everything stated from Oz then you'll get a few in the long series of shocks that ...[/quote]

Hi Hendo

Yes please us too!, could you let us have any links for pellet & chip heaters,
especially those which include water or central heating.

Incidentally has anyone seen http://www.pinnaclestove.com/nectre.html,
do you know if these are available in France?

John & Sue

[just john]

[quote]G'day digga looks like you doin it tha tough way. This kinda work is not easy for us here on site. If you want get everything stated from Oz then you'll get a few in the long series of shocks that ...[/quote]

Hi Hendo

Yes please us too!, could you let us have any links for pellet & chip heaters,
especially those which include water or central heating.

Incidentally has anyone seen http://www.pinnaclestove.com/nectre.html,
do you know if these are available in France?

John & Sue

[Guest CFrost]

Hi Hendo, Looks like you've started something here Can I have info too please

thanks in advance

Kimberley

[hayley]

Hi Linda & Richard

Just to say, hi and welcome to France,we are not there yet but are in the process of,. everytime we are over in our house we do a little bit more to make it ours,like you ,not sure what sort of heating to go for,  at the moment we are using a parrafin heater sort which is adequate for just now but we havent done a winter yet!! but then we are used to Scottish winters we will probably go for the wood burning system that everyone on LF are recommending on this topic but we have a couple of outside jobs that need seeing to first

Good luck to both of you

Hayley