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Space in my Van


Saucedecochon
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[quote user="You can call me Betty"]I am but a simple gurl, but even I know this. It is netting wot you put over the top of fibre insulation to stop it from falling off in bits or moving. [/quote]

Oh betty, I don't think you're a girl [:P]

[quote user="Saucedecochon"]

You are of course closest. It is in fact, netting, which supports.... wait for it - insulation.[/quote]

OK, I didn't know even in the UK there was such a specific product. I have been using anti pigeon netting to do the job when needed, yes I was just enquiring, I also said that it was a kind offer to help someone back on page 1.

I think forums are dying and it's because people are afraid/sick of being cross examined on everything they write (fine if it's voicing a political opinion that's open for comment) This was an offer to anyone who may be able to use at least part of a van.

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Lovely thread, most enjoyable. Instructional, educational, humourous.

4 pages of posts from a very slow start.

I do though wonder, how France has survived so long without the indispensible British building products.

I hope I am not being controversial, I am only little.
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[quote user="rockfish"]Lovely thread, most enjoyable. Instructional, educational, humourous.

4 pages of posts from a very slow start.

I do though wonder, how France has survived so long without the indispensible British building products.

I hope I am not being controversial, I am only little.[/quote]

The world is like a great big supermarket, some products good some could be better. Sometimes to get what you want you have to shop in a different store.
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OK, this ones gonna run and run Its "today" and yes its nice here after a frosty start.

Using/used French roof tiles, timber (lots), double glaze windows, cements and mortars. French chimney boiler insert, and warm air system, plumbing, immersion (not rads).

Stuff I'm taking (already mentioned) is readily available in UK so I don't need to visit umpteen outlets getting a "non", wasting valuable down time, it fits the spec and is much cheaper even than UK builders merchants if bought online.

Oh BTW don't feel stupid, Jewsons hadn't heard of ISN, despite it being a building regs requirement in UK now.
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Rockfish wrote:

I do though wonder, how France has survived so long without the indispensible British building products.

I hope I am not being controversial, I am only little.

NickP writes: It's not a matter of France surviving it's a matter of people using products they are familiar with, until they eventually find local products that work in the same way, although that isn't always possible. From my perspective I've found local practices good and bad, likewise products. So whenever I'm back in the UK which is often I buy things that are better or have a better price, makes sense to me. Likewise, I take French products that work well and are better value to the UK. All this snobbishness about where you get your products is a matter of choice and doesn't deserve sneering from the "I'm more French than you brigade."
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I have to agree with Nicky.

I have done 14 years of renovation and have always used French stuff because that is what I am familiar with. I know how it works, where to find it, I understand the pricing etc etc.

I could not do a renovation in the UK because I am simply not familiar with UK products. You know, if I did one I would actually use French paint in most cases. I know how to paint with it.

It is not really about good or bad. If you don't know how to use a product then any cost saving is going to be lost because you may spoil the product or have to redo it. etc etc.

I do like going around the Brico sheds in the UK when I go back though but I very rarely buy anything. Its cheap tat. lol.

But further to Nickys second point, I am more French than anyone. Lets not forget that. LOL.
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[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]

I do like going around the Brico sheds in the UK when I go back though but I very rarely buy anything. Its cheap tat. lol.[/quote]

Unfortunately the biggest chain is probably the same company as the biggest chain in france and so much of it is the same tat. Now it's manged by a french person it's got worse both sides of the channel. Most UK cement is french owned, as are a large percenatge of the placo manufacturers. Insulation likewise, Reticell is on a lot of sites certainly post Grenfell.

I am European, at least for a while longer

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There is an Anglo-French organisation that has been doing building work, rénovations and maintenance since their inception 100 years ago, as integrated as you can get, jobs there are reserved for French and British nationals if they are decendents of WW1 combattants (I'm sure someone will correct that), in any case they have been doing their thing from mowing grass to constructing all the monuments (including the Thiepval mémorial where were hosts to 10,000 people on the 1st July this year) for long enough to know where to buy their materials, what companys and artisans to employ etc, I'm sure even ALBOF would agree.

 

Visit any of their chantiers and you will not see a single French artisan, vehicle or French sourced building material, the vans and workteams gardeners excepted are pretty much 100% Belgian, the site huts and portaloos are rented from the UK, all the materials come from the UK or Belgium even sand, gravel, ballast, cement etc, you will see it all there in tonne bags emblazoned with the name of the UK or Belgian company.

 

During the commémorations everything came from the UK, all the marquees, the seating, the stands, the toilets, they even brought over water tanks and took away all the waste in honeycarts back to the UK, they did this because whilst there was water and sewage on site there was no way they were going to risk the event not going ahead at 7am 1st July because of some hold up or another, they have had 100 years of  having their hands burned and are wised up.

 

Same story regarding the sand, cement, ballast etc, during the tight years these were the only materials that I sourced locally, the weight and volume make it abject stupidity to bring them in from another country yet the CWG do exactly that, 100 years of having guys on site to do their jobs and no materials to work with.

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Breaking all the rules about buying voluminous and/or heavy materials as locally as possible I brought over all the insulation for my mega-build and all of the fire rated placo from the UK.

 

The insulation was on grounds of cost, it was subsidised and I started buying at £5 per roll ending up at 99p per roll, I had a huge feck off van trailer and would load it to the gills, I actually brought over twice the insulation that I needed and sold the extra on LeBoncoin which paid for my ferry crossings, I also brough back Makita Cordless drills to sell and eventually the buyers were giving me lists of stuff that they wanted, hey ALBOF I was the original UK shopping delivery company [:D]

 

The fire rated plasterboard was €34 per sheet at the time and nobody even stocked it even though its supposed to be used in most buildings, it had to be ordered = the usual parlaver of pay 100% up front and then wait months listening to lies until they would finally have enough orders to get free delivery to them, thats the sort of stuff that the CWGC wont put up with, the fire rated placo in the UK was €4.99 a sheet from Selco, I think that I brought over around 80 sheets in total, I saved over €2000 and when I looked closely at the markings on the plasterboard it was made in France!!

 

ALBOF knows a lot about renovation in France, he must do because he talks a good job [:D] Clever guy to have achieved all that he has with a toolbox containing only a cheque book and two paint brushes [:P]

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I told you before Chancer, I grew in a renovation in Wiltshire when I was a kid. My daddy was a master carpenter. That is master like in Jedi master. 7 years not 6 weeks training at some dodgy college in Crawley.

This was long before a 'place in the sun', 'escape to the country' and all the muppets moving from London to butcher houses in the SW UK or SW France with their B&Q shît.

I know my stuff.

And I am more french than you.....as Harry Enfield would say.
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Er, underpriced "pigeon netting" actually. 100m roll of 2m wide at £23.

Compares favourably with all net for bird control, (at least that I could find on Google) except better on a roll as its easily rolled out across the chantier. I tried French bird netting but gave up as its in a shite pack, all screwed up, a pain to unravel and work with while teetering on open floors. If they'd got Netlon on a roll as I use for my fruit cages I'd have used it, but again I'd rather be insulating (French wool) or laying floors than doing a nationwide brico search.

Too much tea not good for the brain.
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ALBOF, I'm sure you have seen it all and you certainly do talk a good job but nothing that you have ever written has moved me one iota from my conviction that you have, as the Swedes would say " a fingertip growing out of the palm of your hand".

 

You only have to see a man hold a hammer for a split second to know everything about him, the Hollywood fairy tale is that Harrison Ford was spotted as a set carpenter and given an acting role, in one film he was supposedly nailing rafters to a ridge pole with several other homesteaders, it was obvious that all their toolboxes contained was a credit card and the Yellow Pages, the sales director at the company where I was Engineering manager used to boast exactly that, no fool though, I have had many millionaire customers exactly like him.

 

Someone observant and involved on multiple sites will learn far more than I ever did by doing the job and observing those around me, and to be fair ALBOF you have never ever claimed to have walked the walk, only (tongue in cheek) to know everything [:D]

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You been smoking weed again Chancer ? You and your vegan friend perhaps ? lol

My dad always used to say something like, 'a good craftsman always looks after his tools'. Something that admittedly I don't. Having said that, my dad used to say a lot of things. He reminded me of Del boy.

http://www.quotes.net/show-quote/62739

When my dad gave me lessons when I was young, I could not progress onto any tool until I mastered the first one. Sweeping his fecking atelier lasted weeks. Wa66ker.

I am a dab hand with a broom.
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[quote user="Saucedecochon"]Er, underpriced "pigeon netting" actually. 100m roll of 2m wide at £23.

Compares favourably with all net for bird control, (at least that I could find on Google) except better on a roll as its easily rolled out across the chantier. I tried French bird netting but gave up as its in a shite pack, all screwed up, a pain to unravel and work with while teetering on open floors. If they'd got Netlon on a roll as I use for my fruit cages I'd have used it, but again I'd rather be insulating (French wool) or laying floors than doing a nationwide brico search.

Too much tea not good for the brain.[/quote]

That's about the same price as I pay.

The quick look earlier revealed companies selling it for a lot more for a lot less so we are canny shoppers!

Tea, great for bargain hunters!

Anyway this thread is about as much fun as tooth ache so I am out of here.

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The quote that your father probably used was the same as my father when he sermonised me "a bad craftsman always blames his tools"

 

I still blame my tools and always think of him, I sympathise with you because you only have the choice of the cheque book or the brushes to blame as I cant see yoy blaming a French artisan[:)]

 

Do you know that I have been using the same broom for 35 years!

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My dad, a carpenter nailed a piece of wood to the leg of his bench and said "son, you can bang any nails you like into that but nowhere else!" of course it soon resembled a hedgehog and i moved on to other more challenging woods like oak and exotic hardwoods, I had seen him doing secret nailing and knew that if I used lost head brads and a nail punch there was little chance of him detecting my practice sessions.

 

In his retirement right up to the day he died he would still damage his saw or planes on an old piece of wood and phone me up to tear me a new rear end [:(] I inherited his planes and sash cramps, nothing else I didnt take any of his wood stock because I use machinery and it could be fatal revisiting the same piece of wood although poetic justice.

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