Washing Machines...and Televisions in France

[Homer]

 Hi Readers,

At our first attempt at finding our dream house.....it actually came off! so we shall be moving to the Vendee sometime in early December, we shall be living inTullud-Ste-Gemme, very close to Mouilleron-en-Parads....where we also managed to find a English speaking doctor, of course, we have many questions to ask to those already living in this lovely part of France, and sincerely hope that someone will oblige, we have at present a English Hotpoint washing machine.....it is one of the old type but extremely reliable! I service it myself, the question is ''how easy is it to get parts for such a machine ?  we also have a six year old television, which we do not want to part with, what do we need to receive BBC programnes, the house that we shall be living in, has a satilite dish.....is it possible to continue using the same dish,which at the moment is used for French television ?....someone did suggest to me that we can actually purchase a ''box'' here in England and be able to use such a box in France.....is this true ? Any help on the above matters would be greatly received......thanks in advance

Homer.               

[pitway]

One in your PM box

 

[Jackie]

We brought a washing machine over from the UK and have found the following firm able to supply spares, there are quite a few like this on the net. http://www.spares2go.co.uk/default.html

Most French washing machines are cold fill and all we did is buy a plastic Y shaped adaptor at the local Brico which put the hot and cold hoses out of the back of the machine together. This works fine except the washing cycle is a bit longer as the machine heater has to do all the work. When the machine expires we will buy one locally. Buying spares for UK sourced machines can be very expensive if ordered locally, got charged 68 Euros for a cutlery basket for the dishwasher.

We bought a Sky box, not a special deal where it has to remain connected to a phone line for a year, and brought it over with us which works fine. You need PAL I and many dual standard French sets are available with both SECAM and PAL but sometimes the PAL is PAL C and not I which may not work. If you have a working Brit TV I would bring it over though no good for French progs. SCART connections can be used but again there are problems with the sound connections on some sets as we have found. There is plenty of gen about this on this site if you do a search or you could look at http://www.satcure.co.uk/index.htm

We have also bought stuff from them on-line with no problems.....................John in 79