Plumbing your French house for winter
Since the big freeze a couple of months ago we have had various plumbing problems (mostly leaks) come to light – partly because I’m an idiot and partly because of poor plumbing. I’ll share their causes in the hope that someone else can avoid some of the same problems… As a little background, the house [...]
Replacing a rather horrible wall
When we first arrived in France our house was lacking pretty much everything, including bathrooms, so you won’t be surprised to know that getting a sink and toilet fitted was something of a priority. We quickly got various plumbers around and discussed our grand plans for en-suites here and power showers there – typically to [...]
Quality control in France
Sometimes we have to ignore the ‘big picture’ (global catastrophes and so on) and worry about the little problems instead. For example, how is it possible that every week I need to change lightbulbs when each one comes with a ‘two year guarantee’ and cost many times what an ‘old-fashioned’ lightbulb cost? Certainly electrical and [...]
What colour shutters
April is a good month. Mrs B’s garden springs into bloom, we tidy away all the rubbish, and generally get things looking beautiful after a winter of neglect. This is usually a good plan. February and March are often a bit cold or wet to be doing much outside, and by May things are getting [...]
Getting the porch mended
It’s a bit difficult working on the computer this week – we are getting some work done on the house which involves a great deal of noise and disruption and lumps of wood falling on my head, but I thought I’d shake the dust off the keyboard and tell you what’s going on here while [...]
Speaking to the French Water Board
Over the last few years we have had various problems with water leaks and other issues with the water authorities digging up our garden, so I thought I’d tell the story…using some rather whizzy technology!
Efficient energy
Autumn is just around the corner and thoughts turn to heating – and even better heating that doesn’t cost much. A couple of years ago I wrote about the trend towards using heat pumps (pompe a chaleur) as an alternative to ‘conventional’ heating – in principle a great idea since it extracts heat from the [...]
Grand Designs, France style
One downside of getting English TV, apart from the difficulty of choosing what to watch from 100 channels of unwatchable rubbish, is that I have discovered that one channel seems to show a lot of re-runs of Grand Designs. I always was a ‘Grand Designs addict’ and now it seems I have nine years of [...]
Autumn is here!
Oooh errr is that summer come and gone already?! Last week it was about 30 degrees, today it’s more like 15 and there is a gale force wind to go with it. Unfortunately I wasn’t paying attention to the forecast and hadn’t realised the weather was about to change so I’ve been outside doing lots [...]
French central heating systems
February is always the least exciting month in our year. If it’s going to be cold, or wet, or both, at some point in the year it is usually in February. As if to prove the point, this week has been too cold for cycling, which means I’ve been stomping around the house looking grumpy, while Mrs B has [...]
Covering up the past
We moved here in November 2001 and it was only in spring 2003, after we had lived here for more than a year, that our house was more or less pleasant to live in and I had time to turn my thoughts to the concrete shed that stood a few yards away. The shed housed [...]
Pompe a chaleur – reduce your heating bills, at what cost?
Given that summer is here at last…I thought I’d take a look at the best ways of heating your house in France. Better late than never, and it might just help reduce the cost of fuel / oil next year – which I’d guess won’t be any less than it is now. There are now [...]
Life in the Dropt Valley flood plain
The region around us in the valley of the Dropt River was little developed during centuries gone by, which helps explain its natural beauty. This lack of development was in part because of the natural character of the soil – there is typically a 30 centimetre layer of soil on top of a dense thick [...]
Keeping the roof in good condition
I’m in the attic of the house this week, treating about a zillion beams with wood protection and treatment. This involves wearing a protective mask and goggles, handling noxious chemicals and generally looking silly, but seems preferable to waiting for the roof to fall down. Funny thing is, the attic of the house is probably [...]
Come home to a real fire
A week ago we had a big wood delivery – eight stères (cubic metres) of oak – to burn in our wood-burning stove. Given the price of oil for the central heating this is a good thing. Woodburning stove heating works very well for us, especially because the converted barn where we live is more [...]
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