Bonjour all...new member now in France!

[Womblies]

Hi all,

After travelling around Europe...France, Spain,Portugal and Italy in our ancient motorhome we have finally settled in rural france, La Creuse bang slap in the middle.

We sold our place in Scotland in December last year , freecycled most of our stuff to downsize and have been in motorhome since then.

Hiya Shirlz...!!! Hope you're getting good mileage out of all the gubbins from the barn and greenhouse!!!!

We are currently renting a house ... rent reduced if we renovate the upstairs!!! But have now found our own place... an ancient farmhouse with about a hectare of land. It's a bit like the land that time forgot so pretty much a blank canvas for renovating and installing renewable energy , utilising rain water etc... a BIG drawing board needed for planning it all out!!! Very exciting times ahead.

I think this site will be a great source of ideas and support ... perhaps I'll do a blog of this next stage of our adventure...I did one of our travels...not up to date yet!!look forward to meeting you all...virtually most likely!!

Cheers Peter and Julie (Womblies)

[ina]

Hi - you made it! Great to see you are back on, too!

[Shirley]

YAY great to hear from you both!!

Yes... getting good use of your freecycle gifts - thanks again :D

I've got a drawing board you could borrow... well could have.. .if you hadn't moved away LOL

[red]

hi and welcome
your new place sounds great

[ohareward]

Womblies

Ce Peter avec un certain foin rustique est-il dans sa bouche ?

Robin

[Millymollymandy]

Hi and welcome!

[Womblies]

Lol Ohare! Non, la photo est un capture d'ecran de le webcam, avec les effets speciaux 'old B&W movies'!!! Tres 'arty-farty' n'est pas!

Thanks for all the great welcomes and meetings-up ( is that a word....it is now!!) with folks from back home.

[ina]

Lol Ohare! Non, la photo est un capture d'ecran de le webcam, avec les effets speciaux 'old B&W movies'!!! Tres 'arty-farty' n'est pas!

Brilliant! My French will be perfect if you keep that up...

[zaza]

Hello from not far away (Aigurande-ish). Your place sounds great It must be exciting to start with a blank canvas and plan everything as you'd like it. Wishing you bon courage!

[Womblies]

Thanks Zaza, the new place is not far from Aigurande, near Tercillat , very near the border but still just in 23, it's really beautiful around there. How long have you been there? I'm trying to find out about solar generated electric and French grants etc...have you come across any info? Don't know if there's enough sunlight hours, I know there are schemes for this further South in Langedoc area.

[zaza]

We've been here just over 4 years.......but we haven't got around yet to doing anything major on the power front. One of our future projects will be to put in a wood-burning range with a back boiler, and also a solar panel or two. I have read a bit through the tax laws and (from memory) up till 2009 you can get a tax credit for any expenditure on renewable energy goods, and things like loft insulation as well I think. It's a while since I looked at it and I've got a memory like a sieve . We're fairly sure a solar panel will be worthwhile for hot water heating and are hoping that when the time comes we can get some information from the EDF and find out about selling back to the grid. My fiance found their website very difficult to work out but that could be just him
I know there are plenty of discussions on this forum about sustainable energy etc, I'm sure you'll find those helpful (probably more so than I have been...)

[Thomzo]

Welcome to the site and good luck with your project.

Cheers
Zoe

[Millymollymandy]

We've been here just over 4 years.......but we haven't got around yet to doing anything major on the power front. One of our future projects will be to put in a wood-burning range with a back boiler, and also a solar panel or two. I have read a bit through the tax laws and (from memory) up till 2009 you can get a tax credit for any expenditure on renewable energy goods, and things like loft insulation as well I think. It's a while since I looked at it and I've got a memory like a sieve .

It does have to be bought in France and installed by a registered artisan though to get the tax credit! However you do get 50% back on the price of the wood burner so it will probably still be financially worth it even if you had been planning to install it yourselves. Oh and it must be one of the approved makes so usually makes such as Villager (popular with the Brits) won't be covered to get the tax credit.

I don't think back boilers exist in France unless you are buying an imported one through a Brit - but then you probably won't get tax credit - so some homework will be required!

Here's a list of approved makes of wood burners etc which have the Flamme Verte mark of approval - this is the website that explains all about the credit impot.

http://www.flammeverte.com/new/signataires.htm

[zaza]

Oh thanks for that Millymollymandy, that's useful to know. I'll get my fiance (maybe I should call him Hector) on to it, I tend to let him do all the research, he's got more patience than I have!

[Millymollymandy]

My pleasure - we're hoping for €1,000 rebate from our wood burner. I do wonder whether we will ever actually know if we got it when we get the income tax bills though...... no idea if it will be mentioned or not!

PS Call me MMM, it's a lot easier to type.