Roger

Or the start of a new chapter? Hopefully both. After playing hard-ball with the Chinese supplier on Aliexpress and a wait of 48 hours, I was today informed that the money I’d paid is to be refunded and will arrive back in my bank account in the next 2-3 days. So that has allowed me to do a further search for a suitable model, hopefully with more certainty that it will actually be delivered this time.

As mentioned in a previous post, I’d found another ‘Keteles K800 clone’ (who seem to be the Chinese manufacturer of all these similar single and dual motor e-bikes) on the French Cdiscount web site, called a Dakeya DA06, at a much lower price – 1099€ – and if I could have placed an order at the time I’d have also been eligible for a 45€ ‘loyalty discount’ and delivery for only 20€.

At the time, however, due to the debacle involving the Chinese supplier, I didn’t think that would be a wise thing to do. So I left things in abeyance and lo and behold, when I searched again today I found a second German supplier of the same model but with a twist when it came to the price.

The Dakeya comes in three colours – black, green and blue. The French supplier on Cdiscount offers all three at 1099€ with a delivery charge as of today of 60€. The German supplier, on the other hand, offers free delivery but demands premiums for green and blue.

So the black version is on offer from the German supplier for 1099€ with free delivery, so although I’d tried to order a green bike from Aliexpress, how could I resist the German supplier’s offer? The answer is, I couldn’t, so today I’ve gone ahead and placed an order for a black Dakeya DA06 which is due for delivery some time between 11th and 20th March.

My order has now been validated so hopefully this will be the end of this particular saga and the start of a new chapter as I enjoy my new e-bike. My experiences tell me that scammers are swarming around these popular, high value, fast selling items on Aliexpress like wasps around a honey pot just waiting to sting you. I found a comment left by another buyer on the web site of the seller from whom I’m awaiting my refund as follows (using Google translate).

“Some scammers… I bought a bike and he started telling me that this model is not in stock and then he tells me I am sending you this bike. Different… I told him to return the money and he tells me that’s not possible, then it is listed as delivered and nothing ever came.”

So it appears that my experiences of this seller’s behaviour was typical, but luckily I proved yet again the value of using Paypal as it looks as though the other buyer was not so lucky and may have ended up with no bike and no refund.

I don’t have very good plastering skills and by its very nature I knew that plastering the side wings of my new cloaks cupboard would not be an easy job. But I had no idea just what a nightmare it would be. The main problem was that the staples I used to fix the metal edge pieces were a bit thick and even though I’d hammered them in as much as I could without damaging the plasterboard they still stuck out a bit too much.

That made it difficult getting enough plaster in the right places to cover them and I had to use a bit of advice that I was given to me by someone with more experience than me many years ago. That was if it’s a tricky little job, like this one, don’t try to get it perfect from the outset. Do the best you can then when the plaster’s dry enough come back and sand it to flatten it off. Then come back again with a thin, wet coat of plaster to skim it over and make it perfect.

So that’s what I’ve done. All of the surfaces that I wanted to cover are covered but their finish is not to a high standard, as the images show. But that doesn’t matter because they’ll be fine to skim over once I’ve sanded them.

They are jobs for tomorrow, but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve broken the back of the job and the worst part of the project, or at least what I think is the worst part, is now behind me. Onwards my friends!

Progress on my new cloaks cupboard has been very slow but it hasn’t just been due to messing around with e-bike stuff. I’ve also had setbacks due to poor materials not working as they were supposed to (primarily fixings, which I’ve found to be of poor quality wherever I’ve sourced them from) and availability of items that I’ve needed for the construction.

But I’ve at last got the basic structure in place in the form of the two side-wall wings that create the aperture for the doors and the ceiling cross-beam on which the track will be mounted in which the door rollers will run.

The next job will be to plaster the two side-wings but before that can be done their exposed edges have had to be reinforced with metal edging pieces.

Fixing the edging pieces was quite tricky. The pros use compressed air powered stapling guns and do the job in a matter of minutes. I have a manual stapling gun and thought that would be suitable but it isn’t, so I’ve had to look for another method. I tried plasterboard nails of different lengths but they weren’t effective and I’ve ended up using small zinc plated staples, as shown in the above images.

This was easier said than done and very tedious as each staple had to be gripped in long-nosed pliers and then hammered in. The job took ages but after plastering them, the side-wings will be painted and finished to match the existing walls.

The ceiling mounted cross-beam will not have to support any significant weight as the main supports for the bi-fold doors will be on the floor. I bought a length of square section timber for it with enough height to take the ceiling coving that will finish the unit off, but afterwards decided to increase its depth by glueing and screwing a second piece of timber to it.

The fixings holding it to the ceiling plasterboard proved to be particularly problematic as three out of the seven of them failed and I had to spend hours making fixings that worked. The following shots show each of the cross-beams ends.

As well as working on the cloaks cupboard I’ve also spent some time today playing hard-ball with the supplier on which I placed an order yesterday for a new e-bike. I’m not prepared to wait for delivery of a more expensive bike with ‘extras’ and would be happy with the one on the Cdiscount web site, the more so as Cdiscount are offering me an additional discount voucher as a result of my previous purchases.

I told the Chinese supplier that I wanted to cancel the order and they accused me of breaking my word, which after my recent experiences I thought was a bit rich coming from a Chinese supplier on Aliexpress. The supplier took umbrage and I went ahead and cancelled it anyway.

Now I’ll have to wait for up to 48 hours to ensure that the cancellation goes through and I am ensured of a refund of the sums I’ve paid before going ahead and ordering the less expensive bike on Cdiscount. I just hope the offer stays available in the meantime.

I just can’t seem to catch a break at the moment. After all the messing about yesterday with the Chinese supplier (which I now bitterly regret as I’m about to explain), when I had a few moments to spare I took another look at the e-bikes that are on offer on Cdiscount, the French web site which I’ve used quite a bit with considerable success. And know what, this is what I found – although the name’s different it’s instantly recognisable as yet another cloned Keteles K800.

But look at the price – 1099€. If you read the ad you can see that this bike is identical to the two motor, 2000W 48V one for 1298€ without rear suspension that the Chinese supplier said was out of stock. But it gets even better (or worse depending on how you look at it) when you dig deeper and check on its full price including delivery. You’ll probably have to click on the following image to see the figures.

I took the screenshot today and the delivery charge is only 20€. Yesterday when I saw the ad for the first time it was 50€, so today you can have the bike delivered in about a week for the princely sum of only 1119€. So now how do I feel about the price of 1360€ that I agreed yesterday with the Chinese seller?

Sure, my new bike will have rear suspension and upgraded front forks, but do I think they’re worth 241€? No I certainly do not, especially as I could have had this bike within a week whereas I’m now committed to waiting weeks for my new bike to be delivered. To say I’m feeling sick this morning is an understatement 🙁

What can I say? I made a mistake in my last post when I said that I’ve ordered the e-bike that I want for 938€. When I looked more closely at the order I’d placed I realised that what I’d ordered was a single motor 1000W model rather than the twin motor 2000W that I wanted.

It was an easy mistake to make because the Chinese sellers’ ads show a range of models of different specs and prices on the Aliexpress web site but all under the main heading and/or description of the highest spec one.

When you click on the model/colour combination that you are interested in only a sub-heading in small type actually changes, as shown in the following screen shot taken from the seller’s web site of the model that I’d placed an order for.

I realised soon afterwards when I had time to look at things more closely that I’d made a mistake and should have ordered the twin motor, 2000W model shown below, which was more expensive obviously.

One of the things to note is that the two bikes in the above images are not of the same brand – the cross-bar is a dead giveaway. I’ve found that the Chinese e-bike sellers on Aliexpress are very cavalier with the images that they post on their web pages but I don’t know if they or Aliexpress are responsible for just putting up any image that’s close to what they are selling because they know that under the skin they are all the same bikes and come out of the same factory.

As soon as I realised that I’d made a mistake I messaged the seller on the Aliexpress web site in order to ensure that the order was not progressed, let alone sent out. My initial message was sent yesterday and as a result I got into a live interchange today on the Aliexpress messaging system. Here are the interchanges that I’ve copied and pasted directly from our conversation.

Me:
Hello, I think I have purchased a single motor bike. This is not what I want. Please do not send this order . I will have to cancel. I need a 2 motor 2000W bike. Thank you. Please confirm you are not sending this order.

Seller:
2000W bicycle with 2 Motors is more expensive

Me:
Yes, I know. I made a mistake when I placed the order. The bike I want I think is 1298€. Need to pay difference by Paypal.

Seller:
But the 2000W one is out of stock. The price of the other 2000W is very high. It requires 1488 euros.

Me:
No that’s beyond my budget. I reluctantly suggest that the order is therefore cancelled and I reorder when the 1298€ bike is back in stock.

Seller:
There is a 1398 euro bicycle, but it takes 45 days to wait

Me:
No, still too high.

Seller:
Do you need 1000W now?

Me:
No please cancel that order. It was my mistake. I want 2 motor 2000W

Seller:
I sent 1000W before, then you have to pay 140 euros for intercepting express delivery

Me:
No, I told you before you had a chance to send. Paypal will see the timing of the messages and will refund anyway. Please do not behave badly as I will still buy from you when you have the bike I want. Otherwise I will not. Aliexpress also allow free return if the bike I cancelled is delivered. Then I will receive the full refund. Please think carefully before you do the wrong thing.

Seller:
OK

Me:
OK, let us work this out sensibly. How long before the 1298€ 200W LaFly is available? I mean 2000W of course

Seller:
It takes 40-50 days, but it is an upgraded version

Me:
In what way?

Seller:
Lafly, which arrived at the European warehouse 50 days later, is an upgraded version. It will be upgraded to this

Seller:
Upgraded to double shoulder front fork and double suspension.

Me:
OK but the big question is the price…

Seller:
The price is already the lowest 1398 euros. Look, the price is 1598 (the next image is of the comparable current model on the seller’s web site)

Seller:
If you are willing to wait for Lafly’s upgraded bike, its price is 1398

Me:
I see what you are saying. Can we agree a price of 1350€??

Seller:
The price is 1378 euros, the lowest

Me:
Come on, you are pushing too much. 1360€ and we have a deal. Don’t forget you are asking me to wait for 50 days!!

Seller:
OK

Me:
OK let’s do it

Seller:
OK

The seller then posted a link on the Aliexpress web site for the difference between the 938€ that I’d paid against my original order and the cost of the new bike (1360€) with two 1000W motors, a 48V 23AH battery and front and rear suspension.

Me:
OK I’ve paid the difference. So we can confirm this is for the Lafly upgrade 2 motor 2000W with front and rear suspension, right?

Seller:
yes

Me:
Thank you. I look forward very much to receiving it as soon as possible.

Seller:
I will contact you in 50 days

Me:
OK I guess I’ll just have to be patient

Seller:
yes, wish you a wonderful day

So how have things worked out? Apart from the delay in receiving my bike, I think pretty well. The bike that I wanted to change my order for (1298€) which the seller now says is out of stock is a mid-range model with non-lockable front suspension and no rear suspension. The upgraded model that I’ve now ordered for 1360€ has both and the Keteles factory web site (I think Keteles manufactures all these bikes under different brand names) is currently showing it for 1699€.

This is higher than other independent sellers are advertising it for but obviously Keteles would not be looking to undercut them as they are the ones bringing in the great majority of their sales. So I think that the price I’ve got (1360€) is pretty good.

In conclusion, today I found the same bike that I told the seller I’d pay 1298€ for (two motors, 2000W, 48V 23 AH battery but no rear suspension) on the CDiscount web site here in France – for 1278€, ie at a lower price if it includes delivery. So if I’d ordered from them, all of the above saga could probably have been avoided.

I was surprised to find the ad as I’ve been doing lots of internet searches, so I think that Cdiscount has only just put the bike on their web site in the last few hours if I’m correct.

But on the other hand, I’ll be getting a higher spec bike for only 82€ more rather than the 200€ or so that it usually costs for the ‘extras’ that I’ll be getting and I’m happy with that. That’s if in the meantime Cdiscount don’t start selling the upgraded model for a lower price than the 1360€ that I’ve agreed with the Chinese seller. You never know, do you 😕

I received my refund from Aliexpress today for my new e-bike that never materialised so have jumped straight in again. There are two ‘sellers’ with similar names who are offering the same bike as I ordered last time for 399,99€ and funnily enough their Aliexpress certificates show that they were both registered in Spain, one in late December 2023 and the other in late January 2024.

I already know from previous searches that the true prices of the bikes are in the range 1000€ – 1499€ so my conclusion is that both are working the same scam as my original seller. I think that anyone placing orders will be unlikely to get their money back if they use a non-guaranteed payment method, despite Aliexpress saying they will, and although the ‘sellers’ know that other monies they receive will be refunded, they can use the funds in their business for free in the meantime.

So this time I’ve gone for another supplier and another model bike, although it’s pretty apparent by now that all of these bikes of similar design are coming from the same factory and are just branded differently. Here’s what we’re talking about – very much the same as I originally ordered but this time I’ve gone for the bright green!

This time, though, I’ve paid quite a bit more, although still below the average price being demanded for the same/similar model by other suppliers – 938€.

I’ve done the same as before – paid using Paypal, although this time I’ve opted for 4 x payments over the next four months, meaning my initial outlay is roughly half what it was before. The bike is also due to be delivered a lot quicker – by March 7th – so if this one goes t*ts up as well, at least I’ll get my money back quicker than before 🙂

I can’t quite understand what’s going on. After contacting la Poste this morning to find out why I haven’t received a parcel that it said had been delivered into my mailbox, out of the blue I’ve just received an email from Aliexpress saying that my order has been cancelled and I’m being refunded the full purchase amount.

There can’t be any connection between the two events because there’s no reason why la Poste should have been in contact with Aliexpress so it would appear that Aliexpress has itself become involved independently behind the scenes with the seller.

When I checked my order status on the Aliexpress web site the information given is to the effect that the order was cancelled and refunded due to an incorrect order tracking number having been provided by the seller who will be sanctioned in accordance with the platform’s (Aliexpress’s) rules.

OK, that’s good as far as it goes, but although the original web page for the bike I ordered has now been taken down, there are still several in a similar style on Aliexpress, probably from the same ‘seller’, for similar bikes several of which are now even cheaper than the price of the one I ordered. If the ‘seller’ is a scammer, surely Aliexpress should have picked that up, closed them all down and booted the ‘seller’ off?

And there’s another thing. How come la Poste could provide tracking data for ‘my’ parcel right up to the point of delivery? There’s one explanation I can think of, which is that a legitimate label was created by this, or another legitimate, seller for a real bike being delivered to a buyer in France. The scam ‘seller’ then spoofed a copy of the label with my name and address on it and sent it to me.

Are you with me so far? The legitimate sale would then track properly through the system until it was delivered into its buyer’s mailbox – which wouldn’t have been mine, which is why it wasn’t in my mailbox even though I had been told that it had been delivered. It would also explain why my ‘delivery’ appeared to be early, as the label that had been spoofed was probably by then a few days old.

I don’t know how Aliexpress got onto this but fortunately I paid using Paypal so I’ll get my refund in a couple of days, although buyers who used other payment methods could have more difficulty. I’ll be able to relax once I’ve received it and then I’ll be able to decide whether to go for another new e-bike at the proper price, especially as I’ve already bought my safety helmet 🙂

It’ll also be interesting to hear what la Poste have to say when they come back to me as I think they’ll say yes, the parcel I queried was delivered correctly – just not to me 😕

Still no sign of my new e-bike but it appears that my assumption about the postman confusing the two parcels that were being delivered to me in the depot was incorrect. La Poste had applied its own postage label over the original Chinese one on the packaging that had contained the bike helmet that was delivered on Saturday and when I took a closer look at it I found another delivery reference. When I checked that I found that the system is confirming delivery of that parcel.

So according to la Poste, two parcels were dropped off into my mailbox on Saturday – the helmet and my new e-bike. This is total nonsense, of course, because the Chinese supplier of the bike had already sent me a copy of the label confirming despatch of the bike which showed a gross weight for the package of 38.6 kg and there’s no way that that would anything like fit into my mailbox.

So what’s going on? La Poste has a help line which I’ve tried using several times today but, surprise surprise, it doesn’t work properly. When you key in a number in the multi-choice menu it just keeps talking to you, which isn’t that surprising because such systems operated by public sector businesses in France rarely do function as intended. I think it’s a ploy to stop you contacting them with problems, but you must draw your own conclusions…

But luckily I’ve got a la Poste on line account and in it I can access a virtual assistant. Amazingly, on this occasion I do seem to have succeeded in making a claim for non-delivery of a parcel. La Poste has said that the delivery service will get back to me with a detailed response within 48 hours and have given me a claim reference. However, I’m used to playing this game with EDF and Enedis and I’ll be pleasantly surprised if this will be enough to resolve the situation. I’ll have to wait and see.

So near but yet so far. Just when you think the system has excelled itself your hopes are dashed yet again.

When I checked the La Poste tracking site again a bit earlier, I was told that the parcel I’d been tracking had been delivered into my mailbox. I thought, bloody hell, the bike’s a damn sight smaller than I thought it’d be but when I went up to check, sure enough there was a package waiting for me.

But it didn’t contain my bike, or even a small part of it. It seems that La Poste has managed to get itself into a real muddle. I have two parcels in the system – my new e-bike and a safety helmet that I ordered from Amazon. The latter wasn’t supposed to be delivered until a week after the bike but it has arrived much sooner than expected and La Poste has confused the two.

The number I’ve been tracking has indeed been for the e-bike but that’s not what has been delivered this morning under that reference because as the following image shows, the item looks nothing like a bike – it is actually the helmet.

I’m hoping that the error wasn’t made several steps back in the delivery process, that my new bike is actually at the local depot and the postman has just grabbed the first parcel he saw with my name on it. If not I suspect that this could become very messy very quickly 🙁

It seems to be moving really quickly through the system. Delivery was scheduled for 1st March but it looks as though it’ll happen well before then as it’s ready to be sent out by the local depot.

Today? Surely not. Monday? A distinct possibility I reckon.

I’ve been working on my new cloaks cupboard. Progress has been quite a bit slower than usual because earlier this month I went down with a dose of ‘flu and even now I’m still getting over it. The cupboard will be permanently fitted into an alcove that I designed-in for it adjacent to the small separate toilet and close to the house’s front door. It will take up the full width of the alcove and have full height twin bi-fold doors to give easy access to its interior.

When I designed-in the alcove I had no idea what the dimensions of the doors would be and after much searching on the internet I was fortunate to find a supplier of just what I was looking for that would extend perfectly for the full height of the alcove from floor to ceiling and four panels of which would be just a tad narrower than its width. Because of the latter, I’m having to make up two wall extension ‘wings’ on either side to completely fill the gap with the doors in place.

Here’s a shot showing one set of bi-fold doors leaning against the wall and the frameworks for the two ‘wing’ extensions now permanently in place.

I’ve had to notch the bottoms of each extension to accept the floor plinths that were installed when the floor was tiled. I told the tiler that because I didn’t then know what form the cupboard would take just to fit plinth all around the walls, but that will be a good thing as the plinth will protect the lower edges of the cupboard’s internal walls.

The next step will be to attach plasterboard panels to the fronts, backs and exposed edges of the wall extensions. I’ve tried to measure dimensions as accurately as I could and I’m aiming to get the front panel of the cloaks cupboard to line up exactly with the wall of the alcove so when I eventually fit coving it runs across from one side to the other in a straight line. For that, the plasterboard on the right-hand wall extension will need to line up exactly with the edge of the alcove wall and I hope that I’ve got it just about right.

I’ll be cutting and fitting the plasterboard surfaces to the wall extensions tomorrow. Then I’ll have to fit metal plasterboard corner pieces to the exposed edges to protect the exposed corners and plaster them in. If all goes as planned I should end up with a cloaks cupboard that will fit exactly in the space provided for it and perfectly match the existing wall colours. That’s what I hope anyway.

Then I’ll be building in an internal shelving arrangement for general storage and a hanging rail for cloaks and when that’s done, all of the main construction work on and in my house will be complete. At that point I’ll at last be able to think about getting all my stuff out of storage and bringing it into the house. It’s been languishing in there since June/July 2021 and I can’t wait for that moment to arrive.

Well, I don’t know what yet, but something sure is on its way to me. I’ve been tracking the delivery of what I hope is my new e-bike for several days now, on its way to me from China. According to China Post, it arrived in French customs yesterday.

It showed up on the French postal service tracking site for the first time yesterday evening and it’s delivery status is trackable there this morning.

I’m still somewhat mesmerised by the whole thing. Bearing in mind that I only paid 373,93€ for it including delivery from China (by airfreight no less) this is what I found when I located and checked the manufacturer’s (Keteles) web site.

According to the web site, the price of my new bike is 1499,99€ and I’m not even sure if that includes the cost of delivery. All very bizarre. And there are also a couple of reviews on Youtube of the specific model I’ve ordered which also refer to the same sort of price level.

I have noticed one thing though. The manufacturer’s web site shown above doesn’t seem to work properly – links seem to be either broken or just ineffective. I’m wondering therefore if the company might have gone bust and its stock is just being sold off? I have no idea and this could be the completely wrong conclusion, but on the basis of the above it looks as though I can certainly expect something to be delivered to my doorstep in the next few days.

A couple of days ago a tasty-looking chicken caught my eye in Intermarché. Just under 1 1/2kg for 7,60€ so I bought it. It’s been in my fridge since then and I was thinking this morning that I’d better either think about cooking it or put it in my freezer for later. I decided on the former and I came up with the brainwave of popping it into my air fryer to see how it would come out.

My air fryer has a capacity of 5 litres and it just fitted in nicely, so I then gave it a good spray with virgin olive oil, a dousing with salt and ‘Herbes de Provence’ and set it going for 60 minutes at 190 degrees C while I was doing other things. I thought it would need about 1 1/2 hours but could adjust the time if necessary as it went along when I went back in from time to time to spray the bird with more olive oil.

And it went just great! Here’s the result after the 1 1/2 hours and after I’d given it a slathering of butter for the last 15 minutes or so.

It’s absolutely delicious! It’s perfectly cooked and the flesh is just falling off the bones and because it sat on a rack in the air fryer the grease has separated and fallen into the bottom of the pan leaving the meat perfectly moist. I couldn’t resist a leg and a wing while it was cooling and have just had a few slices in a portion of freshly baked baguette for my lunch. What a treat! I can’t recommend my air fryer enough 🙂

I’ve added more information to my posts about this on Facebook so here’s the same for My Trike. First, the original Aliexpress ad.

Aliexpress ad

Now here’s the review for the almost identical bike that I saw on Youtube.

?

I’ve just received notification from the Chinese seller that it’s been despatched for it’s March 1st delivery date and I can’t see how I can lose.

If it’s a scam Aliexpress should deal with it and in any case, I paid using Paypal so would be reimbursed by it. I’m just going to sit tight and patiently wait… 🙂

Or, loosely translated, just got to go for it!

I was idly watching videos on Youtube yesterday evening, as you do, and I came across a couple of e-bike reviews. One was by a rather conventional young man in Bristol (UK) who was a cycling devotee and evidently keen on following all the rules who thought that riding down some steps was very risqué and cavalier, and another by a long-haired bloke in California who had put together the bike he reviewed in his living room and was, ahem… quite the opposite.

Not only was the bloke in California going all-out for fun but he’d done so by finding a monster of a bike with dual electric motors, one in each wheel hub, a claimed range of over 60 km without even pedalling (!!) and a top speed of… wait for it… over 35mph (56kmh). And he was almost bursting with excitement throughout his whole video as he rode up and downhill, on the beach, over big heaps of earth at the side of the road and just about anywhere else he could take it. That said it all to me.

I’ve already got an e-bike, but it’s a sit-up-and-beg, old style one that’s maybe not quite first generation but probably not long after.

It still works as it should but unlike later models you have to pedal to make the motor cut in. That’s fine when you’re a sprightly young thing as I was about forty years ago but not now. What I want is to have the option of pedalling a bit and getting the old circulation moving on the flat but having some proper assistance available for the hills because then you can confidently ride out over longer distances and know that you won’t be defeated by the terrain.

So where’s this going, you might ask? The bike that the Californian guy was reviewing had cost something over $1000 just a few months ago and I wasn’t surprised given its specification because all of the single motor, high power models I’ve looked at recently on sites like Aliexpress have been in the 700-800€ price range or higher. This one with dual motors would have had to cost more.

I had a model book-marked in my browser from last week that up to then I hadn’t paid much attention to but having seen the Californian review I thought that I’d take another look at it and when I did I was surprised to see that it also was dual-motor and almost identical to the one in the review.

So it was worth a second look. Yes, 21 gears, a 48 volt rather than a puny 35 volt system and also hydraulic disk brakes rather then the mechanical, cable operated ones that the Californian guy had looked down his nose at. But the biggest surprise came when I looked at the price… only 393,96€ including delivery!

OK, I thought, the usual Aliexpress ploy. They show the price of the lowest cost part of the item – in this case the battery – and when you click on it you find that the complete bike, including the battery, is two or three times that figure. But no! The price really was only 393,96€!

And the surprises didn’t end there. Maybe because I’ve bought a few items from the Aliexpress web site recently, I was also offered a voucher for a further 20€ off, making my price an astounding 373,96€. So what could I do? Yes, you’ve guessed it. I bought one. I mean, after all, what can possibly go wrong at that price… 😕

The bike comes in a range of fluorescent colours including yellow, red and blue. I was sorely tempted – after all, why not go the whole hog.

However, I thought that possibly discretion might be the better part of valour as a grandad flying about on a bright red or yellow e-bike might attract a bit too much attention and to be honest, although lots of kids and young people are dashing about using e-scooters as personal transport, I’m not sure how legal an e-bike like this is in France. So I’ve gone for one in black and white that won’t catch the eye of any passing ‘flic’ and cause my collar to be felt.

It’s due to be delivered by 1st March and quite honestly, I can hardly wait. I must put my old bike onto Leboncoin in the meantime to make room for the new steed 😉

I’m not planning to do any more work inside the house for a short while so after a quick trip that I had to make to Montignac, today was a perfect day to give some attention to my aircraft. I started and ran the Savannah’s engine for a while a couple of weeks or so ago but the Xair’s engine hasn’t been started and run for many months, so that was my main aim today.

I had to pull the Savannah out first and as usual, was shocked to see how dirty it had become yet again. This year must be the year for seriously getting back into the air after my house-building efforts and before I do that both aircraft will need to be thoroughly cleaned and serviced. After moving the Savannah away from the barn to create a space to move the Xair into, I pulled that out also and removed the canvas engine cover and the cover over the screen so I could open the left hand door and get in.

When I arrived I’d checked Malbec’s runway and was surprised given how little rain we’ve had lately by how soft it still is. It’s still not flyable and someone’s also driven a vehicle, probably a large SUV, around over the top of the runway creating some quite deep gouge marks. It also wasn’t easy getting the aircraft out of the barn due to the muddy state of the ground in its entrance.

I checked the Xair’s engine over prior to starting it and was pleasantly surprised to find that despite the amount of time it’s been standing, there was plenty of charge in its battery. Although it hasn’t been started, I have turned the engine over from time to time and it started and ran immediately. This was despite the fuel being over a year old, much easier and more smoothly actually than the Savannah’s had done when I started it a few weeks ago, so I was very pleased with my efforts.

It was as I was pushing the Xair back into the barn that I noticed something strange. For a few moments I thought it was a round piece of rock or broken concrete and wondered how I’d not noticed previously when I’d pulled the Xair out. But when I looked at it more closely I found that it wasn’t something hard at all, but more like something made out of paper. What on earth was it?

I think it was some kind of nest, probably one made painstakingly by wasps or some other wood chewing insect as there was a single hole in its side that would have possibly been used as an entrance and exit. This would certainly figure because if it had somehow been attached to the Xair, somewhere under its covers, there would have been plenty of time for it to have been constructed over the summer as the aircraft has remained undisturbed for months.

But anyway, I kicked it out of the way around the end of the barn and there were certainly no insects in or around it now, probably a good thing for me. I then started and ran the Savannah’s engine again too for several minutes before pushing that back into its place in the barn.

My next job must be to pull it out again, give it another thorough wash and clean and a good service including an oil and filter change and maybe new plugs depending on how they look when I take them out. Both aircraft have been neglected for far too long and with Spring just around the corner, I really also need to think about moving the Xair on to a new owner.

After today, my utility room is finished except for the small amount of plinth around the base of the floor mounted cupboard and the finishing strip on the end of the worktop. As both tasks involve applying edging strip I decided to leave them until tomorrow and do them together. There’s still the tiling to be done, as there is in the kitchen, but just as for the kitchen, the room can now be used to its full extent and the tiling can be done as and when I can get round to it at a later date.

Making the new back panel for the small wall mounted cupboard took a long time, much longer than I’d anticipated. I’m a self-confessed perfectionist but totally understand that in jobs requiring craftsman-like skills, perfection can only be attained by real craftsmen. I have no pretensions on that score so I just try to do the best job I can, aiming for a result that I am happy and can live with, and almost invariably that takes time.

Cutting out the new back panel for the hot water pipe proved to be quite difficult and very time consuming even with having the old panel as a template. What complicated things was that not only did the adjustments to the back, side and bottom of the cupboard have to accommodate the water pipe but they also had to allow for the angles that the cupboard had to be placed in and the height it had to be placed at to attach it to the wall fixings.

This would have been easily done by chopping more away but then the job would have been ruined. Here’s how it actually came out and I was happy with the end result.

Now a series of shots of the 99% finished room after I’d cleared up at the end of the day.

It’s been an arduous few days getting this room done but well worth the effort. As I only have a couple of small jobs to do and will then just take the rubbish up to the waste bins, I’ll probably have a bit of a lie-in tomorrow morning. I’ve decided that I’ve earned it 😉

This is nearly always the problem when you go out to by stuff in France – you end up wasting so much time. It was 3.15 pm by the time I got back with a pair of new tap connectors and a sheet of white faced hardboard so too late to start any major work today. But I did finish connecting up the new sink in the utility room so that’s the plumbing all finished (subject to finding no leaks tomorrow!) leaving just the carpentry to do (the ‘menuiserie’ as it’s called here in France) to finish the room off.

The reason it took so long was because I wanted flexible connectors about 25 cm in length and the shortest available in Leroy Merlin were 30 cm. So I then went into Brico Depot and found it to be the same, so I bought a pair anyway. Then just to be on the safe side, I went all the way to les Briconautes in Montignac and found it also to be the same (but more than twice as expensive as the other two stores) so then went home to trust my luck with the ones I’d bought.

They were a little bit too long but I managed to get them in and the images show the results with the mixer tap working and the overflow installed.

The sink came with two alternative holes in which to mount the mixer depending on which way round the sink was installed. It came with a plug for the unused hole which I don’t like, so I paid a bit more for a cable operated pop-up waste with a knob that fits into the spare hole and is turned left and right to raise and lower the waste ‘basket’ (it’s not a plug as such as shown in the pictures).

The shot showing the underside of the sink shows the shiny pieces of waterproof tape that I added to the joints in the waste pipe to stop them weeping. Everything is fine right now and I just hope that it stays that way.

So it’ll be ‘menuiserie’ day tomorrow and that should mean the room will be finished – apart, that is, for the tiling as is also the case for the kitchen. But at least the room and its storage will be usable, which will be a major leap forward towards emptying the storage where I’m keeping furniture and other stuff.

I wanted to get my utility room finished by the end of this week-end but I ran into just too may problems in the latter stages and was unable to. It started with the waste system for the sink. I can honestly say that over the years I’ve run dozens of PVC waste systems using the special glue that is needed and never had a joint leak. Not one.

When I ran this one, which will probably be my last one ever as I don’t intend to ever build another new house or make changes to this one’s system when it’s all done and dusted, two joints leaked. I don’t know whether the ‘slow’ glue I used is actually now ineffective or what, but the only way to ‘fix’ a leaking plastic system, which as I say I’ve never had to do, is break it out and re-do it.

But that was impossible with this one due to everything being built-in and the lack of access, so I had to look for other ways to stop the leaks. I tried applying the special glue around the outside of the joints but that didn’t work. Then I tried running superglue around the joints because that can also ‘melt’ PVC, but that didn’t work either.

I then had the idea of applying small widths of the super-adhesive, waterproof aluminium tape that you use to seal leaky roofs, around the outside of the joints and that seems to have done it, without looking too much like a ‘bodge’, which I hate. Then when I checked the joint from the sink waste running into the trap, I also found that was weeping slightly as well.

I hate French plumbing components as I’ve said here many times because from my experience their quality is almost uniformly abysmal. The joint in question was a supposedly fool-proof push in, quick connect system that was guaranteed leak proof. I know, why didn’t I just buy a cheaper trap that you can screw together yourself that you know practically for certain will not leak? Maybe next time – but hopefully there won’t ever be a next time.

I took it apart and applied some joint sealant paste, which shouldn’t be needed, and it looks as though it may have done the trick, but I won’t know until the sink is used for a while, and in the meantime I’ve wasted at least 3 hours, perhaps nearly half a day, on leak problems that should never have arisen.

The next problem that I came across this morning was when I found that the flexible tap connectors that were supplied with the mixer were too long to connect to the hot and cold water supplies. Both Leroy Merlin and Brico Depot only open until 1.00 pm on Sundays (and they’re both unusual in that as other suppliers remain closed all day) and I thought about dashing out to get some shorter ones. But I then decided that my time would be better spent on getting the wall cupboards up.

That ultimately led to my last problem of the day which was, once again, to do with one of the pipes on the wall. The hot supply from the heat pump descends the wall to connect to the manifold that is now behind the 50 cm wide floor mounted cupboard. In doing so it passes right through the 50 cm wide wall mounted cupboard directly above it which has to be cut away to take the pipe.

I tried doing it with the cupboard fully assembled but although the cut-outs in its side and bottom came out OK, the large slot that I had to cut into its back panel was way off. The only solution will be for me to buy another sheet of white fronted hardboard and use the old ruined panel as a template to make a new one. That won’t be too difficult but it’ll be for tomorrow, so that’s when I decided to call it a day.

Now the pics, starting with the worktop fully installed and firmly fixed with the cut out for the sink.

This shot shows the tiny space in the side of the floor unit through which I had to route the sink waste. If I’d know I would have extended the hot water pipe and moved it to the right by a couple of centimetres or so. This would have avoided the problem which really couldn’t have been foreseen.

Here’s a close-up of the sink cut-out which I sealed to prevent damage to the worktop should any water seepage occur, which hopefully it won’t.

Now some shots at the end of the day showing the stage reached with the two large wall cupboards permanently mounted and the third smaller one just hanging in place.

Next a view of the worktop and sink unit. The waste seems now to be working without any leaks but the mixer, although permanently installed, is not connected to the hot and cold water supplies.

Here’s how the wall cupboards look. They have gone in well and will end up looking exactly the same as the ones in the kitchen.

The last shot shows how the hot water pipe passes through the 50 cm wide wall cupboard. The old, ruined back panel is not in place in the picture.

So work on the utility room should, all being well, be finished tomorrow. I wanted to then press on and build my new cloaks cupboard but I see that after tomorrow we’ve got several warmish, dry days forecast with only light winds. So I’m thinking that maybe I should use them to clean and service my aircraft, which have been severely neglected over the many months that I’ve dedicated to my house-build and are sorely in need of attention.

I’ve been pressing on with fitting out my utility room. Slow and steady is the name of the game because it’s been quite a tricky job involving lots of cutting to fit the base unit around the many pipes on the wall behind it. I’ve also had to run the waste for the sink which had to be as close to the wall as possible to allow the freezer to push back as far as it possibly could and then enter the base unit from the side through a very narrow gap between the side panel of the unit and the hot supply to the sink.

It would have been very easy to make mistakes but I’ve closely followed the well-known advice to measure twice and cut once. And so far I’m very pleased with how everything has gone because nothing has gone amiss to spoil the look of the job which is always very close to my heart. This included notching the back edge of the worktop for the hot supply that descends the wall, which came out perfectly, as well as all of the cut-outs that I had to do to both sides of the cabinet to accommodate the pipework.

There’s still quite a bit more to do and although I may not finish the job tomorrow, I should get it done by the week-end which was always my principal aim. The worktop and sink are not yet fixed in the above images and that will be my first job tomorrow. It shouldn’t take too long, although the front and back fixings of the sink might be a bit tricky, and then it will be time to hang the wall cabinets which are assembled and ready.

Some people might be wondering why I’m fitting a sink in the utility room because it’s possible that I won’t use it all that much. The reason is that I don’t see my house as being purely for me – rather it’s a small three bedroom family home for which a sink in the utility room is perfectly appropriate. I always built the services in for it and it’ll be difficult to install a sink and connect them later, when the room is completely fitted, so now’s obviously the time to do it.

For the past few days I’ve been trying to get over to Brico Depot and Leroy Merlin to buy the materials I need to finish off my utility room and get started on building my new cloaks cupboard. Ideally I only wanted to make a single trip to both suppliers but up to today I wasn’t able to.

The reason has been that the worktop I need for the utility room only comes in a length of 3 metres and that’s too long to fit into my car even with the back and front passenger seats lowered, so I’d have to transport it in my large open trailer. It’s bad enough having to do that with the risk of damaging it but at the very least it needed a dry day, which we haven’t had recently.

We haven’t had heavy rain as such. Instead we’ve had constant thick mist lasting most or all of the day making everything dripping wet, especially my trailer, but today it cleared enough this afternoon for me to give it a go. Fortunately it went OK.

First I went to Leroy Merlin to buy the wood I need for the front panel for the cloaks cupboard. Leroy Merlin is the only place advertising wood in 2.5 metre lengths (the others only go to 2.4 metres which is not long enough) and I was shocked at the price. Four lengths of 2.5m x 20mm x 90mm (I was originally going to buy five to make sure I had enough but decided not to) cost 18,90€ each, but I had no choice.

Then I went to Brico Depot where I picked up the worktop, a small sink and a waste system. I’d banked on some help loading the worktop onto the trailer as its weight is too much for one person but the bloke who helped me wasn’t much help as he’d hurt his arm and could hardly lift anything. Despite this we got it on and I then protected its vulnerable bits with sheets of cardboard from the packing cases that the utility room units had come in, which I’d taken with me.

It stayed dry enough during the drive home and I managed to get it off the trailer by myself and into my living room where it’s now standing. So now I’m all ready to crack on with my utility room and if all goes smoothly, should have it finished fairly quickly. I want to get it done before I start on the cloaks cupboard as I don’t like having two or more jobs on the go at the same time even though sometimes it’s unavoidable. When both jobs are finished I’ll at last, after all these months, be able to start emptying my stuff out of storage.

After looking at various alternative designs and suppliers, I ordered the doors for my proposed new cloaks cupboard a week or so ago and have been waiting for them to arrive. Well, today was the day and after I’d been told by the delivery company that they’d probably be with me this afternoon, in fact they arrived quite early this morning.

And what a pleasant surprise I got. But firstly a few pictures starting with the alcove in which I’ll be building the cupboard.

Next my original plan for the cupboard from when I designed the house. I always wanted to have bi-fold sliding doors but initially my idea was for them to be solid white in form and not up to the full height of the alcove.

Since then I decided to make them natural wood to match all of the other woodwork in the house, and as I want to fit possibly two full-width storage shelves, and as less than full-height doors would restrict access to the upper one, I decided to make them the full height of the alcove. And here they are this morning standing together leaning against a wall in my living room.

What beauties they are! In France this louvre design is called ‘Persienne’. I now know that I’ve made the right choices and can’t wait to get cracking on building the cupboard structure in which to mount them. They’ve come all the way from Poland and an added bonus was when I removed the plastic film in which each one had been wrapped I was treated to the gorgeous smell of freshly cut wood. What a way to start a Monday morning 😀

Waiting for them to arrive is one of the most frustrating things about living in France. With the exception of Amazon and a few other companies (Screwfix, a UK owned business in the same group as Brico Depot, can also be trusted) French companies are notoriously unreliable in meeting delivery dates for orders placed on line.

You can end up wasting lots of time waiting for them to arrive because you know that if you’re not there when they do they’ll probably be taken away again and may then not be redelivered for several more days. If ever. There was one instance in my old house when a garden roller I’d ordered was sent all the way back to the supplier because I wasn’t there to sign for it – to Germany! You couldn’t make it up.

I have, or had, two recent outstanding orders. One was for the floor and wall cabinets that I’d ordered for my utility room. Castorama (another UK owned company in the same group as Brico Depot) let me know just after lunch on Tuesday that they’d arrived earlier than expected in its Limoges store but I was still waiting to hear about the doors for my cloaks cupboard that I’d ordered (from a French company) that were supposed to be delivered at about the same time.

I decided to dash up to Limoges to collect the cabinets that same day as there was clearly no chance that the doors would be arriving that afternoon and although I arrived an hour earlier than my appointment, I was pleased to find that my order was already ready for collection and was able to load up my car to head back immediately. That meant that I could assemble the cabinets on Wednesday ensuring that I’d be present in the (unlikely) event that the doors turned up, and they’re now all ready waiting to be fitted in the utility room

But I can’t go ahead and fit them because I need a worktop, small sink and some plumbing fittings to be able to do so and the Catch-22 is that I can’t go and get them because if I do, the doors might turn up. I’ve already received the news that the doors are ‘out for delivery’ and here’s the tracking information for them as of this morning.

You’ll note that there’s no ‘estimated delivery date’ so in effect the information is totally useless. As a result I’m still having to waste time sitting around waiting for a delivery that probably won’t arrive. I’ve not totally wasted the time as I’ve caught up with a couple of house-build videos which are now well overdue. They both err… date back to last February. Doesn’t time fly 😕

One of the things I suffered from very badly in my old house was a lack of storage space. In fact there was hardly any to speak of and at the time I moved out there were still unopened boxes of items that I brought with me from England when I moved to France nine years previously.

I was determined to remedy this in my new house and some might say that I’ve gone overboard in creating new places to store stuff and maybe they are right, although my own view is that you can really never have too much of it – storage space that is. That’s why I put as many storage cupboards into the kitchen as I could fit in and also installed the floor-to-ceiling wardrobe and storage units in the two principal bedrooms.

I’m waiting for the floor and wall cabinets that I recently ordered for the utility room (the same style as the kitchen) and at long last yesterday I ordered the four doors for the cloaks cupboard which will also contain a full-width shelf and a bank of several more smaller ones providing yet more storage space. And I also ordered yet another cabinet which arrived today.

One thing that I did have in my old house that I don’t have in the new was a workshop. This was a boon because in it I had a sturdy bench on which I’d mounted a vice, a grinder and a drilling machine. I’d also installed racking for my tools and the materials that I’d accumulated for the various types of work that I was engaged in plus the maintenance of my aircraft and cars and although I’ve extracted several tools that I’ve used while working in my new house, much of this stuff is still in storage.

This situation can’t go on forever. I need to empty the storage and although I’ll inevitably end up chucking some stuff away, I’ll have to find new homes for the remainder. I’ll have my metal ‘abri’ in front of the house until I can get around to building a garage and that will be suitable for some stuff, but as it’s scorching hot in summer and cold and damp in winter, I won’t be able to store items like power and other tools in there.

I’ll be able to put some items in the floor and wall cabinets that will shortly be in the utility room but I didn’t think these would be suitable for the larger, heavier items like saws and drills and when I started looking for an alternative, I had the idea of using a metal office-type cabinet with internal shelves. I found one in white which was delivered in two cartons today and the following images show it after assembly and in place in the utility room.

I’m absolutely delighted with it. One of the businesses that I had before coming to France sold office furniture and equipment on line, including cabinets like this. Customers didn’t have to assemble those, of course, but the quality of this cabinet after assembly is certainly in the same sort of league. And it’s also lockable, which is handy.

I’ve already placed my electric Singer sewing machine which was always a problem to store on its floor below the bottom shelf and I’ll soon be moving many other tools into it as well. In fact, if I had more space in my utility room I’d probably even buy a second one but maybe on second thoughts it’s lucky that I haven’t because I’ve got to stop somewhere 🙂

No time to waste as after a two-year break due to Covid I’ve now booked another short stay in Hurghada on the Red Sea in Egypt at the end of the Winter and I want to get as much done as I can before I leave. I would like to have everything inside the house finished so I can get straight on to interior furnishings and the garden when I return.

But that might be too much to ask as not only have I got to wait until the second week of this month for the wall and floor units for the utility room to be delivered, but I also found out on Christmas Eve that the folding doors that I’d chosen for my cloaks cupboard cannot be delivered before 29th February at the very earliest.

So I’m pretty much stymied at the moment except for one thing. My lovely neighbour had to install a new ‘système d’assainissement’ (septic tank system) for her gite complex and as I think it will also have to serve a house that she and her partner propose building in the future, its tanks are pretty big. So some very large holes had to be dug to take them and as most of the volume created would be taken up by the tanks, I reasoned when work started that there would be quite a bit of earth left over.

And there is, and to cut a long story short, she let me know over Christmas that I could have as much of it as I want, all of it even, so long as a small amount of topsoil is left for her own use. Here are some pics that show what I’m talking about.

I always said that when the work on my house was completed, there wouldn’t be enough earth available to back-fill to create a platform around it with a gentle enough slope and I was right. There are several areas around it which could take quite a bit more earth to reduce the slope of the ground as it falls away fom the house, especially at the northern end and the back, and there’s also an area at the front of the plot, more or less where I originally placed my caravan, which could do with being built up and levelled. The areas I’m talking about are shown in the next image.

The workmen have offered to run the earth over from my neighbour’s property during this week and although I’ll ask them if they want to lay and level it for me, I doubt they will as they’ll probably have another job to go onto. But hopefully they’ll be able to drop it in the areas marked with X’s. It’s an opportunity that will be a win-win for everyone and although I’ll have to keep a watchful eye that I’m not having loads of old sub-soil and rocks being dumped on me, so long as I get enough topsoil to cover the areas I’ve marked after they’re filled, it’ll be a good result for me.

In other news, I think I’ve found a way to get around the delay on the doors I need for my cloaks cupboard. It appears that I might be able to source suitable doors from a couple of sources as well as a choice of folding door kits. So I might be able to make the doors up myself, in which case I could get cracking on them within about ten days. That’ll be more like it 🙂

Oh, and by the way, a Happy New Year to all my family and friends wherever they are who are following my adventures here in France.

Maybe, maybe not. The following image shows my original plan for the main wall in the utility room in my new house.

I wanted a worktop under which I’d have my washer/dryer and my freezer with a 60cm wide floor mounted unit at the end butting up to the heat pump. The floor unit wouldn’t have a back so as to give free access to the hot and cold water pipework.

Three 60cm wide wall-mounted units would be mounted directly above to provide ample storage together with the floor-mounted one for household items, tools and suchlike and a small sink would be fitted in the worktop immediately above the floor mounted unit.

There was a problem, however. The heat pump was installed further away than I’d anticipated from the wall on the right of the above image and the main pipework, including the main supply into the house, extended much further to the left of the heat pump unit than I’d ever imagined. This meant that there was not enough room for the 60cm wide floor-mounted unit, thus throwing out my whole plan.

The space available was more than wide enough to take a 40cm wide floor-mounted unit but although units of this width are readily available, an internet search revealed that it would be almost impossible to find a small sink that would fit into it other than something very mickey-mouse that would be well-nigh unusable. The space would, however, take a 50cm wide unit – just!

But there was a problem with that. Not that many suppliers offer 50cm wide wall and floor-mounted units, and Brico Depot, my preferred kitchen unit supplier, offers none at all, just 40cm, 60cm and 80cm if you want the wall and floor-mounted to match as I do.

There are some suppliers that do, the most notable being Ikea, but I have a problem with that. The closest Ikea depot is a long way away in Bordeaux and not only that. I’ve only ever fitted one Ikea kitchen, the one for my friend Val in the Languedoc, and I wasn’t at all impressed by either its design or quality, so I didn’t want to go that route if I could avoid it.

So I was left with a quandary that found me searching the internet ever more frantically, a search that eventually yielded a surprising result. Brico-Depot is part of the Kingfisher group based in the UK that has another subsidiary in France, Castorama.

I’ve known for some time that both Brico-Depot and Castorama offer kitchen furniture ranges which have some overlaps but what I was very surprised to find was that whereas Brico-Depot offers no 50cm wide units, Castorama does, and specifically the units that I’ve fitted in my kitchen.

My original plan was to install less expensive units in my ‘cellier’ but this was of minor importance compared to having units of the size that I needed. My internet search revealed that no Castorama store within any reasonable (unreasonable even) distance from my home was declaring any 50cm wide stock except Castorama in Limoges who not only had several of the 60cm wide units in stock but also one each of the 50cm wall and floor units.

So after making one final check yesterday morning to ensure they were still there, I headed off up to Limoges not long after sunrise to make sure that I’d be the first in line to grab them. But I was to be thwarted. In true French fashion, the reported stock of 50cm units was found not to exist after all and given how long I’ve now lived in France, I was not wholly surprised. But all was not lost, however.

I was told that I could order them (which I could have done on my computer at home if I’d known) and they’d be available for me to pick up in 10-12 days time. This won’t be a disaster as instead of working on my ‘cellier’ I’ll now switch to building my cloaks cupboard, which was to be my final construction job after my ‘cellier’ work.

And the other thing was that one or two other items were the odd euro or so cheaper than in Brico Depot, so I picked them up while I was there, as well as a slightly damaged plinth for the floor-mounted unit which I got at a huge discount.

No problem there, as it’s long enough for several floor mounted units and as I’ll only have the one 50cm unit, most of it will be discarded anyway including the damaged bits. So on balance the trip was worth it, but I’ll have to wait a little bit longer, unfortunately, to finally finish off my utility room.

I just re-jigged the washing machine waste and replaced the manifold that was too long in the utility room and now things are exactly as they should be. I wasted a couple of PVC fittings in the process because the new adhesive that I purchased from Leroy Merlin was flashing off much to fast.

You only had to touch the parts being joined together and they immediately became locked rock solid. I had to replace the two bends making up the offset for a third time as when they locked they were not on the correct angle. Luckily I still had some old adhesive that I got from Brico Depot a long time ago which cured much more slowly and allowed me to do the job.

The washing machine waste is now positioned far lower with a longer inlet and now there’s no chance that it will ever overflow.

I removed the 4-outlet manifold and replaced it with the 3-outlet version.

This has allowed far more room for the freezer which can now be pushed closer to the wall so it will not protrude from under the worktop.

I can now go ahead and order the floor and wall units, worktop, small sink and a mixer tap to finish the room off and make it exactly as I want it 🙂

Having painted it, I’ve been pressing on as fast as I could to complete the work in my ‘cellier’ (utility room). The main reason for this is that until all of the preparatory work was completed I couldn’t install the floor and wall units that I have planned and until the storage that they will provide is available I can’t empty out all of the items that I have in storage that I’ve now been paying for for 30 months.

As well as painting its walls and ceilings, the plumber left me with something of a problem in the far corner of the room where I want to have my washing machine. The pipework he left behind was a bit of a mess to say the least because he’d committed the plumbing sin of having pipes crossing over, as shown in the following image.

He’d included a ‘P’ trap for the washing machine waste to feed into but I’d told him that I also wanted to fit a worktop with a sink along the same wall that would also need a hot as well as a cold supply. He evidently hadn’t thought at all how best to arrange these together with the shared waste outlet to the septic tank and what he left behind was actually pretty awful.

He placed the pipe for the sink waste on the left whereas the sink will be off to the right and by having the washing machine waste crossing in front of the hot and cold water supplies not only would it be tricky to run the three connections up to the sink but it also meant that it would be impossible to push the washing machine as far back against the wall as one would want. This would leave a lot of the machine protruding from beneath the worktop which would not only be unsightly but would also make the front of my lovely new Indesit washing machine prone to knocks and potential damage.

So before I could continue on to fitting the floor and wall units and the worktop I had to address this problem and come up with a completely new layout of the piping. The next image shows what the pipework in the corner now looks like.

In fact I’m thinking about altering it again because by placing the washing machine ‘P’ trap on top I’ve had to cut down the tube that the rubber outlet pipe from the washing machine pokes into to a point where the water surface inside is closer to the top than I would like. By redoing the arrangement and dropping the ‘P’ trap in question down lower I could avoid any possibility of water overflowing when, say, the machine is pumping out and the sink is being emptied at the same time. So that’s what I intend to do after Christmas and it’ll only take a short time to accomplish.

As the image shows, I’ve completely separated the cold and hot supplies to the sink and here’s a shot of the ends of them to which the mixer tap flexies will be attached. When I cut the pipes to do the re-jig I kept the connectors that the plumber had fitted to save a few euros and also have connectors that I knew wouldn’t leak.

Here’s a view of the complete new arrangement.

When the plumber fitted out the separate toilet we agreed that we should abandon the outside tap that I’d originally proposed to have on the front corner of the house and move it further round to the side. The original connection at the manifold in the ‘cellier’ was therefore abandoned and he ran a new connection for it. Whether this was the reason I do not know, but one manifold outlet now remains unused and blanked off, as shown in the next pic.

The problem with this is that the manifold has four outlets when it only needs three and extends further to the left than it needs to just preventing the freezer from being pushed back against the wall. I’ve found that Leroy Merlin offers a suitable smaller replacement for only 9.50€ so that’s another job I’ll be doing as soon as Christmas is over.

But that’s it for now and I’ll be taking a day off tomorrow like everyone else in France. But Christmas only lasts for one day here so like everyone else (almost) in France I’ll be back to work on Tuesday.

Happy Christmas everyone. Enjoy the break and I’ll be back next week.

I began fitting ceiling coving throughout my new house in June and began painting the interior starting with the kitchen in the last week of that month. Since then I’ve installed the complete kitchen, the hand-basin in the bathroom, a couple of wall-mounted bathroom cabinets, the shower screen, the floors in all of the bedrooms, a floor-to-ceiling fully-fitted wardrobe and storage unit in the larger two, 6 exterior lights and 43 LED spots throughout the whole of the interior.

I’ve also had to paint the ceiling and walls of every room with a sealer-undercoat and top coat and today is special because at last almost exactly six months to the day, I’ve now completed the task by finishing off the ‘cellier’, the utility room that houses the heat pump unit and will also be the home for my washing machine and freezer.

It wasn’t a job that I was relishing or looking forward to mainly because if I’d known how much pipework would be associated with the heat pump I’d have painted the room before it was installed. But I left it too late and was left with the unenviable job of trying to paint around all the plumbing as I just couldn’t face leaving any part of the room as bare plasterboard. It took a lot of masking but I’ve managed it to a point where I’m pleased with the results.

The room isn’t finished – I’ve got to install at least one worktop and wall and floor storage units as well as make some alterations to the plumbing to connect a small sink and allow the washing machine and freezer to fit closer to the wall than they originally could. But with the painting done the worst is over (I hope!) 😕

Here’s another one for all the heat pump cynics.

I can’t do an exact date-wise like-for-like comparison with my old house at Plazac and my new house because the former’s billing ran from mid-September to mid-November (2020) and my new house’s will be running from end October to end December 2023. However, I can make some very accurate estimates.

Here are the actual units consumed for two periods for my old house.

19/11/20 – 18/01/21: 1771 units
19/09/20 – 18/11/20: 1557 units

A good assumption is that the units consumed 19/10/20 – 18/12/20 will be the average of the above: 1664 units

My new house has a smart meter and exact figures are therefore available.

29/10/23 – 18/12/23: 636 units
Estimated 29/10/23 – 28/12/23: 763 units

763 units for the new house is 46% of the figure for the old (1664) and this at a time when the major demand has been for heating and the house has been toasty warm the whole time with the indoor temperature never falling below 22 degrees C day or night.

My old house (a poorly unsulated converted barn) was never uniformly warm and although I had background heating using electric convector heaters, the main source of heating was my wood burner. Obviously the cost for this was over and above the cost of electricity which was only used for lighting, oven cooking, hot water and running household appliances.

The figure for my new house is for everything – lighting, heating, cooking, the lot.

These are the numbers for energy input and output since installation.

Electricity input: 387 kWh
Energy output: 1607 kWh
Ratio: 4.15

So the heat pump is delivering over 4 times the amount of energy required to run it, which I find astounding. The numbers speak for themselves and it goes without saying that I am delighted with how the system is working 😀