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Escape to the Chateau |
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#1 |
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Posts: 88
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Escape to the Chateau
Will the chateau be ready for their wedding that is just one year away?
Well, I'm going for a yes as they showed them getting married at the chateau at the start of the first episode. |
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#2 |
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Posts: 5,159
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I got a bit confused watching this programme.
Several times the narrator told us that they had a budget of £300,000 and I got the impression that was it...for buying the property and doing it up. Indeed, I am sure at one point the narrator told us that the purchase cost £280,000 and that every penny of the remaining 20 grand would be needed for the renovation. However, as the programme progressed, money seemed the very last thing on their minds, as Strawbridge spent £1,500 on a drill, was fitting new boilers and rads and hiring people to help him....see how far 20 grand will go using it for that sort of thing! Did I miss something about their finances? Also, I had to laugh seeing Strawbridge setting about stripping those huge entrance doors back to the original wood, as if it was an evenings work! Anyone who has done anything similar will know what a time consuming job stripping paint and varnish etc from doors/frames is...let alone huge ones like those! As usual with programmes like these, I get the impression we are not getting the full story. |
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#3 |
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Join Date: Mar 2014
Posts: 2,402
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Definitely not the full story. £18K for the heating system for just 5 rooms and £1500 for the drill leaves just £500 for the rest of the chateau - not really possible is it.
They haven't mentioned how much C4 paid them to film the series, plus I'm sure they must both have businesses/additional incomes from the UK. |
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#4 |
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Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 1,352
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Yep, they both must be property speculators or something back in Britain, as that derelict faux-chateau is a total money hemorrhage. He can't have made much from that Scrapheap Challenge nonsense ten years ago.
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#5 |
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Home For The Bewildered
Posts: 86,509
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Something was very awry with their finances. It's going to cost an absolute fortune to make that place completely liveable. Yet they have five hundred quid left.
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#6 |
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Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 3,469
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http://www.chateaudelamottehusson.co...dge/?page_id=2
http://chateaudelamottehusson.com/food-life-blog/ These two work REALLY hard. Good luck to them! |
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#7 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 1,118
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Having bought a period property in France and used it for business purposes for several years I was scratching my head watching that show.
Compete absence of the local Maire - you cannot just move in and start knocking nails in walls and pulling stones out of walls in a Chateau of that vintage without complete and utter interference from the local Mairie. Such buildings are generally listed and you cannot move a pebble without permission. They'll have had to install a new fosse (septic tank) because that's the law in France now., since 2006. With a capacity of 45 rooms the Mairie will demand a fosse with the capacity to serve the number of people who will use those rooms (they want to run accommodation). In 2007 we paid 24,000 euros for a fosse to serve a hotel with 12 rooms.God knows what this couple have had to pay - and connection to town sewer would be astronomical as they are not local to a town or village. He bought a £1500 drill from B&Q and expected to be able to drill through stone work of that nature when it actually required a stone mason's drill (upwards of £5000) to do the job - local artisans accustomed to working on stone structures such as chateaux are who he should have employed, not bob-the-job man from the UK. Having looked at their website there's no mention of any guest rooms, other than the one honeymoon suite, which leads me to assume they've not renovated past the first floor or have had plans stymied by the cost of installing a fosse expected to serve 45 rooms. She reminded me of the wife in the film Beetlejuice....just doesn't seem the type to want to break a nail or get dust on her clothes. Very pricey indeed considering they don't offer accommodation. Good luck to them but having seen my fair share of these expat enterprises I wouldn't be surprised to learn the place is on the market within 2/3 years. The French will tax them out of existence if anything. |
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#8 |
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Liverpool. Champions of Europe
Posts: 15,512
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I'd love channel 4, or any other TV company for that matter, I'm not fussy, o finance my efforts to renovate a derelict property.
They can send as many cameras as they like, for a substantial fee for each one of course. |
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#9 |
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 36,979
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I watched the first one but shows like this are almost worthless if they don't explain themselves financially and this is the worst one yet for the figures making no sense whatsoever.
It's a money-pit and yet you get no sense of that reality from the programme. |
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#10 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 1,118
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Quote:
I watched the first one but shows like this are almost worthless if they don't explain themselves financially and this is the worst one yet for the figures making no sense whatsoever.
It's a money-pit and yet you get no sense of that reality from the programme. Everything's priced in £'s so they are aiming at a primarily English market....that has limitations in itself. Being well familiar with French bureaucracy involved with renovating period properties we noticed huge discrepancies. But then these types of shows never show you the real story - or the costs. |
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#11 |
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Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Home For The Bewildered
Posts: 86,509
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When David & Anne went off to Slovakia to renovate that massive Château in A Place In Slovakia they had no end of trouble from the authorities making sure they didn't touch anything of historical importance.
So what MadBetty said about the local Mairie is spot on. They'd be all over the place like a swarm of bees. Unbelievable that the waste from the toilet was going directly into the moat!
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#12 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: France
Posts: 3,592
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I enjoyed the fact they imported British workmen (which, providing the workmen are registered in the UK and have the right insurances is perfectly legal courtesy of the EU whatever the local chambre de métiers may say) but agree with you MadBetty that the amount of paperwork involved with the renovation of a château would slow the project down to the speed of an arthritic snail. Though it wouldn't only be the local maire... it would be the local planning authority (was the DDE, have a feeling the name has changed) who'd be sticking their noses in on a regular basis. They stuck their noses into our renovation of a small stone stable (for our small sheep ) and even specified what colour the corrugated metal roof must be... Still, all those fonctionnaires need to ensure job security. ![]() I laughed at the price 'negotiation' with the immo at the start of the show. The château is new on the market and will be snapped up within a few weeks... he said. Which directly translates as: I saw you coming Mr Strawbridge (with camera crew and time constraints) so I'll kid you that there's a feverish property market in this part of rural France and I'll take my 7% and run, thank you very much. C4 must be funding some of this because, as you say, the costs of renovation are astronomical and (depending on price paid originally) the likelihood of getting back in a few years the amount of money spent on renovations is low. Quote:
Good luck to them but having seen my fair share of these expat enterprises I wouldn't be surprised to learn the place is on the market within 2/3 years. The French will tax them out of existence if anything.
But no point in taking it seriously - in 'reality' it's just a fantasy property porn show like any other. |
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#13 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: France
Posts: 3,592
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Quote:
Unbelievable that the waste from the toilet was going directly into the moat!
![]() The voiding of untreated waste into ditches, rivers (or moats) is still often found in that sort of dilapidated property. It is illegal nowadays but enforcement notices are... complicated. I suspect there is a fosse (small, concrete chamber sort) buried near the buildings into which that loo drains and then a pipe from the chamber drains into the moat. This is probably why the red dye wasn't visible immediately in the moat - it will have to drain out of the fosse first. If the château hasn't been lived in for years (and even with 45 rooms, there are probably only a couple of bathrooms / loos) so the flow of dyed water may take time to arrive / not be visible. It's irrelevant anyway because whatever is there won't conform to the current all waste water standards so a new fosse will have to be installed. France is about 3x the size of the UK with the same population. Small communes (parishes) are installing sewage treatment plants and connecting houses in the centre of villages but in very rural France, probably 50%+ of the properties in a commune will be outside the centre of the village and therefore will never be connected to mains drainage. I'm sure parts of very rural England and certainly Scotland and Wales will be the same. On my bit of hillside in Normandy, we have a 'proper' septic tank from which 'clean' water (eventually) drains but the other two houses - one has a metre square concrete box which voids sewage into a clump of nettles about 5 metres from the house; grey water (shower, washing up, washing machine) voids untreated into a field about 3 metres away from the source of a spring that feeds a local trout river. The other house is the same but a field away from the spring so probably doesn't contaminate the stream. Even in 2016, in old houses this arrangement is quite usual. It's different here.
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#14 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: Home For The Bewildered
Posts: 86,509
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Quote:
Nope.
The voiding of untreated waste into ditches, rivers (or moats) is still often found in that sort of dilapidated property. It is illegal nowadays but enforcement notices are... complicated. I suspect there is a fosse (small, concrete chamber sort) buried near the buildings into which that loo drains and then a pipe from the chamber drains into the moat. This is probably why the red dye wasn't visible immediately in the moat - it will have to drain out of the fosse first. If the château hasn't been lived in for years (and even with 45 rooms, there are probably only a couple of bathrooms / loos) so the flow of dyed water may take time to arrive / not be visible. It's irrelevant anyway because whatever is there won't conform to the current all waste water standards so a new fosse will have to be installed. France is about 3x the size of the UK with the same population. Small communes (parishes) are installing sewage treatment plants and connecting houses in the centre of villages but in very rural France, probably 50%+ of the properties in a commune will be outside the centre of the village and therefore will never be connected to mains drainage. I'm sure parts of very rural England and certainly Scotland and Wales will be the same. On my bit of hillside in Normandy, we have a 'proper' septic tank from which 'clean' water (eventually) drains but the other two houses - one has a metre square concrete box which voids sewage into a clump of nettles about 5 metres from the house; grey water (shower, washing up, washing machine) voids untreated into a field about 3 metres away from the source of a spring that feeds a local trout river. The other house is the same but a field away from the spring so probably doesn't contaminate the stream. Even in 2016, in old houses this arrangement is quite usual. It's different here. ![]() Interesting post, thanks Normandie.
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#15 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 15,066
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Quote:
I'd love channel 4, or any other TV company for that matter, I'm not fussy, o finance my efforts to renovate a derelict property.
They can send as many cameras as they like, for a substantial fee for each one of course. How do you get in on this scam? |
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#16 |
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Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 1,118
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Quote:
Nope.
The voiding of untreated waste into ditches, rivers (or moats) is still often found in that sort of dilapidated property. It is illegal nowadays but enforcement notices are... complicated. I suspect there is a fosse (small, concrete chamber sort) buried near the buildings into which that loo drains and then a pipe from the chamber drains into the moat. This is probably why the red dye wasn't visible immediately in the moat - it will have to drain out of the fosse first. If the château hasn't been lived in for years (and even with 45 rooms, there are probably only a couple of bathrooms / loos) so the flow of dyed water may take time to arrive / not be visible. It's irrelevant anyway because whatever is there won't conform to the current all waste water standards so a new fosse will have to be installed. France is about 3x the size of the UK with the same population. Small communes (parishes) are installing sewage treatment plants and connecting houses in the centre of villages but in very rural France, probably 50%+ of the properties in a commune will be outside the centre of the village and therefore will never be connected to mains drainage. I'm sure parts of very rural England and certainly Scotland and Wales will be the same. On my bit of hillside in Normandy, we have a 'proper' septic tank from which 'clean' water (eventually) drains but the other two houses - one has a metre square concrete box which voids sewage into a clump of nettles about 5 metres from the house; grey water (shower, washing up, washing machine) voids untreated into a field about 3 metres away from the source of a spring that feeds a local trout river. The other house is the same but a field away from the spring so probably doesn't contaminate the stream. Even in 2016, in old houses this arrangement is quite usual. It's different here. ![]() the pipes that led from the toilets to the cesspit in our place was the most diabolical system of a maze I had ever seen, it needed pumping out when it got full in the high season and stank to high heaven when it got full. I'm of the opinion that years ago the French didn't care when it all went once they flushed ![]() Then in 2006 the Mairie told us we HAD to install a fosse, no ifs or buts or 'only if you can afford to'...we had to borrow the money to get it done. The place un-sellable without it. The alternative was to spend over 180,000 euros to connect to the village sewer. |
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#17 |
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 6,473
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I was just shocked that Dick Strawbridge had a new woman and two young kids.
What ever happened to Dave and Anne in Slovakia? |
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#18 |
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Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 1,352
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Yep, I was thinking the same, he must me be almost sixty now, the randy old Norden Irish rake.
Anyone else think that chateau they bought is hideous ? |
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#19 |
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Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 36,979
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She looks like hard work. I reckon it takes her all morning to draw her eyebrows on.
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#20 |
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 18,872
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Quote:
Yep, I was thinking the same, he must me be almost sixty now, the randy old Norden Irish rake.
Anyone else think that chateau they bought is hideous ? |
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#21 |
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Join Date: Oct 2014
Posts: 1,352
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Quote:
She looks like hard work. I reckon it takes her all morning to draw her eyebrows on.
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#22 |
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Join Date: Jan 2008
Location: N'hants
Posts: 52
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agree with others about the numbers not making any sense
![]() however, these types of show do attract a nice TV payment fee - see 'Grand Designs' - so perhaps this is helping the funds somewhat Strikes me as way too much work to fit into just 3 episodes - just seen it's Series 1 so looks like this show's for the long-haul ! |
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#23 |
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Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 15,066
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Quote:
She looks like hard work. I reckon it takes her all morning to draw her eyebrows on.
Great sense of priorities.
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#24 |
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Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Midlands
Posts: 1,282
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Quote:
Made me laugh when she was wondering about where to put the Christmas tree when they didn't even have a working loo.
Great sense of priorities. ![]() |
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#25 |
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Join Date: Aug 2015
Posts: 1,118
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Quote:
And wanting to start cleaning while they were trying to drill through 3' thick walls!
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) and even specified what colour the corrugated metal roof must be...
The voiding of untreated waste into ditches, rivers (or moats) is still often found in that sort of dilapidated property. It is illegal nowadays but enforcement notices are... complicated.