Humph! It's not true!

[Millymollymandy]

What are you paying per stère, if you don't mind my asking MMM? For the top end stuff (well seasoned ash, oak, beech & hornbeam) I use to "dilute" the stuff I cut myself (mostly old fruit trees and lime wood coppice) I pay €60 for 50cm logs. I pay a bit more because the supplier I have now actually delivers what I ask for

Inerestingly you are paying not much less than us (ours cut to 50cm too).

We pay (and buy) by the corde (3 stere) and as usual there is one price for French and one for foreigners. Even though we have lived here for nearly 12 years and there is no problem with speaking the language! Even when a French person tells us about someone selling wood at such and such a price, and I say ' yes but as soon as they hear a foreign accent the price goes up' and they respond - no that shouldn't happen, give them my name and you will get the same price as the French - it still doesn't work cos oh look suddenly there's a delivery charge on top bringing the price up (when the price is supposed to include delivery).

I see wood for sale in the local papers at a reasonable price but they are always at least 30km away and either don't deliver or - yes you guessed it- the price goes up astronomically and delivery is used as the excuse, even when the ad says that delivery is included in the price.

It's rather sick making.

The rest of Brittany (and from reading Total France forum) tend to pay about €120-130 for chestnut whilst we are paying about €165-175. We don't buy oak cos that would be anything from €185 to over €200 a corde.

We do cut down our own smaller trees and branches and together with fallen trees amass a certain amount of our own wood - but we need 5-6 cordes per winter to heat our 14kW stove as it is our only form of heating.

Still, it is by far the cheapest and most effective way of heating our house (very little insulation and lots of draughts), so whilst we (or rather my husband! ) is fit enough to do all the stacking then lugging the logs in, we will continue to heat like this!

[Clara]

I truly truly have resisted the urge but sorry, here's why there's no going back for us....

Gas - 4 bottles a year at 15euros a pop
Electricity - nothing, not strictly true, I've spent 10K on a solar pv system this year, which I just factored into buying the house. But at least I don't have to worry about earning enough to cover it in the future. And I guess about 20euros of petrol a year when we really have to use it, if we spend 3 days in a cloud for example.
Heating - this is just the fuel we use for the chainsaw, I would guess 40 euros at the max for a year's supply.

Oh yeah and if you really wanna hate my smug a$$, my council tax bill just came in at 8.51 for a 5 bedroomed house on 2.5 acres of land.

I was horrified when I was in the UK last at how much things had risen, not so much horrified that people are now being forced to reduce their consumption (though I appreciate the fine people here are doing the max and still find their bills outrageous), but horrified that there seems to be so little help for people to microgenerate.

[Bluemoon]

My electricity too is £80 per month. I switched to EDF as they promised it would be about a third cheaper, sadly they seem to be dragging their feet about putting us on the cheaper rate and we're still paying £80. We don't have a T.V., tumble dryer, dishwasher or microwave. I'm currently doing two loads of washing a week, one 'darks' and one 'lights'. Our heating is gas so that doesn't account for it either and we are very careful with the fuel we use. We are currently refusing to put the heating on unless our grandchildren are visiting. I really don't see how we can cut back any more either. I accept that one of the best ways to cut excessive energy use is to hike up the prices, but when a couple who live as simply as we do can't afford their bills then I dread to think how the average family is coping.
Our income is £180 per week, out goings are
rent £90,
council tax £24,
fuel (gas and electricity) £30. Leaving us a grand total of £36 per week. It's a good thing that we do grow most of our own food. There should be the water rates on that too, but a windfall in April allowed us to pay it straight off.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

We pay (and buy) by the corde (3 stere) and as usual there is one price for French and one for foreigners. Even though we have lived here for nearly 12 years and there is no problem with speaking the language! Even when a French person tells us about someone selling wood at such and such a price, and I say ' yes but as soon as they hear a foreign accent the price goes up' and they respond - no that shouldn't happen, give them my name and you will get the same price as the French - it still doesn't work cos oh look suddenly there's a delivery charge on top bringing the price up (when the price is supposed to include delivery).

I see wood for sale in the local papers at a reasonable price but they are always at least 30km away and either don't deliver or - yes you guessed it- the price goes up astronomically and delivery is used as the excuse, even when the ad says that delivery is included in the price.

Fortunately I found this guy through direct recommendation from one of our near neighbours (French, a member of one of the three "big" village famillies and grandmother to more than one of the snotties to whom I teach English), thereby neatly sidestepping the "Brit Price." I could tell he was grinding his teeth, but what the hell!

I have subsequently recommended him to other people (French & non-French) with the result that I have upset our local wood merchant who had a right go at me about a year ago when I popped into the village bar for a beer. I was happy to explain that all he had to do was supply dry wood that was not poplar, turn up on the day he said he would and not give short load...

[Millymollymandy]

hee hee, well done!

[missy]

i read the other day that prices should fall in 09..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7724218.stm