Building & Renovation in France - DIY In France

Whether your French property is to be your home or just a place to spend your holidays, it represents an opportunity to stamp your mark of individuality. In most cases, Brits buying in France are looking for something with period charm and, inevitably, this tends to mean a place that needs a fair amount of work after moving in.

At the very least some redecoration will be necessary whilst, at the other end of the scale, significant remodelling of the building might be on the cards. For most people, it’s somewhere between the two – typically, a new bathroom or kitchen, replacement central heating and other decent-sized projects.

For the confident home improver, these kinds of tasks are very straightforward. Or, rather, they would be straightforward in the UK, where the shops, builders’ merchants and trades people are all known quantities. When there’s a project to undertake, a seasoned DIY-er will have a pretty good idea where to go to buy materials, to hire equipment and to engage the services of a professional. If, however, you’re operating in a foreign country for the first time, your UK, DIY knowledge base will be about as useful as a set of imperial spanners. In France, there are no Wickes, no B&Q, no Travis Perkins and no Screwfix.com.

I have heard accounts of British people bringing van loads of materials with them on the ferry to overcome this dilemma. But for someone who’s going to be working regularly on a French property, for the sake of both economics and convenience, it’s better to get to grips with things in France. After all, materials in France are, with the possible exception of paint, no more expensive than in the UK. And, if the project involves plumbing or electrical work, it’ll need to be both compatible to existing systems and compliant with the NF (Normes Françaises – the French equivalent of British Standards). In Richard Wiles’ book, Bon Courage! he recounts his experience of having window frames made up in the UK for his barn conversion in Limousin. Only after he’d transported the frames to his French property did a local artisan point out that French window frames are made of hard wood – not the softwood used in the UK, because of the prevalence of wood-eating insects.

Local knowledge

So, where to start? As with absolutely every aspect of French life, the first and most important source of information on DIY is the neighbours, particularly for people who are part of a small community. As well as knowing which shops are likely to be the best local sources of the required materials, they’ll also have ideas on expert professionals that could be called in, if necessary. In addition to the national chains of big DIY or bricolage stores mentioned in this article, there will also be some local, independent outlets – a little local knowledge on quality and value-for-money is something you won’t find in the Yellow Pages.

The Yellow Pages, or ‘Pages Jaunes’, is delivered to every property in France that has a telephone. There is a different book for each department in France so somewhat infuriatingly, for properties near a departmental boundary, the picture is only half complete. There is however, just as in the UK, an excellent online version of the directory at www.pagesjaunes.fr which, fantastically, is available in English (you need to click on the little Union Flag in the top-right-hand corner of the home page). Searches can be performed by town, department or even region and can be entered in English – for example, entering ‘builders’ merchants’ returns the relevant results from the equivalent French categories. Easy, huh? Well yes, except that the listings themselves are returned in French, so some understanding of French terminology will be helpful to sift through the results.

The site also gives you access to the White Pages, which are very useful if you’re trying to find contact details for a store of which you already know the name.
Other great sources of information are the DIY stores themselves. Most of these bricolage giants, and in particular Leroy Merlin and Castorama, have trades notice boards where you’ll find no end of business cards for related suppliers or trades people. Taking a few minutes to check it out after a shopping trip can be very worthwhile.

National chain

Once a project has been planned and a list of materials drawn up, it’s worth translating the list into French and giving a copy to each of the builders’ merchants or DIY outlets in the area. They’ll provide a ‘devis’ (quote) for everything on the list, including any applicable delivery charges. Doing it this way, rather than verbally, avoids any language-based misunderstandings and the result is a clear idea of the project costs before work starts.

If there’s a need to hire equipment for a project, such as mini-diggers, pneumatic drills, scaffolding and so on, it’s necessary to look up your local equipment hire shop. There are no significant national chains of hire companies, rather regional groups. They’ll all be under ‘location’ in the yellow pages.

And if the job needs a significant amount of concrete, such as for a new terrace or garage floor, it’s worth looking up a ‘beton’ supplier. The biggest player is Beton de France – they can usually provide ready-mixed concrete at as little as 48 hours’ notice.
So, completing DIY projects in France is no more difficult than in the UK once you’ve established your new network of suppliers. Turning a French property into your dream home is very achievable, so long as you’re patient, resourceful and you don’t underestimate the value of local wisdom when it comes to finding artisans and materials suppliers. Bonne chance!

Finding trades people in France

Sometimes a project can be a little too much for an individual DIY-er to tackle alone and the need arises to find a tradesperson or artisan to help out. Whether fairly or not, French tradespeople do have a certain reputation for being difficult to get hold of and not particularly reliable in terms of finishing a job (or even starting one) on time. If you add to that a potential language barrier, the task of obtaining quotes, appointing a contractor and managing the project becomes very challenging.

If you have a good relationship with the people of your commune, the help of your neighbours could prove to be invaluable here. They’ll undoubtedly have contacts for every trade and a personal introduction will go a long way in getting the contractor’s attention. In rural communes, the mayor is a great source of contacts. If the language is also an issue, a friendly neighbour who understands your project could be a very helpful interpreter too.

It’s worth bearing in mind that French tradespeople, particularly in rural areas, do operate with a degree of nonchalance. If they say they’re coming demain, it means within the next few days and if they say la semaine prochaine, it could mean any time within the next month. The best thing to do is to take this account in your plans and simply go with the flow.

The English-language website www.FindaTradeinFrance.com works closely with French equivalent www.TrouverunArtisan.fr. The objective of this free service is to put foreign nationals in touch with relevant tradespeople in their area, who speak a required language. The artisans pay an annual fee to be included in the directory, so you can be sure that they’ll take any resulting projects seriously. You can either search through the database of registered suppliers, or post the details of your project on the site and wait for the artisans to contact you.

French DIY Suppliers

In France there is no Wickes, no B&Q, no Travis Perkins and no Screwfix.com – eeek! So where do we go to find all the bits and pieces we need for our projects? Here’s an idea of some of the major players in France.

For the real superstore experience, the biggest players are Castorama and Leroy Merlin. They both have exceptionally large outlets and both stock just about everything from timber to tools and bathrooms to banana trees. A serious DIY-er could easily spend hours in one of these stores. They both have about 100 stores across France – check out store locations and special offers at www.castorama.fr and www.leroymerlin.fr respectively.

Then there are the smaller, less well-stocked and slightly chaotic DIY chains. Bricomarche (www.bricomarche.com), which is part of the same group as the Intermarche supermarkets, have about 450 shops in France. They offer remarkable value for money, particularly during promotional events. Another is Mr.Bricolage (www.mr-bricolage.fr), which boasts more than 500 outlets, so there’s probably one near you.

For building supplies, as opposed to DIY shops, Point-P (www.pointp.fr) is by far the biggest chain in France, with 950 outlets. BigMat (www.bigmat.fr) and Tout Faire (www.toutfaire.fr) are two other popular chains, with about 300 and 400 stores nationwide respectively. They all offer a wide selection of building materials and industrial grade tools, backed up with good, professional advice. They give discounts to registered artisans so, to members of the public, their prices sometimes seem a little high.

It’s worth also mentioning a couple of specialist outlets here. For a good choice of high-quality plumbing (including bathrooms and central heating systems) Cedeo is useful to know about. They have a website at www.cedeo.fr and 180 stores across France. Lapeyre, despite its foray into bathrooms and kitchens, is best known as a supplier of finished timber products – windows, doors, staircases and so on. They have 200 stores and offer a tailor-made service, so it’s worth trying for odd-sized windows and complicated staircases. Their website, www.lapeyre.fr is available in English.

All of these stores, plus any local, independent outlets are normally found in retail parks of decent-sized towns. Checking the location of shops is easy enough by internet – they all have good store locator systems as part of their websites.