Property Renovation in France

Materials

There are a few possibilities available when you are buying tools and materials for your renovation project. Most French towns have some kind of builders merchant where you can buy all the materials that you need. This is a good place to start - local delivery charges will be less or not apply at all, and if you go in and introduce yourself before you start your project, and explain that you intend to spend lots of money, you will possibly be able to negotiate a discount.

The staff in the shop will get to know you, which will make it easier to get free advice. But I have found that prices are not always very clearly marked.

(See our DIY shops in France section for a brief introduction to the DIY shopping experience in France.)

Keep an eye on the free brochures and magazines that come tumbling through your door.Most of the larger stores eg E Leclerc, Auchan, Gamm Vert etc which have large ‘building’ sections have occasional promotions.

These promotions can save you a large amount of money. As an example, when I needed to buy 250 square metres of plasterboard for building ceilings and walls, a local ELeclerc was offering a promotion price that amounted to a reduction of about 2 euros per square metre. Even after paying the delivery charge (40 euros) I saved a great deal of money.

Similarly, other expensive items, such as insulation, are often available at a reduced price at certain times of the year. Even if you don’t actually need them for a month or two, consider buying them in advance and storing them.

Remember that the different jobs require different materials - plasterboard for a bathroom is not the same as plasterboard for a lounge, for example. So don’t get carried away with bulk buying, only to find you are left with large amounts of unnecessary materials. It is worth buying materials accredited as Normes Francaises (NF) whenever possible, since these are certified as being of a certain quality. When comparing prices between different suppliers, be sure you are comparing like with like - you can pay 5 euros or 25 euros per square metre of silver foil roof insulation, but they are not the same thing!

Buying tools

Always buy the right tool for the job. It does make a difference to the quality of the final result.

If you are starting a large project, buy good quality tools and electrical equipment at the beginning. These will cost several times as much as the cheapest available, but will actually last for the duration of the job, and make the work much easier to do. If you read the specifications on the boxes in the shop, it is unclear why you are paying extra, when they have the same speed, same pressure, same power and so on. Get home and use them and you will change your mind.

You have to trust me on this one - I don’t buy expensive things because I have got too much money, but because there is no alternative if you want to do a professional job.

Typical examples are drills, jigsaws, air compressors, angle grinders, pressure washers etc. All come in cheap versions and expensive versions and you will regret buying the cheaper.

Your first French experience of a DIY store (bricolage store) could be a daunting one if you are more used to Homebase type shops in the UK, which focus on paint colours, home ornaments, extension leads and light fittings, garden furniture and so on. These kind of ‘department store’ DIY shops are less common in France, although they are becoming more frequent around the larger towns.

The range of products that are available in French DIY shops is not necessarily smaller, but it is different.

Your bricolage store in France will have a smaller range of paint colours, for example. But if you want chemicals - acids, cleaning chemicals etc - you will find them all. The electrical fittings will look different - a light fitting or a wall socket will usually be sold as its component parts, rather than one pre-packaged socket. Unfortunately you can’t usually replace mauve paint with neat hydrochloric acid, so you need to adjust!
There is often an offputting range of devices and mechanisms for trapping and killing any vermin that enter your home, and a large selection of clothes for hunters will be available.

The hardware section will be large. In part this is because of shutters - everywhere in France, but nowhere in many other countries. There is an enormous array of fittings available for fitting shutters to a house, and again many are sold in their component parts rather than an easy to understand packet stating ‘complete shutter ironmongery kit’.

Very often I have left a shop empty handedh to go and inspect an existing fitting or bracket more closely, later returning to the shop to buy the parts I really needed.

So, nothing insurmountable so far in the shopping experience. But there is a problem that lurks ahead..the French language.

This enormous array of components, parts and fittings all have a French name. The staff will know the names, and will happily point you in the right direction if you ask. But only if you know what you are asking for, which of course you almost certainly won’t. I suggest that you learn some key words for your current project before your visit. If you don’t yet know the words for shutter, bucket, saw, nails and so on it will be very difficult to describe more precisely what you are looking for. Many of the words won’t be in the dictionary - eg ‘the fitting that I cement into the wall to support the shutter hinge’ - but if you can say attach, shutter, wall etc you should be able to muddle through.

I have often heard the tale of the person who asked for ‘preservative for wood’ (preservatif = condom) rather than wood treatment (traitement). Almost certainly an untrue story, but repeated very often. A friend told the shopkeeper that he ‘wanted a small tap’. The shopkeeper called the other staff over and asked him to repeat the question. ‘Do you have a small tap’ he repeated, to the hilarity of all. Of course he didn’t know (and who would) that petite robinet (rather than petit robinet) is a schoolboy joke about having small private parts…

This is not such a major problem in larger stores where you can examine the products yourself. But your local builders merchants won’t offer that advantage. Rather, you will need to announce what you are looking for, typically with half a dozen local tradesmen looking on. To stop yourself looking completely stupid, make sure you say ‘bonjour, monsieur’ at all and sundry as you enter the shop, and smile enthusiastically. Then they should at least take pity on you. Even better if you can learn the French for sand, lime, cement, etc before you go.

To help with the first hurdle I recommend ‘Je cherche le truc pour….’ (I am looking for the thing that..). Je cherche is ‘I am looking for’ and ‘le truc’ means anything (the ‘thingy’) that you don’t know the name of. There is a list of common building words elsewhere on this site.
The major bricolage stores in France include Gamm Vert, Point P, Castorama, Leroy Merlin. E Leclerc also often have a large bricolage area, and there are several others depending on your region.