Wood Stove or Pellet and more about our Solar power project

Week 25 in France 1/19-1/26/2026. We are almost through our fifth month of full time living in France.

Welcome to the 53rd weekly post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog from our home in the village of Chabanais. In the Charente department of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region in France

Pictured below is the front facade of our house. Wooden shutters protect all of the windows. The front door and its side light let in plenty of light to the dining room. Above the front door is the master bedroom window. The window in the middle of the wall lets more light into the dining room. The window to the far right is the guest room window and those wooden doors below the guest bedroom window are the doors to our cave. We will probably store pellets for the stove there. Unfortunately, there is no access from the inside of the house to the cave. That might be a good thing as it saves us from having to heat it. You can just barely see our chimney peeking above the roof.

Things on the agenda this week:

Some important stuff this week and lots to talk about as you can see from the list below

• Another meeting with a Solar power guys for quotes
• Another meeting with pellet stove contractors for quotes
• Third French lesson
• Freezer to be delivered and set up
• We are expecting our new check book from our French bank. Will have to pick it up in St. Junien.
• I expect to find new hearing aids in St. Junien too.
• HOT WATER IMPROVEMENT PLAN!
• And weekly update

Weather forcast:

It looks like we have a cooling trend coming our way this week. We do get up to the high of 57^o F on Sunday during the day then cooling down to 46^oF during the day on Saturday. Overnight lows get down in the 30s. Partly cloudy and some rain is expected throughout the week.

With the cold weather our garden looks pretty dead. Mainly because we haven’t spent any time working on it yet. We will send some pictures when it doesn’t look so neglected.

Why this Blog?

Long story short, we are “Baby Boomers” that have moved from beautiful Venice, Florida to the beautiful French countryside as retirees. After a little over a year of planning and fretting we sold everything in Venice and made the move on 1 August 2025.

We publish a brief update of our adventures every Sunday to share our experiences, tips and mistakes.

If you are thinking about a move to France? We are happy to share our thoughts and answer questions. Just drop a question in the comment section below and we will get back to you.

If you are wondering what got into our head and inspired us to make the move, check out some of our earlier posts. Again, if you have questions about our adventure, drop your questions in the comment section below.

We are learning a lot about the French culture and lifestyle as we make our life here and each week, we include in the blog some thoughts on what we learn. If you have a specific question about France, let us know and we are happy to answer. Other folks probably have the same question. If we don’t know the answer, we will share resource information.

This Week in General

On Sunday we walked to the park by the Vienne River and Rosie got to partake of tons of new smells. The picture below shows a relatively new bridge over the Vienne River. The old one was destroyed during the 2nd world war. I took this picture from the riverside park walkway looking northeast. We live on this side, the south side, of the river. The “dam” you see there is referred to as “le barrage”. On the other side of the river is an area for canoers to portage their boats around the dam.

The above picture is the path along the Vienne River. The stairs that you can see at the end of the path lead up to a pedestrian bridge that goes over the river.

We had two main things to get done on Monday.

• Solar Power meeting at 10:00am
• Dechetterie run

Solar meeting

We had a good meeting with the sales guy from the Adekwatt company. He checked out our solar power system and reviewed historical energy usage. His recommendation was to repair our system and test it out for 6 months to be sure of what our energy consumption will actually be. (His company will make the repairs happen.) Then he would guide us forward on what upgrades we might need to our system, if any. He did mention that the orientation of the existing solar panels is not ideal but may have been influenced by local ordinances since our area is historical, they may not be happy with solar panels being visible on the street side of the building.

I talked to our Sungreen representative, and he will be here on Wednesday with a technician to do a more detailed review of our system. He had told us that he thought we could power our house totally with solar and virtual batteries. I mentioned this in the blog last week. Some research that I have done indicates that the virtual battery approach is very well received by existing users. We will know more by the end of next week.

What the heck is Dechetterie?

Basically, Dechete means waste in France. So, for anything that you can’t fit in the mandated trash bags has to be taken to the Dechetterie. (Trash dump). The site has different lanes set up for disposal of different materials. All that we had was cardboard, so after the attendant scanned our pass card, we were directed to go to lane 2.

The dechetterie is free as we pay property taxes and this is included. EB had gone online to get the pass card and it was mailed within 2 days.

The car full of cardboard at the dechetterie. You just back up to the yellow railing and dump your cardboard. They have these sites everywhere. Other lanes are for metal, toxics, electronics and bigger items like refrigerators and clothes washers.

Sous Vide

We did another sous vide cook on Monday. This time we did steak. The steaks were a little thinner than our usual steaks that we had back in the states. EB says she over cooked them a little. I’m sure we will get better the next time. We had our new charcoal grill set up too. We had the entire experience. The grill worked great. We had a little rain, but the rain stopped and the cook went well.

Tuesday: two more pellet stove quotes and our freezer delivery

We met with the pellet stove representative from Invicta in the morning. This is a stove made in France and I kind of like it. The salesman needed to verify if he had the stove in stock before he could commit to a delivery date. His quote was a little lower than the previous quote. We will see how the meeting with the next guy at 6:00pm goes.

Our 6:00PM pellet stove meeting was really quick. His delivery schedule is 6 months out. He really didn’t try very hard to get our business. No problem we have another meeting on Wednesday and we don’t want to wait 6 months. The wait would probably be extended anyway.

Our little freezer arrived today. The delivery guy is not allowed to plug the unit into an extension cord, and the cord on the freezer is too short to reach our available outlet. No problem I will get a heavy-duty cord and take care of it. I need to take a walk anyway and the Brico hardware store is less than a mile away and we can stop at the boulangerie and pick up a baguette.

After a closer look, we have another more accessible electrical outlet in the laundry room so after I bought the extension cord it is not really needed for the freezer hook up. By the way, the freezer works great.

Our Wednesday schedule includes a meeting with another stove company and the Sungreen rep in the afternoon.

We had a meeting with a company called AASGARD.

This guy was super thorough, and Elizabeth and I felt very confident in his assessment. He advised that running a duct to our living room from the dining room is definitely doable, but he advised against it. It will be costly and not very efficient. As I had thought a couple of weeks ago (and actually was hoping for) he recommended 2 smaller heaters. A pellet stove in the dining room and a wood stove in the living room. He surveyed the chimneys and advised having them swept. He showed me the tar on the inside and convinced me of the wisdom of having it swept. I think that I mentioned before that the chimney must be swept every year by law (and for your home owners insurance!). We will visit the shop in Limoges next week and sign the contract.

WE END UP WITH A WOOD STOVE AND A PELLET STOVE!

Solar Power

We had a follow up meeting with the Hector from SunGreen and I’m glad we did. EB and I have pretty much made up our mind on the solar system. We will talk with a couple that have had the system installed for 2 years and get their thoughts next week and make our final decision. We will drive to Bordeaux to visit the SunGreen office and see the products and facility next week. Fortunately, the office is on the outskirts of Bordeaux.

Thursday: The regular pattern of off and on rain

Thursday is Market Day in Chabanais. It is our open-air market, so we got out ahead of the rain and walked down to the market and bought a couple of marinated duck breasts that we will grill on Friday. I’m hoping they come out as good tasting as the duck breast that we really liked at our favorite restaurant in Duras by the name of, “Parvis Magna”. You probably remember our comments about it.

Our regular French class was good. I must say, EB is getting pretty comfortable at French.

Another Rainy Friday

We slept in on Friday. Didn’t intend to, but we did. That is ok, the main thing on our list for Friday is a conference call with our US financial guy, Sean. We like to check in with him every couple of months. I remain concerned about the stock market these days even though it is still making record highs.

Unfortunately, the rain persisted so instead of grilling our duck breasts, EB pan fried them for like 2 minutes per side. They came out pretty good.

Saturday: Hot water plan

More rain off and on.

I had a quick meeting with a heating guy. He is going to give us a quote on a bigger hot water tank. As you know, I am not satisfied with the capacity of our existing hot water system. The plan is to put in the tank which will heat 100 liters of water with electricity so we will have plenty of hot water. Hopefully it will be in soon. The existing gas boiler system will remain in place to be used strictly for our room heating. Given our plan to augment heating with a pellet stove I’m hoping our gas usage will be minimal.

That is the week. A little rainy off and on as usual for this time of year. After meeting with representatives of different solar power companies and wood/pellet stove companies this week our decision is imminent. Next week we meet with SunGreen in Bordeaux for solar power and meet again with the AASGARD representative for the stove options in Limoges and we will make a decision for sure.

French Lifestyle and Culture

With the weather so yucky we will hold off on tours of the outside of our house. I did include a brief description of the facade above though. The summer kitchen and the garden are really going to be nice so stay tuned for tours and photos of them.

News in France and fun fact about the Eiffel tower (Tour Eiffel)

First there is an update on the language and civics tests required to get multiple year visas. This doesn’t affect EB and I now. Since I’m over 65 none of the new regulations affect me at all. As I understand it there will be a language test that will require at least A2 language skills and a basic civics test. This might affect EB, but she will be 65 in just over 3 years so I think she will dodge the requirements too. None the less we are keeping up with our French lessons.

WOW! Weather in the south of France has been horrific with flooding of many areas. Western France is suffering from the effects of storm Ingrid.

They have forecast severe winter weather in Northeast France and northwest France. Reporting mentions that we have had a mild winter so far, but severe cold is forecast for the next few weeks.

I don’t think Chabanais will be affected much.

Did you know that the Eiffel tower was not meant to be a permanent structure? The construction was started in 1887 and completed in 1889 and remains, in my opinion, an iconic symbol of engineering and artistic excellence. It is something like 137 years old. Seems pretty permanent to me.

Another note about wood stoves

I have been going on about wood stoves and there is a reason that it is so important to me. First the cost of energy in Europe is relatively high. That is despite my understanding that France probably has the lowest cost energy in Europe. I think the wind, and solar renewables help in that respect.

Because of the high cost of energy, wood and pellet stoves are, in fact, more economical than electrical heating methods. It comes as a result of plenty of regulations around wood fire heating. The regulations have driven the technology of wood fired stoves and results in well over 80% efficiency and reduced air pollution. The cost of firewood varies too, but for now it beats electricity.

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

• Finalize the solar power project
• Finalize the wood/pellet stove project
• Finalize the hot water project
• Follow up with the bank regarding our check book
• Start prepping for Don and Cindy’s arrival

Weather forecast for next week

It looks like we have a cooling trend coming our way next week. Highs in the low 50s^o F. Overnight lows get down in the 40s. Cloudy and some rain is expected throughout the week.

Weather in the states looks like it will be chilly too.

Signing off for the week

As always, we sign off wishing you all a good week and remind you to take care of yourselves and your family.

Keep in touch and leave questions, suggestions and comments below. We really enjoy hearing from you.

Wishing you a good week (Bonne Semaine)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com