Describing the way in: l'Horloge, the hill, the western edge
La Demi-Lune is dense and urban. Around the carrefour de l'Horloge, the early twentieth-century blocks open onto entryphone halls and landings where two people cannot pass each other. Give the number on the avenue, the floor, the name on the entryphone, and say whether the hall stays open during the day. Those details save a van circling the avenue while you wait upstairs.
Up in Le Bourg the address does not tell you where the door is. Many of the terraced village houses are reached through a courtyard or from the back, and several streets have no pavement at all. Say where a van can stop without blocking the road, and mention it if the courtyard is closed by a side gate whose code has to be asked of a neighbour.
Towards Alaï, Le Méginand and Vaubonne, detached houses take over and the slope becomes part of the problem. Vehicle access does not always match the postal address: you may be reached by a chemin below the house, through a motorised gate, or at a side gate whose lock is the real reason for the call. On these gradients a street number alone is rarely enough.
Slammed, locked, or a leaf that has moved
A slammed door is held by the latch alone. On the older landing doors around la Demi-Lune, standard sizes fitted several decades ago, the clearance varies from one leaf to the next: what works on one floor of the avenue Charles de Gaulle will not work on the floor above, and nothing is decided before the rebate has been looked at.
Le Bourg raises a different problem. Solid timber doors sit in frames bedded into stone, and winters on the hills west of Lyon are sharp. The wood swells, the leaf rubs against the jamb, and people blame a worn mechanism when in fact the door simply no longer hangs square in its frame.
A locked door means work on the lock itself, often a multipoint in the Demi-Lune blocks. Nothing is announced before the door has been seen: the survey on site comes first, then the method, then an itemised quote before any work. Proof that you occupy the property is asked for before the door is opened, and an itemised invoice follows at the end.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our door opening page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Tassin-la-Demi-Lune.