It does seem to me that this one is not for you, however appealing it is. The logistics are running all contrary-like.
As I tell myself when I’m outbid on eBay - there’ll be another. And there always is.
I think that if one was a native speaker, the logistics in this case make that pretty much irrelevant. And not crucial in any event, in my experience. Fluency in one area doesn’t necessarily help in another, more technical/specialised topic. Even in one’s mother tongue one might have to resort to “You know - that thingie which holds the pipe which …”
You either know what MCBs are or you have to look it up. And even if you know what those letters stand for, you might need it explained to you what the object is and does.
Marking a spot on a wall where a switch or socket to go is worth more than as many words as you can think of to describe it, over the phone.
My Spanish is poor. I get along day to day but when it came to the renovation project of my flat - [absolutely everything from walls, ceilings and floors on up], being on the spot, every day, with the Wickes catalogue as a visual aid and actually knowing how to do the work myself - plumbing, tiling, kitchen fitting, installing sanitary ware et al - was the key to successful project.
The only word that had us stumped was ‘regatta’. As I was being charged over €800 for this, and it had been forgotten on the building quote, it was important to know what it was. My English pal, fluent in Sp and 20 years in the holiday villa biz, had no idea. The dictionaries all came up with ‘an event for boats’. Even in Catalan, which all my team spoke, in the Valenciano version, it was boat racing.
A brief moment of charades revealed that it meant, in English building-speak, chasing the walls to take lekky cabling.
Fortunately, ‘chasing’ is given in G/Translate [FR] as ciselure = chasing, carving, chiselling.
Hands up those with good-to-fluent FR who knew that…
Yes but no - ciseler is to chase or carve shallowly (or even to snip eg herbs on a dish) but for pipes etc we say encastrer, and we would make a saignée or an entaille in a wall in which to encastre the wire or pipe.
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Ouch! 
mine is encastré safely in my pants thank you very much 
Somebody pour a bucket of cold water over Graham. I think he’s getting over-excited …
Thanks for that Véronique. I was hoping you’d chip in.
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It’s fine to say “that thingy that holds the pipe up” when you are standing in front or someone. But quite another when you are on the phone trying to communicate to workman with poor reception. Let alone chase for a devis, or negotiate changes. If you are on site I agree language skills are less important, bit the OP is suggesting she won’t be.
"that thingy that holds the pipe up” when you are standing in front or someone. Precisely my point. That is where the potential for all-fall-down looms so large. That is why the prospect of running this project from 8 hrs away I believe is not viable. The OP did ask and that’s my opinion.
Bibi - I think you have more or less talked yourself out of this property. Maybe it’s time for that piece of paper with a line down the middle and FOR on one side and AGAINST on the other.
So far, the only thing I’ve seen in your comments that would go in the FOR column is that you like this property very much.
I have friends who would like to do what we call “Project Chatto”. They have done in UK what they would like to replicate in FR. I’m the scout. Over the months I have sent them links to properties “Look at this!” “Clock this - and the price!” “Crikey - Napoleon III-era and fab!”
They just keep coming.
As we used to say in R n R back in the 70’s, when a deal went down - “N’mind. There’ll be another one along soon”. And there always was. Fun times.
Then the 80’s came along and we were hung out to dry.