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SteveTheLight

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Everything posted by SteveTheLight

  1. Something up with editing quotes. Sorry it looked OK in preview...
  2. [quote user="Badger LX"]l....... "...... ....Legrand & other major manufacturers of fittings for domestic installation in France) have introduced colour coding to their ranges. Lo & behold, the live is on the right! In the absence of any more official information this move is as good as it gets. Whilst ....." [/quote] Sorry Should have checked the quote before posting...... I always thought so too and I an gratefully corrected as I thought I was losing it. The 5 year old Norvika (modular) ones I connected up a few months ago were clearly marked 'N' on the right but no 'L' mark to be found. So I went around the village and tested sockets using a decent 16/17th edition UK MFT in 2 other houses to find mixed polarity in both. Norvika have since changed the moulding on these and the new ones appear to have no marking at all.
  3. [quote user="Badger LX"]... Well, in recent times Legrand & other major manufacturers of fittings for domestic installation in France) have introduced colour coding to their ranges. Lo & behold, the live is on the right! In the absence of any more official information this move is as good as it gets. Whilst agreeing that in terms of physics the polarity does not matter it is really bad practice to mix things up in the same installation. What leads, adaptors etc. then do is whatever they do, but at least an installation should be correct." [/quote] I always thought so too and I an gratefully corrected as I thought I was losing it. The 5 year old Norvika (modular) ones I connected up a few months ago were clearly marked 'N' on the right but no 'L' mark to be found. So I went around the village and tested sockets using a decent 16/17th edition UK MFT in 2 other houses to find mixed polarity in both. Norvika have since changed the moulding on these and the new ones appear to have no marking at all.
  4. we used a purpose spray paint for a ceiling stain from an old chimney. It was quite expensive at around 12.00 but 2 years later it still seems to be OK.
  5. We stripped our very old south facing softwood shutters with a hot air gun and shave hook back to bare wood, Thoroughly sanded and repaired with wood filler and applied 1 coat of water based primer and 2 coats of 'Renulac' gloss shutter paint. After 4 years, no sign of blistering or flaking but it has lost the gloss finish.
  6. Thanks stan. I think I've got this. So, the viewing cards stay the same so there's no need to go through the telephone procedure the engineer does when he first installed the box to "register" the card to the box. The info the box needs to tell it which channels to allow to be viewed is sent via satelite, not by reprogramming the chip on the card, by the telephone link direct to the box, or the installation engineer. Just the account details change, all the hardware and veiwing cards remain exactly the same.
  7. I think that, for France, but not necessarily for other countries that use this socket, with the earth pin at the top, the live is on the left, unlike the UK where the live is on the right. As travel type adaptors bought in the UK are not for UK use they are not required to conform to any particular standard, so a UK tester in an travel adaptor would likely indicate the incorect polarity.
  8. Slightly OT but the UK square 3 pin plug could be soon discontinued. There have been murmours from the UK regulatory bodies for some years now, and "ring main" needing the 13A fused plug is now considered 'old school'. I understand the French/Euro plug is most likely to replace it. The old (arguably better) UK 15A round pin plug is still not 'dead', however, even after 50 years, so I'm not holding my breath yet.
  9. Thanks. My main concern is that we may be entering into a new contract and, with it, a new obligation to keep the phone line attached. As it stands we are out of this contract obligation. We also may need to register the "new" card with the box, which we cannot do over the phone in France, so we would presumably have to bring the box back to the UK?
  10. In my book, either is fine for a light duty 2 core cable as found on a battery charger. The risk factors are more to do with the integrity of how the plug is wired, rather than the plug itself.
  11. OK so I'm sure this has already been covered but I've tried to seach without luck... Please could anyone suggest the best way of doing this: We live in UK and have a bolt hole SW France we visit 8 times a year. 3 years ago, we upgraded our UK SKY TV to SKY+ connected to the BT line and multiroomed our old (non +) box, also originally connected to the BT line. We have the standard SKY package with movies. We took the multiroom standard box to France and installed a new dish and we watch the same channels in France as we do in the UK, weather permitting. This costs us £600 per year and it has to be reduced. We want to drop movies altogether and just have the standard entertainment pack with Discovery in the UK, and the equivalent of Sky freesat in France. Is this possible without opening a can of worms or bringing the multiroom box back to the UK? Thanks Steve
  12. It depends where you are and what channels you watch. This shows europe coverage and dish sizes for the 3 satellites sky uses. http://www.brittany-satellites.com/astra_footprint.php
  13. You can get a cheap sat signal strength meter from ebay which makes getting the dish position right a lot easier if you can't see the screen. Not fantastically accurate but I found it helped al lot. I agree with JohnRoss, rotating the LNB makes all the difference. but relying on someone else watching and shouting up the delayed result of your tiniest change is very difficult, particularly as even the smallest flex in the dish makes quite a difference.
  14. [quote user="LEO"]While watching soaps[/quote] or Deadliest Catch!
  15. I agree. But I have seen sockets that would enable a telley to be balanced on the end of the bath in such a way so that one could change channels with a toe...
  16. The UK regs allow switches and sockets in bathrooms outside zone 2 provided they are suitable for the environment. High levels of humidity and steam would usually mean a standard switch would not be permitted or safe. Is this also a French regulation?
  17. It's a change in BS7671 (the wiring regulations) and technically not "part P" which is an addition to the building regulations. The vast majority of  self respecting electricians welcome Part P as it formalises the practice we have been doing for many years. Unfortunatley, because all electricial businesses now need to be registered, the approval authorities have had to reduce the level of competence required to become an "approved installer" so what really p***** off established and approved contractors under the old system  is that they are now competing with less experienced and less qualified installers under the same (reduced) new banner of competence.  (Rant over - dummy back in pram). I have to admit, I'm wiring a French house without the "proper" French qualifications and perhaps we will one day be discussing this over a  bowl of porridge[:)] , Incidentally,  the test for a safe installation should be a visual inspection and test using an electronic test instrument - not a human one[;-)] . 
  18. [quote user="ErnieY"] I've been watching this thread with some interest because I'm convinced that whoever wired my relatively modern (70's) house must have been clueless and also totally colour blind. At various places around the house I have combinations of red, black, blue, white, yellow, mauve and a few green\yellows. ...[/quote] FWIW Many may say that 70's wiring is no longer considered 'modern'.  Standard cable colours at that time were Red, Black, Green some lighting cables had Red, Yellow and Blue cores. The yellow in this cable replaced white  in the late 60s or early 70s. Purple has never been a "recognised" colour but it did exist in some signal and control cables with all rainbow colours to signify the 7th conductor in the cable.   All UK wiring colours changed in 2005 to "Harmonise" the UK with Europe. Brown replaced Red (Live and phase 1) - Blue replaced Black (Neutral),  Black replaced Yellow (Live phase 2) Grey replaced Blue (Live phase 3). This means that black has changed from  neutral to  live and blue changed from live to neutral - just to confuse everyone and we how have to place a notice at the consumer unit saying that the colours may be mixed if we install new cables in an old installation. I have gathered that much of France is non-polarised as they don't differentiate between Live and Neutral at socket outlets (the MCBs in the consumer unit disconnects  both Live & Neutral). I'm sure that the colours should remain consistent throughout the installation but as the socket isn't polarised the 'correct' colour is not as significant as in a polarised socket such as in the UK. The only way to be sure is to test every time.
  19. Just had a look in the Brico Depot catalog. I can't find any 50mm mains water pipe but they do sell waste water pipe in various sizes including 50mm at about E1.25 a metre. Steve
  20. Hi. I have been trying to find info on installing a log burner. Our local Brico kindly photocopied some english(ish) installation instructions for me. I have scanned them and posted theme here for anyone interested... Log burning stove instructions conforming to EN13229. (900Kb) http://uk.geocities.com/[email protected]/logburnerinstructions.pdf There is also a table on how to correct poor burning and functioning (19Kb) http://uk.geocities.com/[email protected]/logburnertroubleshooter.pdf Steve  
  21. Hi We have a 30 amp supply, we may upgrade it to 40 or perhaps even more, but it's unlikely to get to more than 80. As long as every circuit is protected against overload, short and earth fault (RCD protection) I can't understand the point or the benefit of having 30 or more 20A circuits. Fully loaded this would be 600A. The house isn't big enough to fit enough appliances in to draw this load, and I doubt EDF would give me this size supply anyhow. So what is wrong with, say 4 x 16A socket circuits with the sockets in 2 or 3 rooms sharing the same circuit with seperate circuits for cooker, washer and water heater, and 3 lighting circuits?  The worst that could happen is that the MCB trips. What is unsafe about this?  Have the french not heard of Diversity? Steve
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