Wiring question

[Tony M]

We have bought an 80% completed House that needs windows, Doors, plastering etc but the electrical  systemd is already carcassed.

I find that in general French Fittings wiring and safety aspects are below that of the UK. I am thinking about abandoning the wiring already installed then starting again and wiring the entire house to UK standards using UK fittings.

Will I fall foul of French regulations or can I do it anyway and keep quiet !! 

 

[Danny]

[quote user="Tony M"]

Will I fall foul of French regulations or can I do it anyway and keep quiet !! [/quote]

YES and  YES but you will have problems further down the line.

If there is no consuel check in place, then you will have big problems right away

Just don't do it

Danny

[jc]

Properly installed French wiring is far safer than it's equivalent UK wiring(each circuit separately fused-double pole circuit breakers etc.plugs you can pull out of sockets without fingers touching the pins).DIY UK and keep quiet?You won't get a supply(if you ask them) or if they find out and your house insurance will be invalid.

[Tony M]

Obviously not a good idea of mine !

For the record I had never planned a DIY job. I would have sent one of my sub-contract sparks to do the job.

I will now contact the vendor and get the name of the French sparks that started the job and get a quote to finish it.

Perhaps the French system is electrically more safe than UK systems but from what I have seen most wiring and fittings look pretty awful.

It seems that armoured cable is not used externally and many socket outlets are singles with multi socket extension leads plugged in ! maybe I have only seen older properties and now the French regulations are much more strict.

In any event, French wiring is a subject that I wish to familiarise myself with. Any suggestions please as to where I can find out more general information ?   

 

[Gyn_Paul]

There are good and bad points to both systems in my opinion: trying to

persuade an entire house's wiring to fit in a 35cm gap above the

tableau, squashed between the front door and a wall (thanks EDF !) has

made me long for the far fewer cables of a ring system. Also I wish the

NF included sockets with switches which would minimise the amount of

plug pulling (with occasional arcing) which has to take place, not to

mention the odd socket pulled out with it because it is a crappy griff

fixing (yes I know they are illegal to fit as new now, but that doesn't

help the millions of people who have them all over the house in

mounting boxes which won't take the screw-fixing versons even if one

was disposed to replace them all).

However the safety of double-pole fusing/switching, and dedicated feeds

for high-consuming items is something I wouldn't want to give up any time soon.

p

[Quillan]

If memory servers me right (I know somebody will correct it if its not) each 'daisy chain' is a maximum of 7 sockets to one breaker. This does rather lead to large and complicated consumer units which are often not marked. The first thing we did with the help of 'walky talkies' was to go round the house turning stuff on and off then label the consumer unit in both French and English (DIY is an excellent way to learn French by the way)..

Outside cabling in the earth should all pass through red gange (flexible tubing) so the use of armoured cable is not required. Also you can't use twin and earth because the regs state that even the earth must have it's own insulation.

It's like most things in France when you get here they are different and there is a touch of 'well we wouldn't do that in the UK' which really means 'I don't understand it so I will change it to something I know', not always the best solution. When you consider almost all of Europe uses the same system and the rest of the world uses a derivative of it one wonders who's system is best. The fact that the UK has a totally different system to the rest might point to the fact that it's the UK out of step with everyone else and not the other way round. Well that's my thoughts anyway.

[Ford Anglia]

I've done both, in my time, UK wiring before the advent of "Part P", and French wiring, I'm in the middle of installingnew in one part, and renovating in the other part of the property.

I have to say that I personally prefer the French sytem, and also that I find earlier installations make my hair stand on end.........sometimes PHYSICALLY![:'(]

To find out about wiring in France, have a look at the following two books, available for a few Euros each from Leclerc:

L'Electricite Pas a Pas

Maitriser L'Electricite.

Both have lots of excellent clear diagrams, and pages of tables for wiring sizes, circuit breaker choice, conduit chuice etc. They are written in French, but easy to understand.

[Quillan]

I don't suppose anyone has come across any info on a website in English. I could put it up as a FAQ. The same might be an idea for plumbing as well. I know there are different sizes of pipe and it gets smaller/thinner as you go but there must be some guidelines as to how far you go in one size before you change.

These two areas might be very interesting to some of our members.

[Gluestick]

Like this, Quillan?

http://www.repereelec.com/index.php?page=edc

 

[Tony M]

Thanks for that link gluestick.

Whilst it is all in French a right mouse click,Translate the page into English has given me just about all of the information that I think I will ever need !

 

 

 PS, I wonder how many people are unaware of the 'Translate' facility on XP ?

[Jonzjob]

Errrrrrr [8-)], wot translate facilities are these Tony???[geek]

[Tony M]

Easy Peasey,

 

Right click on a French WebPage,

Click on 'Page info',

Click on 'translate this page',

Bingo, Its translated, into English ( of sorts) but you have to read it as a literal translation rather than a word perfect translation.

[Tony M]

Thinking about this 'Translate facility' it may be worth posting this as a 'sticky' on the Forum as my guess is that not many people are aware that one can Translate pages.

 

There are also facilities to translate from most languages into any Language of your choice. 

 

You get some wierd translations and a few funny expressions  but with a bit of 'savvy' it all makes sense.

 

'

[AnOther]

The thing I find most disconcerting about the French system is the lack of earthing.

Mindful of the frequent lightning storms in my area and the potential consequences (my neighour has just replaced his Skybox for the third time in a few months as well as several other electrical items) I decided to buy a Belkin supressor block to plug some of the more sensitive stuff into but noticed that the "Earthed" light didn't come on and when I investigated discovered that, despite some of my outlets sporting the protuding earth pin, there was nothing connected to most of them and in fact no earth wire even present, and this is in a 70's built property.

Oddly 2 sockets in one of the bedrooms have got an earth wire however I'm not sure at the moment if the other ends are actually connected to anything resembling a decent earth.

On the plus side everything is in flexible conduit so I can see myself planting an earth stake and pulling some new 3 core cables at some time perhaps in the not too distant future.

[Gluestick]

And of course, if there is no earth, testing the Interrupteur Differential won't work as there is no earth to leak a residual current to!

And if the prevelance of storms is so great, what about fitting a Parafoudre in the Tableau, Ernie?

Which also needs a viable earth, of course!

 

[AnOther]

Not unreasonably after his experiences my neighbour thought it would be a good idea to fit one but his insurance company expressly told him not to because it would attract the lightning....doh....!!!!!!!

[Jonzjob]

Is this the type of thing he was thinking of earnie?

http://www.france-paratonnerres.com/anglais/Default.htm .

If it redirects the strike from the house to the paratonnerre then it has to be a good thing. The guy who came to look at our place also told us that with a paratonnerre fitted we would also have to have a filter straight after the main EDF switch/breaker. I think for filter read parafoudre? He also tested our earth resistance, 7 ohms and good. Should be 10 ohms or less.

I personally don't think that the French system is safer than the U.K. Our main box is a fused one and it is only fused on the live, not both. Our house is 25 years old. And what about being able to plug a 3 pin plug into a 2 pin socket or line and neutral either side and fused on the line??? There must be lots of places just like ours?

[Jonzjob]

[quote user="Tony M"]

Easy Peasey,

 

Right click on a French WebPage,

Click on 'Page info',

Click on 'translate this page',

Bingo, Its translated, into English ( of sorts) but you have to read it as a literal translation rather than a word perfect translation.

[/quote]

Sorry, this is a bit off topic, but our laptop is running XP Home. Is that why I don't have a page info option?

[IMG]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f180/Jonzjob/1Image1.jpg[/IMG]

[AnOther]

I didn't discuss it with him in depth.

BTW, my place has no Interrupteur Differential and is also fused on the Live.

I could probably get away with fitting a Parafoudre because I have never been hit by lightning (yet) and also my insurance company don't know if I have one or not, they never asked.

Needs some serious thought I think !

[Gluestick]

Dunno what's happened to the page format: it's just rolled of the side!

No, a Parafoudre  is a DIN standard fitting which slots into the tableau and protects the circuits after it. It guards again sudden massive over-voltage surges, which typically can be the result of lightning striking the feed cables to the house or the EDF pole.

The URL JJ provided is for a Lightning Conductor: which is normally a copper rod strapped to a chimney, and directly earthed and not connected anywhere to any mains or other circuit within the house.

Used to be quite common in the UK.

So this guys' insurance underwriters believe that a lightning rod would attract lightning?

Totally mad! [:-))]

Lightning (fork) strikes after sheet lightning has built up sufficient potential between thunderhead clouds, to overcome the air resistance between cloud to ground. As always, it will take the easiest route; a convenient tree, human, house, whatever.

Logically, if there is sufficient potential above your house, whether you have a lightning rod or not you are gonna get hit!

Reminds we of the great Lee Travino: after he had been struck by lightning for the seond time whilst playing in a competition, he was asked what he would do if he was stiuck in the middle of a golf course in the future and a bad electrical storm started.

"Sit in the middle of the fairway away from trees and hold a One Iron above my head!" said Trevino.

"Why on earth would you do that?" asked the puzzled interviewer.

"'Cos even God can't hit a One Iron!" said Trevino![:D]

 

[Gardian]

The massive thunderstorm down here 2 weeks ago wiped out my PC because I had stupidly failed to unplug it. 

It has taken all that time and a lot of money to rebuild things, thanks to a knowledgable and helpful local supplier.

He reckons that a parafoudre is essential - but I'll still try to remember to unplug!  Expensive mistake, but it could have been worse. 

[Dave&Olive]

hi

          ok I have lost 2 phone systems and a modem ,not from a spike down the leccy but down the phone line , guess what we have now

                   Dave

[Nick Trollope]

[quote user="Gluestick"]

"'Cos even God can't hit a One Iron!" said Trevino![:D]

[/quote]

Is this a golf bat?

[AnOther]

This was my point in buying the Belkin surge suppressor because it protects the phone line as well as the electrical items themselves, however, with no earth in the wall socket it's useless...!

I'm still guessing BTW...[8-)]

[Ford Anglia]

[quote user="ErnieY"]

This was my point in buying the Belkin surge suppressor because it protects the phone line as well as the electrical items themselves, however, with no earth in the wall socket it's useless...!

I'm still guessing BTW...[8-)]

[/quote]

Could you add a temporary earth for that socket? I found one on one of mine, through the floorboards, into the cellar, and onto a ground spike. Only 1.5 sq mm cable though[:(]

I'm still guessing too.