Jonzjob Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 Try again, French electrics, that's better?We have a switch in our house that does not appear to be connected to anything i.e. there is a line potential wire going to it and nothing else. In the nice round hole in the wall where it sits is a neutral and an earth wire, but not connected to the switch. I have checked the potential between all 3 wires and it would appear that a socket should be there (?). I have also checked the resistance between the earth and neutral, about 1 meg.I have also checked another socket in the house for the resistance between neutral and earth and got a reading of about 1 meg. I was under the impression that here in France the earth and neutral were tied together? At least at the sub stations?Has anyone any ideas as to what the situation is for this situation. I have been using a Fluke 75 self calibrating meter and my background is with aircraft and computer electrics, but not domestic wiring. I must admit to being confused and think that if someone had connected the switch to the neutral wire there would have been a rival to Carcassonne's Bastile firework display!!! I think that a socket in the hol;e would be a better bet?John.[^o)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Redman Posted February 23, 2006 Share Posted February 23, 2006 << I was under the impression that here in France the earth and neutral were tied together? At least at the sub stations >>Provision of the earth in a French electrical instalation is the householder's responsibility / problem. If you have a look at you instalation you will almost cetainly find that two or three ( for three phase) insulated wires come in provided by EDF. The earth cable will normally come out the tableau d'electricite and come down to a pair of ceramic insulators linked by a copper bar which can be disconnected to check the effectiveness of the earth. Link below shows earth connectionhttp://www.castorama.fr/boutique/sku/sku.jhtml?elementId=Casto821290&productId=CastoEL0106&_requestid=358972 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thunderhorse Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 Is the live actually live? And what do continuity tests show between the socket and fuse board? Worth checking, but on the face of it, someone has merely disconnected the socket. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonzjob Posted February 24, 2006 Author Share Posted February 24, 2006 I tend to think you are right about the socket , but I can't for the life of me dream why anyone would put a switch in it's place? I'm not going to be the one to try connecting the switch! Fireworks are good in their place, but it ain't my kitchen!I will try to do a con check to the fuse board. I have my doubts about some of the wiring here because when I came to put a second light in the car port I found that the switch was in the neutral line and at least one 3 pin socket with only 2 wires going to it, no earth!!! But not any more....John. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eslier Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 It could be the chageover (speed switch) for the VMC. Maybe the disconnected wire is the low speed wire which some people do not conect so that the VMC can be switched off and only used when required. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob G Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 Slightly off topic, but this could be another example of the extraordinary shoddiness of household installations in France. Our house is 35 years old (not exactly ancient by anyone's standards), and the state of the electrics when we moved in was simply unbelievable. I got an electrician friend to come and replace the old-fashioned fuse board with a circuit breaker box; when he removed the old board, there was a tangled mass of interconnected wires. There were circuits where you removed both fuses and still got a live reading off the wires. It took him the best part of two days to work out what was what and put the new box in.Even now we have different circuits in the house which seem to be wired together for no apparent reason. It really needs completely rewiring, but that will have to wait...Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcazar Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 I reckon we could run an entire new forum just on horror stories about French electric installations[*-)]I could start us off with the tale of my house, which had no earth at all, and all electrics "protected" by one 16A ceramic fuse. BOTH wires from the EDF switch to my "board" (which was just that, a piece of board), were blue, and had been crossed behind the board so that the live wire emerged on the left, where "normal practice" is to put it on the right.Alcazar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonzjob Posted February 24, 2006 Author Share Posted February 24, 2006 Today I bought a double socket that fits into a single round hole in the wall. It mounts one socket above the other and like all the double sockets that I have seen here the sockets are not wired together so they need link wires between them. The 2 earth pins are in the centre of the sockets so that the plugs have to go in 'bottom socket' earth at the top 'top socket' earth at the bottom. Mirror image I suppose. It is the very first socket assembly that I have seen that states which is the live conection and which is the neutral, BUT when you look at the markings both live sockets are on the right and both neutrals are on the left... So when you take your plug out of the bottom socket live is on the right hand pin and when you turn it upside down to plug it in the top live is on the left!!! Of course you could cross the links between the two, but then you ae either 100% right or 100% wrong???!I suppose there must be some logic there somewhere? But I don't think I will be getting any more...John. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Redman Posted February 24, 2006 Share Posted February 24, 2006 The above confirms what I have been saying/posting about French double sockets for the last 8 years. If you wire a double socket live and neutral are reverse one of the two sockets. The only logic I can work thru is that if you use bipole circuit breakers and bi pole switches the it does not matter which is live and which is return they are both cut Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarkkent Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 [quote user="Jonzjob"] So when you take your plug out of the bottom socket live is on the right hand pin and when you turn it upside down to plug it in the top live is on the left!!! Of course you could cross the links between the two, but then you ae either 100% right or 100% wrong???!I suppose there must be some logic there somewhere? But I don't think I will be getting any more... [/quote]But all appliances likely to be used in the socket will be either 2-pin only or 3-pin with double pole switches. If they are not then they weren't sold in France.Therein lies the logic - from the appliance point of view it does not matter which terminal is phase or neutral; so why waste valuable neural energy on the problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alcazar Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 [quote user="Anton Redman"]The above confirms what I have been saying/posting about French double sockets for the last 8 years. If you wire a double socket live and neutral are reverse one of the two sockets. The only logic I can work thru is that if you use bipole circuit breakers and bi pole switches the it does not matter which is live and which is return they are both cut[/quote]Which is probably the reason the French opted for double pole circuit breakers.[;)]A French electrician told me to wire anything it was possible to do so, with live to the right. Next time I see him, I'll ask about the twin socket problem.[*-)]I'll soon be able to start putting PROPER electrics in my barn extension, since I've fitted a seperate distribution board in there, fed from the EDF incomers. It'll all be done to Promotelec norms etc, then all I have to do is rip out the old house wiring and do the same there![:'(]Alcazar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deimos Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 In my house I have found light sockets where the neutral isswitched and the live always connected – so a good job the fuse breakers breakboth live and neutral (as who know whether the fuse is on the live or theneutral !!). However I do always switchoff the entire house electrics (and the main consumer unit) before doinganything with the electrics.Ian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brilec Posted February 25, 2006 Share Posted February 25, 2006 [quote user="Alcazar"] BOTH wires from the EDF switch to my "board" (which was just that, a piece of board), were blue, Alcazar[/quote]Both mine were green/yellow. I did have 6 ceramic fuses, and 6 circuits, but three of the fuses were in the live feed, and the other three were in the neutral. One new three core cable contained two circuits, black was one live, green/yellow the other, and blue was common neutral. No earth connection to be seen, but these were heaters in the bedroom and bathroom - class I. All the earths were connected together in a large box, but not to earth, so if there had been a fault on one of them, the whole lot would have been live. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonzjob Posted February 25, 2006 Author Share Posted February 25, 2006 Purely for an asthetic reasons I have replaced all of the light switches in our house, they are Legrand mark switches so not the cheepiees, and NONE of them switch both line and neutral. Nor have I found any others that do! As for other elect equipment, heaters, bedside lights, our new fridge, ditto freezer, TV, or anything else that we have bought since we have lived here have both line and neutral switched. They seem to be the same as you would find in the U.K. shops. When we lived in the U.K. and spent our holidays here in our caravan we used to carry a 'gender bender' cable so that when we parked and plugged in to the site mains the first thing I would do is plug in the special test plug to test for reversed line/neutral and for an earth. When I found the site was reversed the 'gender bender' went in and we were as we should have been. I must also admit that I have found the same thing in a few U.K. sites too!Brilec, I had a 'dikky fit' when I found green/yellow on a line connection!!??!! My father once connected a plug for something in his bathroom. He managed to connect the green/yellow to line, blue to neutral and brown to earth. When I exploded and asked him what the something or other (?) he was doing he sharply told me to mind my own bruddy buisness! I think that was the time I gave up on him for anything like that? There is a song for your situation if I remember correctly, something like 'We will alll go together when we go' Bob Newheart rings a bell? Good luck with the rest of your wire type thingies!!!John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brilec Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 John, it's ony the MCBs which are double pole in France. All the "consumer units" are designed this way. Everything else is single pole switching. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bejay Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 This fascination with polarity of sockets is a UK obssession and with good reason. It arises because the standard 3 pin plugs carry a fuse and this must be in the live line otherwise there would be no isolation if the fuse blew. As we all know france does its isolation in the consumer unit and it is double pole so polarity doesn't matter after this point. A point that did puzzle me for a time was how french fuses worked because a fuse cannot produce double pole isolation (and you can buy modular cartridge fuse carriers anywhere) It would seem on inspection that the double pole isolation is only produced when the cartridge carrier is swung out. It is therefore essential that the feed to these fuses has correct polarity. But then we all use MCBs now don't we.bj Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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