Upgrading through EDF

[MJB]

New here, so hello to everyone :)

We're sick of our electricity cutting out when we overload it by outrageously using the oven and the toaster at the same time :) Therefore, it's safe to say we're on the lowest possible power supply. If we were to upgrade our supply/fusebox(?) via EDF, does anyone know how much this is likely to cost? Many thanks!

Matt. 

[woolybanana]

Is your wiring ok?

[MJB]

Yup, had the whole house rewired 5 years ago,.. but it's still running through the old meter. Our electrician put in a fusebox that looks like it came out of the USS Enterprise. He told us at the time to upgrade but we never got around to it.. but we need to now. There is too much computer equipment running all the time and we need more juice. Washing machine + Iron = cut out (and a very cross me if I haven't saved my work)

[MJB]

sorry, my bad.. I meant upgrade the meter, not the fusebox.

[Chancer]

€28.36 [;-)]

[Chancer]

Forgot to say that the price of the electricity wont change but the abonnement will go up.

If you are on the lowest réglage, 3 or 6 KVA there will be no problem upping the supply, if you are already on 9 KVA and  your disjoncteur d'abonnée is a 60 amp one then again no problems, if its a 45 amp one they will have to swap it out which will cost more, I can let you know how much if you need to know.

[MJB]

Thanks for the reply, appreciate it. I'll check tomorrow and find out which one we're on.

Cheers!

M

[MJB]

Hello! Yes we are indeed on 03 KVA, just checked the bill.

As for the meter itself I just looked at it, it's from 1948 and says 10-30 amps!?!

[MJB]

http://i369.photobucket.com/albums/oo137/mattiej/2014-03-16133810_zpsc12f54d2.jpg

http://i369.photobucket.com/albums/oo137/mattiej/2014-03-16133818_zpsc10ae634.jpg

Sorry about the dodgy photo's - hope you can read the info. My mobile is not exactly a Nikon

[sid]

The meter itself is 1970 I can see the date! It's still old, mind you. I can't read the other photo, is it the main fuse or something?

I tried to get my main "disjoncteur générale" changed a few years ago but they wouldn't do , even when I offered to pay.

We've managed on 9kva; we don't have any electric heating but we do have the usual washing m/c, dishwasher, irons, toasters etc. It only ever drops out in thunderstorms and hasn't done that for a while now. That can be a real pain, particularly if you're not at home!

 

[MJB]

Heha, yes I spotted that after I took the photo.. there is a 1948 date written on it, I guess the 1970 stamp is last calibration/check/installation...who knows? but yep, it's outta date, that's fer sure! :)

So with 9kva, you can use most of your appliances at once without any problem? If I'm on 3kva, ...does that mean we'll have 3x the amount of electricity before it decides it wants to plunge us into darkness?

Why didn't they let you change it?!

Chancer, could you tell us how much an upgrade to 60 amp would be? Thanks!

[Lehaut]

It also depends where you are with relation to the distribution point. We tried to up the supply for a friend who wanted an all electric kitchen. To do what she wanted, we were informed that EDF/Syndic would have to upgrade all the lines from the village to her house as they were already at their maximum carrying ability. Needless to say they would not pay for this! In the end, we took out the electric heaters to compensate.

[Loiseau]

To this day, in a house built 25 years ago, I cannot run the dishwasher and washing machine at the same time, even with everything else in the house switched off! When I asked the electrician, during the installation, whether such a combination would be possible to run, he looked at me as though I was mad to even have considered it!

Angela

[suein56]

[quote user="MJB"]

So with 9kva, you can use most of your appliances at once without any problem? [/quote]

We have 9Kw and I have no problem using the washing machine, the dishwasher and the iron all at the same time (all about 2Kw each); I can even boil the kettle (again about 2 Kw) alongside. When we had a supply problem (too low voltage, which EDF/ERDF resolved) our electrician had quite a job making our circuit breaker jump so we had all our 8 electric heaters going full blast and still it wouldn't cut out, so I had to boil the kettle as well. That made the circuit breaker go with a bang. It seemed we were using almost 11Kw on our 9Kw supply so they do allow a bit of tolerance.

More than 9Kw starts to cost big bucks in charges, I believe.

Edit: I remember we also had to switch on the chauffe-eau manually, so that is another 2.2 or 2.4 Kw added to the load, in order to make the circuit breaker jump.

Edit 2 : Wooly did say that the new compteurs are not as generous and will give you only a small fraction over your prescribed limit.

Sue

[Quillan]

The new Linky meters are supposed to be very accurate and they anticipate in excess of 10 Million users will have to upgrade their supplies because they are using more than they have paid for, it has been calculated that this will bring in an extra €724 million Euros to ERDF.

People are very unaware of what problems there are with these meters and the questions that still have not been answered. For example you can plug a USB memory stick into them and download your usage data etc. then plug the stick into your computer to read it enabling you to change the way you use electricity and become more efficient. The issue with this is that many meters are outside peoples houses so anyone can put a stick in and download the data. There has been a lot of pressure on ERDF by French consumer groups to move the meters inside peoples homes for privacy purposes but ERDF have refused to do this free of charge. From what I understand the Linky does not require a fuse on the incoming supply so upgrading your supply is allegedly simple. You just tap in the supply you want and it is done automatically and shows up on your next bill. I assume they know what size cable you have and there will be a maximum depending on the size of cable. Could see some interesting results if they get that information wrong. They can also cut you off remotely if you don't pay your bill, another thing people are complaining about because of those that are poor.

[idun]

[quote user="Loiseau"]To this day, in a house built 25 years ago, I cannot run the dishwasher and washing machine at the same time, even with everything else in the house switched off! When I asked the electrician, during the installation, whether such a combination would be possible to run, he looked at me as though I was mad to even have considered it!

Angela[/quote]

As you don't live in the place all the time, then would it be worth it to pay far more to have such a service? Here are the prices from the EDF web site.

ontract power-rating (kVA)	Circuit breaker setting (A)	Annual subscription incl. tax (Euros)	Price per kWh incl. tax (Euros)
3	15	52.11	0.1372
6	30	84.56	0.1372
9	45	111.95	0.1372
12	60	172.62	0.1372
15	75	198.04	0.1372
18	90	227.77	0.1372
24	40	484.73	0.1372
30	50	598.95	0.1372
36	60	693.80	0.1372

[Chancer]

There is a bit of confusion about what controls or limits the current to a consumer, its not the meter whether it be the old wheel type, the newer CBE electronic ones or the latest Linky meters, what limits your current and what EDF will come out to adjust to your new puissance suscrite is the appareil general de command et protection (AGCP) the disjoncteur de branchment or tripswitch to some of you, its the 500, or in the case of my old one 650ma breaker that can be set to either 3, 6 and 9 KVA or 6, 9 and 12KVA according to its rating, either 45 or 60 amp.

The adjustment is effected by removing the EDF seal and changing the position of a jumper, they need to come to site to do this and its charged out at €28, seeing the 30 amp markings on the OP's meter (the other photo I am unsure of) I am not sure if they can go up to 9KVA without a change of AGCP.

The existing compteurs CBE and the linkys are indeed programmed with the puissance suscrite but they dont cut the current, they will however signal that you are approaching or have exceeded your subscribed current, this signal can be used to trigger delésteurs, the overcurrent events and the maximum current drawn remain in memory and if there is a significant difference then it could indicate the the owner has tampered with and reset his AGCP to a higher limit.

The meters also have their own anti-tamper protection both in hard and software, its not too hard to get hold of EDF seals but if you remove the capot on the EDF side of the meter to access the terminals (usually to shunt the meter) a microswitch is released and the event logged.

You can pull a lot more than the AGCP setting especially for short transient load periods, my 6KVA one has held at close to 10KW for several minutes before tripping and will go all night at 7-8kw as it regularly does with my storage heaters, all the Linky meter will do is give them some documented evidence as to how often it happens and by how much, they will probably write telling you off and inviting you to apply for a larger more expensive supply, 99% of the French will meekly comply.