Consuel, being unreasonable?

[Kingfisher]

Just had a visit by the Consuel. I have a house (barn renovation), the building is one building, there is a small 20m2 room with seperate toilet and kitchenette within the building which the Consuel man tells me is infact an appartment. It is not an appartment only an annexe/room for guests. Yet he is insisting that I need a seperate Consuel for this room. I do not require nor indeed want two electric feeds into the building. What do I do, how do I get my point across?

Also, for those of you who are in the know, I have a tableau de repartition principal with an earth pin, but for convience sake have also branched off with a tableaux divisionnaire, I have given this a seperate earth pin but have been told that this is not allowed, only one earth pin is allowed. Is this true?

Any feedback would be much appreciated, thanks

[Nick Trollope]

I'm suprised by the first point, but not by the second, which is the case, I believe.

However, I can't really comment on why Mr C objected to your "apartment", as I have recently had something similar pass without comment. Did you fail on anything else?

"Punch" may be able to shed more light than I, he has been consueling longer...

[Punch]

Kingfisher, without actually seeing the house layout I can't really comment on your particular case.

There are strict criteria for a Consuel visit and it depends on what boxes you ticked on the initial application - (renovation totale ou partiale, for example?) ,as to how the inspector has classiified your particular installation, and why he has classed it as two seperate installations.

I go to regular Consuel and Promotelec workshops to keep ahead of the problems encountered, (my last meeting was last week at Laval in 53), when a  Consuel inpector and the head of Promotelec were there.  I had my latest Consuel inspection yesterday, which happened to be by the same guy who headed the workshop I went to last week. They all  know me now but the inspector arrived half an hour early for the visit. When I asked him why, he said that when he noticed the customers name was English , they always allow extra time because 90% of the time the inspection takes longer and they find more faults. As it happens it passed first time and he said " nickel " when he saw the job which is nice to hear !

In answer to the latter part of your question, there should only be one main  Prise de terre  for any single installation so by putting in two you have not abided by the French regs.

I may be digressing here a little but generally the Consuel inspector are very lenient and fair compared to the NICEIC in the UK. There are five mains reasons for failure which are recurrent in Consuel inspections,

1. Main earth resistance too high  or non existant.

2.The Volumes in bathrooms not respected.

3. Liason equipotentielle ( earth bonding)

4. Non respect de contacts indirect.

5. Non respect de surintesities (fuses, sizing, cable sizes etc).

There are also many failures now in quantitatif non respecté which basically means the minimum number of sockets, lights or telephone and Tv points has not been adhered too.

I hope this helps,

By the way please do not PM me privately for further info as I get so many requests that I do not have the time to respond ( I work 12 hours a day!!).

Paul.

[Kingfisher]

In the orignal form I ticked maison individuelle and entierement renovée. As soon as the consuel inspector stepped on to the property he said it was two appartments without seeing the installation, subsequentially this then opened up a whole can of worms as he started treating the tableau divissionnaire as a seperate tableau, so therefore only 2 inter diff instead of 4 (2 on the tableau divissionaire), etc, it plainly is not as the feed comes from the main tableau. On hind sight I see that I should have not put the tableau divissionnaire in the annexe (this caused much pursing of lips) but it does have an arrete de emergence. The inspector apparently phoned the office to discuss this and was told that if the permis was sent back with the form to show it is a maison individual this would be acceptable as long as the tableau divissionnaire was marked clearly. Yet the report that came back is ticked as apartments, having '1 compteur pour 2 logements' along with a had written note saying 'attente d'une attestation supplémentaire (studio)'. There is only one water meter why do I need two electrical meters?

I have corrected things that needed correcting but am unsure as to whether to wait for the subsequent visit and argue my case there and then or sould I try and address it beforehand? I really don't want to have to go through another visit.

Regarding the second earth pin I have foolishly installed it had too high of a reading, now that you say I should only have one I am slightly concerned seeing as how it is quite impossible now to join both by one common earth (all plumbing is copper so is continually linked) I guess I need to get an earth meter and see what I can do to get the reading lower. Any ideas on how to get over this one?

This has been a steep learning curve for me but the next will be a breeze!

[Chancer]

Even if you do bite the bullet and demand a seperate Consuel attestation for the apartment the two installations should still only have one earth piquet.

I will (in time) have tableaus for 7 apartments plus one for the common areas, they will all be fed to the one existing earth piquet, this was discussed at length to me by the inspector.

Conversely if the main piquet has the high resistance then it is permissable to use a second (or more) wired in parrallel after the barret de couper to lower the overall resistance.