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Failed Consuel


AFP2

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Before a new Compteur Unit was fitted in one of our properties, we had to have a Consuel Inspection. There are several points of failure on a fairly recent previous owner wiring job, and a couple of these have us slightly baffled. One is 'insufficient Gaine' used. We have seen the seperate wires run in this, but there are some black 3-core cables which seem to be in Gaine in places and not others. We need to work out if this is something that can be corrected easily, so what does need to be in Gaine? The other was 'neutre et terre connecté'. This seems to mean that the neutral wire and the earth wire are connected. Help! We have already changed a lot of the fuses because there were some that were the wrong value. And the earthrod thingy failed at first until it rained.

 

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[quote]Any ideas?[/quote]

First point, call an Electrician!

To (try to) answer your rather vague questions, cable rigide (the black 3 core stuff) needs to be in Gaine in certain specific circumstances (mostly where it passes through walls). I doubt if anyone can answer your question specifically, without looking at the installation.

If the earth & neutral are indeed connected, then get it fixed. Again, I doubt if we can tell you where they are connected.

As I understand it, if it must rain to get you earth resistance low enough, then that is a fail. Add another earth spike.

HTH!

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Sorry we were vague, it was more for some indication of whether the failure sheet made sense to anyone. It turns out that the wiring was done by some friends of the previous owner and it is a bit poor. We await a local electrician to give us a quote for putting the faults right.

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Some ideas:

a) Gaine must protect the conductors right into the boxes etc or into trunking, with no bits of conductor exposed, Sometimes gaine is left a bit short at the entry to boxes, and this might be the problem.

b) If neutral and earth are connected somewhere this should be fairly straightforward to find with a multimeter.

c) As suggested, bang in an extra picquet to get the earth resistance down. Connect to the existing earth below the barette de terre (removable link)

Jim

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a) Gaine must protect the conductors right into the boxes etc or into trunking, with no bits of conductor exposed, Sometimes gaine is left a bit short at the entry to boxes, and this might be the problem.

The OP mentions Cable Rigide, which does not need to be in gaine under all circumstances. Quite right about individual conductors, however.

b) If neutral and earth are connected somewhere this should be fairly straightforward to find with a multimeter.

Errrr... Not so sure, unless the OP is willing to disconnect lumps of his wiring to isolate the connection. A short is a short and no multimeter will tell you which end of a piece of 2.5mm2 wire it is.....

 

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All the remedial work has now been done at a cost of almost 1000 Euros. This seems to be due to the previous owner and his mate. The gaine problem was due to the gaine used in parts being slit lengthwise, presumably because someone had not fitted it and had slit it to get it over the black 3 wire cable. The earth rod had been cut down to half its length because it wouldn't go any deeper into the ground, so it looked right but wasn't. The electrician drilled a proper hole and fitted a new one.The earth and neutral were deliberately connected in our workshop. We don;t fully understand why, but it seems the place used to have 3 phased and now isn't and the neutral was missing - our poor translation. A whole day was spent putting a new cable to the workshop. All the new light fitting roses had to be replaced because they were the wrong make or something. The fuse box fell off the wall while the electrricain was here.

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