01-10-2016, 04:14 PM
Hi Guys,
Rather has taken me rather a long time to post an update....!
We've been really busy here with Lusha making stuff for and selling at the local market, looking after a rescued cat and her then 5 kittens, getting the guest room ready for our scheduled visitors and so on.
On the wiring front I have now re-wired the guest bedroom and removed the old prises (power points) and light switch - spent some time at the wholesaler working out what I needed and how it all fitted together. That took so long that the guy at the check out came to find what I was up to!
It is all rather different here and is a bit of a learning curve, it does help that I have an excellent book on "How to Wire Your French Home"
It doesn't cover tri-phase (3 phase) and the way items area actually fitted but that isn't a problem really.
All the back boxes (recessed) are plastic with the usual knock outs, no holes for screw fixing in the wall - they are held in place by the render/plaster, good job the plaster here goes of pretty quickly.
The guest room has solid floors along with the large Salon (lounge) which comprise tiles (5mm thick) a layer of sand (about 15mm thick) a layer of concrete (about 40mm thick) and then concrete block with hollow interior- all held in place with reinforced concrete beams.
I had to drill two holes (for the laine (flexible conduit filled with single conductors - more on this later) for each power point.
My replacement Bosch drill wasn't up to the job of drilling 16mm holes in beton (concrete) so a trip to Brico Marche to get a beefier Bosch drill and some more large/long masonry bits).
Cut out the wall for the power points and light switch boxes and then fitted them.
Then for the wiring and some more swearing! I had purchased some lain (which I thought was just empty flexible trunking) but on cutting off the plastic wrapping found that it was pre-filled laine with live,neutral and earth conductors already fitted. Here in France Blue is always neutral, Live is usually red but can also be black, switched live can be purple or orange.
This laine had the live as black which didn't particularly appeal to me. With a life long association with black = negative or neutral I just couldn't bring myself to use black as live!
I had bought some red 1.5mm cable so with help from my wife we ran the laine the length of the garden and pulled through a new red conductor which I had attached to the end of the black cable. Sounds and easy job but the laine doesn't come on a real or the individual cables either. They are just neatly coiled up and held together with 'cling film'. So guess what happens when they are unwrapped the proverbial rats nest felt like fighting with an Octopus! More swearing and annoyance. How French Sparkies manage? I managed to keep the coiled wires in place by winding a bit of old wire around it to hold it pretty much in place but it made very time consuming unwinding the amount of cable I needed. The laine had to be straight otherwise the friction was too much to pull the cable through.
Any way I managed to get the laine pulled through into the boxes, and an initial amount of cable clips to hold the laine in place under the floor (ceiling of the cave - cellar below) Not so easy when trying to hammer into concrete blocks - still have to go back and fit some more.
I took the mains feed back to the present consumer unit and wired it into a now spare cartridge fused terminal (was the feed to the sonnet (doorbell) when the small lounge was the boulangerie (bakers shop). This necessitated drilling a hole through the salon (lounge) floor near the wall (fortunately wooden floor in this part of the maison).
Then it was on to wiring the sockets and fitting the faceplates, I then found one face plate was wrong - it was for vertical fitting not horizontal, just a difference in the profile so it still fitted. But I wanted to get the job fitted and off to Brico Marche (14 Km drive) to get a replacement faceplate - none in stock - more frustration! Seems as though wholesaler in sarlat was sitting on old stock and the design had changed.. So I had to buy 2 new style prises and faceplates, but only one prise left in stock. More arriving at the end of the week I was told.
I did manage to get all the sockets fitted and will change the two old style ones for the new style later, I can use the old style elsewhere.
Decorating was being done as part of the job which involved lining paper and painting, replacing broken/cut tiles in the floor and wall skirting. Anyway the job is almost done so we now have a nice guest room ready for our next visitors!
The shower room has yet to be finished, although I have now re-fitted the toilet - having removed the pedestal it was on (for the previous (disabled) owner).
On the plumbing front it is fine to soft solder with lead free solder and to do it yourself - which is what I have done in some repairs and refitting of the shower room toilet.
All the 100mm (4 inch) plastic pipe and fittings) here are solvent welded - no push fit which does have its problems, but nothing too difficult to manage so far.
I was a little surprised to find 1/2" plumbing fittings here! Seems as though the UK supplied the world with its imperial fittings which have become a still used standard, no 15mm copper pipe, though the washing machine taps are 15mm fitting! hunted high and low in Brico Depot ( French version of B&Q) and finally having managed to convey in my limited French toan assistant she found them for me.
Finally bayonet fitting lamp holders and bulbs alive and well here in France along with the more common E27 Edison Screw types.
Well that's all for now - plenty more to do....
Andy
Rather has taken me rather a long time to post an update....!
We've been really busy here with Lusha making stuff for and selling at the local market, looking after a rescued cat and her then 5 kittens, getting the guest room ready for our scheduled visitors and so on.
On the wiring front I have now re-wired the guest bedroom and removed the old prises (power points) and light switch - spent some time at the wholesaler working out what I needed and how it all fitted together. That took so long that the guy at the check out came to find what I was up to!
It is all rather different here and is a bit of a learning curve, it does help that I have an excellent book on "How to Wire Your French Home"
It doesn't cover tri-phase (3 phase) and the way items area actually fitted but that isn't a problem really.
All the back boxes (recessed) are plastic with the usual knock outs, no holes for screw fixing in the wall - they are held in place by the render/plaster, good job the plaster here goes of pretty quickly.
The guest room has solid floors along with the large Salon (lounge) which comprise tiles (5mm thick) a layer of sand (about 15mm thick) a layer of concrete (about 40mm thick) and then concrete block with hollow interior- all held in place with reinforced concrete beams.
I had to drill two holes (for the laine (flexible conduit filled with single conductors - more on this later) for each power point.
My replacement Bosch drill wasn't up to the job of drilling 16mm holes in beton (concrete) so a trip to Brico Marche to get a beefier Bosch drill and some more large/long masonry bits).
Cut out the wall for the power points and light switch boxes and then fitted them.
Then for the wiring and some more swearing! I had purchased some lain (which I thought was just empty flexible trunking) but on cutting off the plastic wrapping found that it was pre-filled laine with live,neutral and earth conductors already fitted. Here in France Blue is always neutral, Live is usually red but can also be black, switched live can be purple or orange.
This laine had the live as black which didn't particularly appeal to me. With a life long association with black = negative or neutral I just couldn't bring myself to use black as live!
I had bought some red 1.5mm cable so with help from my wife we ran the laine the length of the garden and pulled through a new red conductor which I had attached to the end of the black cable. Sounds and easy job but the laine doesn't come on a real or the individual cables either. They are just neatly coiled up and held together with 'cling film'. So guess what happens when they are unwrapped the proverbial rats nest felt like fighting with an Octopus! More swearing and annoyance. How French Sparkies manage? I managed to keep the coiled wires in place by winding a bit of old wire around it to hold it pretty much in place but it made very time consuming unwinding the amount of cable I needed. The laine had to be straight otherwise the friction was too much to pull the cable through.
Any way I managed to get the laine pulled through into the boxes, and an initial amount of cable clips to hold the laine in place under the floor (ceiling of the cave - cellar below) Not so easy when trying to hammer into concrete blocks - still have to go back and fit some more.
I took the mains feed back to the present consumer unit and wired it into a now spare cartridge fused terminal (was the feed to the sonnet (doorbell) when the small lounge was the boulangerie (bakers shop). This necessitated drilling a hole through the salon (lounge) floor near the wall (fortunately wooden floor in this part of the maison).
Then it was on to wiring the sockets and fitting the faceplates, I then found one face plate was wrong - it was for vertical fitting not horizontal, just a difference in the profile so it still fitted. But I wanted to get the job fitted and off to Brico Marche (14 Km drive) to get a replacement faceplate - none in stock - more frustration! Seems as though wholesaler in sarlat was sitting on old stock and the design had changed.. So I had to buy 2 new style prises and faceplates, but only one prise left in stock. More arriving at the end of the week I was told.
I did manage to get all the sockets fitted and will change the two old style ones for the new style later, I can use the old style elsewhere.
Decorating was being done as part of the job which involved lining paper and painting, replacing broken/cut tiles in the floor and wall skirting. Anyway the job is almost done so we now have a nice guest room ready for our next visitors!
The shower room has yet to be finished, although I have now re-fitted the toilet - having removed the pedestal it was on (for the previous (disabled) owner).
On the plumbing front it is fine to soft solder with lead free solder and to do it yourself - which is what I have done in some repairs and refitting of the shower room toilet.
All the 100mm (4 inch) plastic pipe and fittings) here are solvent welded - no push fit which does have its problems, but nothing too difficult to manage so far.
I was a little surprised to find 1/2" plumbing fittings here! Seems as though the UK supplied the world with its imperial fittings which have become a still used standard, no 15mm copper pipe, though the washing machine taps are 15mm fitting! hunted high and low in Brico Depot ( French version of B&Q) and finally having managed to convey in my limited French toan assistant she found them for me.
Finally bayonet fitting lamp holders and bulbs alive and well here in France along with the more common E27 Edison Screw types.
Well that's all for now - plenty more to do....
Andy
