câblage ancienne français!

[spot-wobble]

Jeffrey,

There is a triphase disjoncteur fitted by EDF/ERDF and only they can change the setting. There is also another unit which is sealed and again only accessible by EDF.
Out of this come the four supply cables :

Ph1
Ph2
Ph3 &
Neutral.
It would certainly be easier to just fit one 3 phase CU, I will have to find out if that is the way it is done here.
I did look on the web and the wiring systems I saw used separate CU's.

Sam,

Yes radial circuits, maximum 8 x 16 Amp outlets on one spur (outlets can be double and count as single. Cables have to be 2.5 mm. No UK type twin and earth here as the earth is not sheaved and means the cable as a whole is not double insulated which it must be.
Maximum number of cables allowed in the flexible conduit.

Now all outlets have to be earthed, although there are still plenty of old systems like ours that aren't.
All junction boxes must be accessible and not hidden under flooring etc.

Generally once the 3 phase issue is sorted the rewiring shouldn't be a problem.
I may find a French sparky and ask them how it is done. The book I have only covers monophase installation.
We could have the supply set back to monophase but having 3 phase is good as the woodwork machinery I bought is 3 phase and more powerful than the single phase versions.

Thanks for the offer on plumbing advice it is always useful to have someone else to talk over problems with.
I'm pretty good at plumbing - although it is not my favourite job.
Here in France there seems to be a preference to braze copper pipe rather than soft solder!
I think I will stick with soft soldering as it is easier.
I was surprised when I bought some fittings that they were marked 1/2" BSP, I was expecting all fittings to be metric. It seems as though this stems back to the days when the UK supplied 'the world' with plumbing fittings!

Andy

[Mark Hennessy]

All junction boxes must be accessible and not hidden under flooring etc.

That's also true in the UK, though not everyone seems to be aware of it.

I'm experimenting with Wago connectors at the moment, which are approved for use in inaccessible places - they seem OK, but a bit of a culture change after decades of using junction boxes (though I never enjoyed JBs in all honesty). Are these Wago connectors available/approved in France?

I must say that I'm looking forward to reading more about your adventures. Any chance of some photos as you go?

All the best,

Mark

[boater sam]

Mostly brazed, sizes are to ones we don't us in UK, 12, 14 16 18 20 mm. You will have to certify and prove there is no lead in any solder maybe even have a sample analysed if they are not happy. With low energy setting on the electrics, how are you heating water? If well water or hard water you will need water treatment if you use electric storage water heaters else they need descaling every few months or they fail.

Beware of waste pipes run flat in floor screeds, they block up too easily. Plumbing is generally slap dash in my opinion with everything buried in concrete.

[ppppenguin]

I'm a convert to Wago boxes, they are just so easy to use. The old style junction boxes were always horrible things to use and never seemed very good.

[spot-wobble]

Hi Guys,

I have taken loads of photos this afternoon after repairing our large outside tap that was dripping constantly, too many to upload here as re-sizing is a pain to get them on the forum.
I will post a few here and upload the rest to photobucket where it is easier.

Thanks for all the interest, I'm off to Brico Depot in Perigueux in the morning - French version of B&Q - both owned by Kingfisher to get some kitchen work surface and a discounted base unit to make our kitchen more user friendly until we do the re-fit next year. The current sink is so low and flat(fails to drain properly) that it makes it painful to use.

Andy

[spot-wobble]

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

[Mike Watterson]

Sounds wonderful Andy.

Had to convert a Currys Gas cooker today (Metric) to local Imperial. Despite Km road signs and speed limits etc. in Ireland, plumbing is like 1950s. No microbore, Willis heater and all imperial. Rarely soldered. Mostly screw brass fittings. I prefer capillary fittings and was using Metric, Willis heaters and Microbore in UK, nearly 40 years ago.

[ed731pdh]

How do French Sparkies manage..........?  Easy, sit on the wall, roll a ciggy and pop the cork on a bottle.

Floating earths, now that brings back memories. Friends house in London, the whole street had the water upgraded from lead to plastic. All well and good until matey was washing his hands and thought with the stinging he had been working too hard in the garden. Then later in a shower he started seeing sparklies.  Turns out the water pipe was the earth return and there was 12 volts floating on the whole house system through leakage, which was proved when during a phone call I advised him to connect in the broom closet under the stairs a section of copper house pipe to the cut off lead section, and there was a nice fat spark.

Whole road had to be re-terminated, at the expense of the water board.

[ppppenguin]

Not really the water company's responsibility. Use of water main for main earth hasn't been allowed in the UK for very many years (one reference I've seen says 1966). Equipotential bonding is on the customer side of the main stop valve to ensure that there is no potential difference between electrical earth and water pipes. Customer is responsible for providing earth (TT, aka earth rod) if the leccy company doesn't fit a main earth terminal (TNS, TNC-S = PME)

[ed731pdh]

These houses dated from early 60s, so I guess the earth termination was the norm. The water board did the work due to the safety issues, they didn't want their nice rolling program of plastic pipe replacement derailed by somebody getting wired to the national grid in the bath etc.