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I know the 'tableau de communication' where the services terminate is DIN-rail mounted, but I am amazed that you'd be permitted to put telecommunications wiring and 230V/400V wiring in the same enclosure! Are you sure you're not required to have two separate panels and enclosures to keep the...

The majority of French supplies are "TT" i.e. they only have a local earth, but there is a power-company supplied RCD after the meter and 30mA RCD protection on most circuits in modern supplies too. It's possible that you might have faulty earth electrodes, or they are inadequate. I'd...

In any developed country, you are always best to stick to the local regulations if you are doing any kind of electrical or gas installation or even water plumbing. The biggest and most dangerous problems occur when you install something using assumptions from a foreign (UK in this case)...

How do you know the fan's rotating the wrong way? Is it just because air is blowing out of the hood? It's also unlikely the fan's fitted incorrectly. Usually they're a Centrifugal fan i.e. looks like a hamster wheel. They can only be fitted one way. It would be very unusual for a cooker...

Well, my advice is that you should stop using the shower until you get a qualified electrician to inspect the entire installation. In most European countries that I am familiar with, water heaters, central heating boilers, pumps and anything connected to the water system should normally be...

I'm not entirely sure about Hong Kong wiring regulations, however they are loosely based on the UK. In the UK and Republic of Ireland you cannot install a socket in a normal bathroom other than a special shaver socket which contains an isolating transformer. They're often built into the...

MCBs are designed to protect a circuit against over-loading if too many devices are connected to it, or if there is a direct live to neutral short. This is what protects your house from burning down. The 20amp MCBs will trip if loaded beyond 20amps. They have a trip curve, which means that...

It depends on what you mean by "main switch" If it's an RCD, it will be labelled RCD and should have something like 30mA written on it. If it's a normal circuit breaker it will be smaller and lablled with something like B16 or B20, B32, B63 etc (or possibly C16 C20 depending on the profile)...

I think it's about time that the shaver sockets were phased out entirely. The use of an isolation transformer to protect a bathroom socket is pretty much the 1950s approach. In more modern wiring rules in other countries, they just provide a socket by the sink which is protected usually by an...

Be careful that you do not apply British wiring methodology and ideas to a very different system. The CEE 7/X system i.e. "Schuko" and the French 16A plug/socket system is never polarised. Live and neutral are randomly assigned depending on which way the plug is inserted. Polarity on a...

I meant to write TN-C-S.

That's called a TT earthing system, it's also occasionally found in the UK and Ireland where in rural areas where local geology or the local supply system does not allow the normal TN-C system to be used as the supply neutral is not suitable to provide an earth connection. While TN-C is...

If the plumbing is live, I would suggest that you do not have a shower in the house and that you get an electrician to see it as soon as possible. There's a very serious risk with live plumbing that you could get a deadly electric shock in the bathroom. Even a very small current across your...

Shower in my house is only a secondary backup to the central heating system heated showers we don't use it much, hence its so pretty low powered model. They seemed to always prefer slightly higher rated lighting compared to the UK. It allows for future expansion and higher power lights i...

Generally, it's a bit of a hybrid of UK and Continental methodologies with some locally developed norms too. The power supply here was 220V 50hz (single phase) and 380V 50hz (3 phase) until the whole of Europe re-standardised to accommodate the UK's 240/415V system i.e. we all moved to...

4.0mm2 would apply to 32amp radials. Radials in Ireland are fused at 16amp or 20amp, similar to continental Europe. Ireland originally used 16A radials and German-style Schuko sockets. These were replaced by BS1363 13A fused plugs and sockets in the 1960s and 1970s but the Northern...

Continental 3 phase ovens are rarely actually using 400V. They usually just have different elements on different phases using 230V. So, it's usually possible to wire all 3 "phases" to the live side of a single phase supply if it's hefty enough to provide enough power to the cooker. I would...

It's perfectly OK to change the Irish plug for a continental 16amp plug. The appliance will be as safe as any other appliance sold in Portugal. There are absolutely no technical differences between appliances sold in Ireland (or Britain) and Continental Europe, other than the plug. The...

The original wiring that you are describing is quite normal in Ireland and elsewhere i.e. using junction boxes. There's nothing unsafe about it. In fact, some people would argue that it's safer than running long daisy chains as you are not using socket terminals as junction boxes. Instead...

Well, some 8P8C sockets are adapted to hold an RJ11/RJ12 plug stably. E.g. the telephone sockets used by Eircom in Ireland for example accept both. Some 8P8C (RJ45 for shorthand reference) won't hold the smaller plug stably. (Socket with DSL splitter plate fitted) RJ11 on the right...