While in France, I stayed in a large extended 8 bedroom farmhouse. Half of it is very old, half of it is newer. I should mention now, the chap that owns it and has done it up is English, and seems to have a devil may care attitude when it comes to any sort of standards.
The old part, as far as I can tell, has been rewired in the last 10 years, all the light fittings are fed with flex, on the surface, and theres a bit of conduit wiring with blue and brown singles feeding sockets. The original fuse boxes remain in service though (more on that later). The switches and sockets appear quite old, though white plastic.
The new part is fed by a modern consumer unit (though i am dubious about the selection of protective devices), and the wiring is hidden. The switches and sockets look new.
The mains intake, I was informed, used to be 3phase, and indeed, the house, and most in the area, are fed by 4-wire overhead supplies. However, it appears EDF have been modernising, and this being solely residential (theres lots of farms around there), they converted it to single phase, and stuck a new SP meter and RCD in (I saw the same meter and RCD in a few places, I assume its the DNO job there to fit the RCD as well)
Anyway, pictures.
This shows the mains intake in the garage. A mess. And I cannot see any earths (though the chap had a surge protector which indicated presence of earth). The white box top left I assume is the main incoming box, where the supply terminates. Then on the right, meter and RCD. All the wires are clearly behind the board.
Under the RCD you can see the live splits into three, and feeds the three C32s that provide power to the different parts of the house.
The RCD:
500mA rating.
The fuse box above the mains:
I am guessing that the three big fuses feed two other old fuse boxes in the house, as well as the large 200litre water heater that stands in the garage.
The fuse box upstairs:
Again, guessing, but it appears this fed the upstairs lighting and sockets in the old part of the house (as well as a wall light and downflow heater in the old bathroom, fed by a british 45A shower switch. hmmm nice)
The downstairs fuse box:
This seems to feed the electric heaters, lights and sockets in the old part (though theres only two sockets in the living room, and one for the heater)
The conduits all appear to be plastic, so the wiring seems to be have been modernised. That stringy bit of wire to the right feeds an outdoor light.
Light switches and sockets in the lounge:
All the lights in the lounge (3 sets) each had 2 switches since theres 3 entrances to the lounge.
Remember I said theres only two sockets?
Nice eh? This lot feeds . . . everything. TV, DVD, router, sky, table lamp, IP phone device, cordless phone, that dodgy (but clever) english socket. Oh, and this is fed from another power strip under his PC!
The fuse box in the new part of the house:
Nice, eh? The top one is labelled heating - presumably each mcb feeds three heaters, since theres 8 bedrooms, the large lounge, kitchen. Bizarrely, both of these units have 25A 30mA RCDs as incomers (dont forget fed by C32 in the garage), and every MCB is C rated.
closer shot.
Also in the wooden box with the new CU was a latching relay. In the new lounge, the lights were controlled by 4 switches. Since the french haven't discovered intermediate switches, they used a relay and sprung switches.
The same method was used for the new hallway which runs three storeys high, yet cleverly only has two lights to light it sufficiently. But they placed a sprung lightswitch outside every bedroom! So theres a rather noisy relay in the airing cupboard on the top floor. If you held the switch in, it made the relay buzz loudly.
There is a swimming pool, with a pump and filter. The pump plugs into a standard socket fixed to the adjacent fence, fed by flex which is clipped every 6 foot or so to the fence. This plugs into another plug on the outside wall of the house, via a plug in timer. The other side of the fence were chickens, ducks, cocks, geese, this wire was within pecking distance.
Ye Gods.
(Moderators, I have posted in electrics UK since I thought the guys might like to see this fine example of French wiring standards)
Enjoy!
The old part, as far as I can tell, has been rewired in the last 10 years, all the light fittings are fed with flex, on the surface, and theres a bit of conduit wiring with blue and brown singles feeding sockets. The original fuse boxes remain in service though (more on that later). The switches and sockets appear quite old, though white plastic.
The new part is fed by a modern consumer unit (though i am dubious about the selection of protective devices), and the wiring is hidden. The switches and sockets look new.
The mains intake, I was informed, used to be 3phase, and indeed, the house, and most in the area, are fed by 4-wire overhead supplies. However, it appears EDF have been modernising, and this being solely residential (theres lots of farms around there), they converted it to single phase, and stuck a new SP meter and RCD in (I saw the same meter and RCD in a few places, I assume its the DNO job there to fit the RCD as well)
Anyway, pictures.
Under the RCD you can see the live splits into three, and feeds the three C32s that provide power to the different parts of the house.
The RCD:
The fuse box above the mains:
The fuse box upstairs:
The downstairs fuse box:
The conduits all appear to be plastic, so the wiring seems to be have been modernised. That stringy bit of wire to the right feeds an outdoor light.
Light switches and sockets in the lounge:
Remember I said theres only two sockets?
The fuse box in the new part of the house:
Also in the wooden box with the new CU was a latching relay. In the new lounge, the lights were controlled by 4 switches. Since the french haven't discovered intermediate switches, they used a relay and sprung switches.
The same method was used for the new hallway which runs three storeys high, yet cleverly only has two lights to light it sufficiently. But they placed a sprung lightswitch outside every bedroom! So theres a rather noisy relay in the airing cupboard on the top floor. If you held the switch in, it made the relay buzz loudly.
There is a swimming pool, with a pump and filter. The pump plugs into a standard socket fixed to the adjacent fence, fed by flex which is clipped every 6 foot or so to the fence. This plugs into another plug on the outside wall of the house, via a plug in timer. The other side of the fence were chickens, ducks, cocks, geese, this wire was within pecking distance.
Ye Gods.
(Moderators, I have posted in electrics UK since I thought the guys might like to see this fine example of French wiring standards)
Enjoy!
