electrical wire colours

I have small village house in the south of france and my ex did some of the wiring and I have just had a lovely French electrician in over Easter who has finally finished off all the lights, switches and plugs...but he has used different wire colours to my ex.Does anyone know why?he didn't say that David had done anything wrong just that what he had done was now correct

What colors did your ex use?
What colors did the new electrician use?

David used yellow brown and blue
the french electrician used black blue red and yellow and when he did the lights he also used white

tell him if we have to use te stupid dull european harmonised colours, so does he.. get him back and show him the CENELEC documents.

bloody foreigners..

The UK uses green/yellow stripe, blue, and brown. France uses green/yellow stripe, blue, and any other colour apart from those. So your neither David or your French electrician are wrong.

thankyou Winston I now feel that I can trust this french electrician to do some more work for me
Once again thankyou to everyone who has helped me over the months I only wish I could be of more help to you

winston1 said:

The UK uses green/yellow stripe, blue, and brown. France uses green/yellow stripe, blue, and any other colour apart from those. So your neither David or your French electrician are wrong.

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why are they still allowed to do that?we had to change our entire wiring coulour scheme to fall in line wit europe so they should have to use the "proper" colours too.. that's brown, black, or grey for phases and blue for neutral..

bloody europe.. one rule for everyone... unless they don't want to follow the rules tey made then it's fine.. but we still have to..

Whatever colours he uses, get some information from him as to which colour is which & what they do.

Then write it down & attach it to your consumer unit.

That way in a few years time if you have to do anything else to it, you know which is which.

hello,
In England and Wales, the Building Regulations (Approved Document: Part P) require that domestic electrical installations are designed and installed safely according to the "fundamental principles" given in British Standard BS 7671 Chapter 13. These are very similar to the fundamental principles defined in international standard IEC 60364-1 and equivalent national standards in other countries. Accepted ways for fulfilling this legal requirement include

* the rules of the IEE wiring regulations (BS 7671), colloquially referred to as "the regs" (BS 7671: 2008, 17th Edition).;
* the rules of an equivalent standard approved by a member of the EEA (e.g., DIN/VDE 0100);
* guidance given in installation manuals that are consistent with BS 7671, such as the IEE On-Site Guide and IEE Guidance Notes Nos 1 to 7.

Installations in commercial and industrial premises must satisfy various safety legislation, such as the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989. Again, recognised standards and practices, such as BS 7671 "Wiring Regulations", are used to help meet the legislative requirements.

thanks!!
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Goose Down

In France wiring colours are as follows:

Earth = yellow/green striped
Neutral = blue
Live = anything else apart from plain yellow or plain green - these are now banned.

Generally red is is used as an unswitched live in single phase situations, with orange being used for lamp returns, purple for two way "navettes", & black for heating control wires. Brown is often used a main live, especially if double insulated cable is used (as opposed to conduit & singles), but it could be a second lamp return in the same switch, for example. Just for fun the main outputs of a single phase supply company breaker tend to be blue & grey..... It's less common now, but white used to use a lot for extra lighting lives such as télérupteur (latching relay) returns etc.

The new three phase colours (brown, black, grey) are respected in cables but don't assume this to be the case once you get involved in older installations where three reds are common (or three blacks....)!

Cynthia43 said:

I have small village house in the south of france and my ex did some of the wiring and I have just had a lovely French electrician in over Easter who has finally finished off all the lights, switches and plugs...but he has used different wire colours to my ex.Does anyone know why?he didn't say that David had done anything wrong just that what he had done was now correct

Click to expand...

The first thing I was taught as an apprentice engineer was electricity is not fussy what colour cable it runs through.
Peter

Peterxrm said:

Cynthia43 said:

I have small village house in the south of france and my ex did some of the wiring and I have just had a lovely French electrician in over Easter who has finally finished off all the lights, switches and plugs...but he has used different wire colours to my ex.Does anyone know why?he didn't say that David had done anything wrong just that what he had done was now correct

Click to expand...

The first thing I was taught as an apprentice engineer was electricity is not fussy what colour cable it runs through.
Peter

Click to expand...

Silver or copper colour seems to be best but the black carbon cores of ignition cable still carry current although small. Be careful if cores are not same colour could mean temperature measuring cable and this does not like current and heats up very quickly.

OK being pedantic realise your talking about the plastic coating and in the UK I have worked many times with all white cores, all black cores and brown and two black cores. I know Appendix 7 give cable core colours but in the UK we often use different colours to assist us. Common to see brown, black and grey all with same phase between two way switches and panels often wired with orange, white and purple to show different voltages. Table 51 says Brown, Black, Red. Orange. Yellow. Violet. Grey. White, Pink or Turquoise can all be used for line conductors used to control.

Blue see 514.4.1 is for mid point and green/yellow is Protective conductors and cream Functional earthing conductor so how do you wire up a 110 volt plug? Cable has a brown, Blue, and green/yellow. Both Blue and green/yellow should go to earth/mid point and brown to line 1 so what wire do you use to go to line 2? Let me guess you use the blue and connect it to line 2 instead of mid point? Let him without sin cast the first stone!

Yes we should use yellow flex with brown, black and green/yellow cores. Have you tried buying any? 4 core yes, 3 core no can't buy it.