Saving Money on French Electricians
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- Опубликовано: 27 янв 2023
- Is it a realistic goal to save money by doing French electrics yourself?
In the late 1980's I gained various qualifications as an electrician in the UK.
However, French circuits and regulations are significantly different to those in England.
To wire a French house to English wiring regulations would be foolish and probably invalidate your insurance.
It would knock thousands off the potential re-sale value of a property and make it unsuitable for renting.
It's the regulations and not the circuitry that is the issue. Knowing the current standards can be a problem.
Obviously, the standards are not written in English and they aren't even that easy to find.
Artisans in France come at a premium. They often need to travel longer distances, pay higher prices for materials, fuel etc.
They need to pay heavy taxes and insurances. Unlike in the UK, many practical occupations are still well respected and are paid very well.
Whilst wiring an old house like ours, many of the complex skills and much of an artisan's knowledge will not be in use for 95% of the time.
The walls, ceilings and floors of our Grande Maison are constructed out of solid granite up to 2 meters thick.
Chiseling through those walls and dragging cables is simply unskilled, back-breaking manual labour.
Very little skill or special tools are required.
We have spent several hundred hours; so many we have lost count; routing over 1 mile (2.5km) of first fix cabling. We haven't finished.
There are 4 rows of trips awaiting connection in our fuse box.
Our house is nearly 200 square meters. It will have close to 70 new sockets, dozens of lights, heaters, appliances etc.
To have our house wired to the same specifications to what we're doing by a French professional would have blown our budget.
We had a quick telephone quote for a 'basic' re-wire of €25,000.
However, I suspect our final installation will be much more complex.
Although I'm confident in my abilities, if we do need the skills of a French professional, we can always call one to inspect the final installation.
So far, although progress is back-breaking & slow, everything electrical is going very well.
Hopefully once we are finally finished, we'll be able to get the finished installation inspected by the Consuel Electrique, but that is a way off yet.
When you go the DIY route, you do not get the 10 year guarantee that you get from a professional artisan. This is an argument that will polarize opinions of whether the DIY route is worthwhile. It can make a house difficult to rent or sell without such a guarantee. However, being France it is in no way impossible.
In rural areas of France, particularly as regulations change every couple of years very few old houses come close to meeting modern wiring standards. Many have wiring dating back many decades. If wiring guarantees were essential for the sale of a house, no house sales would take place.
Having a friendly French electrician is certainly a bonus.
The plus side is, our DIY re-wire should cost a fraction of the original quote and we will know every single millimeter inside out. No corners will have been cut.
We do not intend to sell our house in the next 10 years, so the 10 year guarantee is not an issue and it is not a requirement on our insurance.
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Oh my goodness it looks freezing as well and your doing a wonderful job doing the electric cables outside. Well done. Love your positivity with the cable situation
Looks great, when me and hubby move over we will have a close up look 😅
Well done again, I admire your resourcefulness. I have to trust that my late father knew what he was doing 15 years ago when he rewired the house in France.
An amazing legacy. I bet you're proud of his work.
Well, in France you can do a lot on electrical cabling by yourself. I have done it several times.
1. Check if your home is connected mono-phase or tri-phase. (most of the time I was on mono-phase but here in my Mas I'm on tri-phase)
2. Check out if your energy suppliers network is TT or TN-C-S, this makes a huge difference on grounding requirements (Could be deadly if done wrong)
3. Plan for sub-divisions, in mono-phase 16mm2, in tri-phase 10mm2 connections.
4. 64 amps RCD in the main fuse box, 32 amps in the sub-divisions.
5. if you have tri-phase appliancies like stoves or workshop equiment 6mm2 connections, if on mono-phase again 10mm2.
6. For each room or area a seperate circuit breaker for plugs and lightning. 16 amps for lighting and 24 amps for plugs.
Here in France we don't use fixed cables to connect, usually the required single strings are pulled into conduits.
Thanks for that :)
24 amps for plugs?
And what section cable?
@@Yorx95 20 or 24 does not make a big difference. The cable 2.5 mm2.
We are near Bourganeuf and just found your channel, moved here 2 years ago to do just as you are X best of luck
Thanks. We like Bourganeuf, we camped near there a couple of times.
It's a lot of work but also is a lot of fun to do (50cm walls).
Just take your time to read: NF C 15-100, Legrand or any other big brand do have a pdf available which explains it quite good.
I am curious why you use the fully insulated cables instead of a flexible pipe which are pre-wired? Less costly. Easier to work with to my opinion.
Success with the project.
Thanks, I've read them all inside out many times
Does the cabling have to go behind the wall?. In my old cottage UK [thick walls] about 70% of my wiring and pipework is all exterior, encased in proper cabling and discreetly boxed in. It came in handy when we had a leak in a pipe [no knocking walls down].
Maybe it's a requirement in France
All electrical and plumbing has to be in conduit. Not necessarily behind the wall. The French seem to have a lot of visible conduit in houses. It very ugly but that because they have dry stone walls and wooden framed houses where it is hard to hide cabling without a lot of hard work. We are doing it the hard way. We are chiseling off all the plaster and hiding everything. If there is a leak / fault, we knock out the plaster.
Thx. I'm just catching up on all your previous episodes as I only discovered you a couple of days ago. Great channel except for the fact that I now want to knock all my old kitchen tiles off and copy your design. lol @@ourfrenchrenovation
I'm an American so admit I am absolutely ignorant of foreign systems . BUT I think here we can run one cable to each room and do switches n sockets for the whole room off that one cable.Except for dryers stoves furnace, they do have to have separate wire and breakers. When I watch European wiring it seems like sooooo much more wire is used ? And it is often draped loosely using even more wire? Is that system really better ? Or is that system really just to make more money for manufacturing and the electricians?
Only 6 sockets on a circuit in the kitchen, more in rest of house. Appliances, heaters etc all have there own individual cable and trip. Yes loads and loads of cable. It's better in that live and neutral and tripped. Often everything is double or triple insulated in trunking, but because of the expense, a huge proportion of houses in France have horrific wiring that dates back many decades. People simply can't afford to have their old house updated. Personally, I'd pick a cross bread of UK quality sockets, French circuit breakers and being able to use ring mains in certain circumstances. If done right, French would be safer than English, but because of the expense and the fact regs change every couple years, very few rural houses would come any where close to current regs.
@@ourfrenchrenovation thanks ❣️ I know it's back breaking uncomfortable work , bravo to your perseverance!