Badger Électricité

Contact details updated

The recent festive season has made me the proud owner of a new iPhone, & I chose to get a new number as part of the deal. So, please note the change below.

Badger Électricité (électricité générale)
Jonathan Badger
La Sorrière
St. Germain de Tallevende
14500 Vire

Portable/mobile: 06 84 94 82 77 (international = 00 33 6 84 94 82 77)
Tel: 02 31 68 74 50 (international = 00 33 2 31 68 74 50)
Email: mail@badgerlx.fr - Website: www.badgerlx.fr

Siret: 501 387 484 00014
NAF: 43.21A Travaux d'installation électrique dans tous locaux

• Based near Vire, covering west 14, southern 50, northern 53 & western 61
• Installations (new & renovation) & upgrades to current French regulations
• Phone, TV & satellite, network/internet wiring/installation

Make life that bit easier - keep to the regulation height

Any new domestic installation in France has to comply with the current "normes française" or regulations for domestic wiring - NF C 15-100.

Part of the normes that pleases me greatly is that all distribution boards/consumer units/fuse boxes (known in French as "tableau de repartition") must be mounted with the bottom no lower than 1m & the top no higher than 1.8m from finished floor level. Actually, those measurements apply to the centre (pivot point) of the switches in the bottom or top row; however, if you stick to assuming that it's the box edges that matter you are unlikely to be caught out by the later additon of a laminate, or even board, floor.

They also must not be mounted on the inside side of a cupboard or alcove as that would prevent direct easy access/vision.

The advantages of this are fairly obvious; any testing, fault finding or wiring additions are going to be very much easier to acheive when the main point of connection is easy to work in & around. It's also much easier for a householder to reset or switch on/off things as & when the need arises.

So, no more inaccessible boxes mounted over doors or under worktops - great!

EDF prices changes 15/08/2009

It's just come to my notice that EDF have adjusted their tariffs as of 15/08/2009.

The major change that I can see is that the unit cost (kWh) has been tinkered with. Previously, the very smallest size supply you could have (3kVA/15 amps) had a high unit cost (around 13 cents as I recall), but it is now gone down to 0,1078 € TTC*.

Before the changes all other supplies were then charged at the same basic unit cost. However, the next smallest supply (6kVA/30 amps) has seen a reduction to 0,1081€ TTC, whereas every size on up from there are now at 0,1125 € TTC.

Also of note is that the daytime (Heures Pleines) rate used to be the same as the basic rate, but this is now slightly higher, at 0,1154 € TTC (off peak, Heures Creuses, is set at 0,0734 € TTC).

Obviously, all the standing charges have increased too, by around 2% if the note in my last electricity bill is anything to go by. For the "horse's mouth" on all this click on "EDF Tarifs - basic & off peak" in the "Useful links" menu on the left.

Maybe we should all look at these increased costs as a further push towards making ourselves more energy efficient. Now, I really must go & get that solar water heating project finished......

*TTC = Toute Taxe Comprise / all taxes included.

Analogue TV - an important update

For anyone struggling to come to terms with using an anlaogue TV set here in France it's worth noting that all analogue TV transmitters in France will be swtiched off by/on November 30th 2011 as digital TV has now been introduced. There is a phased analogue shut-down starting this year. In other words, worrying about obtaining a compatible analogue set is getting a bit uneccessary. However, you do need to make sure that any digital option that you obtain is compliant with the French digital TV service.

There's information about possible TNT pit-falls in the article "Will my old TV work in France?" in the "TV - terrestrial" section, written in January 2008.