March 2008

Telephone & TV sockets - the truth!

There is often confusion &/or denial about the requirements for TV & telephone (PTT) outlets here in France. Hopefully what follows will clarify things.

French domestic wiring regulations (NF C 15-100) specifies certain minimum amounts of sockets, lights, TV & phone points etc. These minimums apply to new builds and total rewires of existing property. The minimums for TV & 'phone points are:

Salle de sejour - living room: One phone & one TV point.
Cuisne - kitchen: One phone point
Chambres - bedrooms: One phone & one TV point.
All phone outlets need to be placed adjacent to a power outlet to allow easy connection of cordless phone base stations, answering machines, computers etc.
There is no requirement for TV or phone points in any other space but, obviously, you can add stuff to your needs.

Personally I think this is all quite sensible & takes future needs into account.

As I'm writing about this sort of thing it's a good time to to point out a recent change regarding 'phone outlets.....
Any new build or renovation that has had a permis de constuire logged on or after 01/01/2008 needs to fit RJ45 outlets in place of the old stlye T shaped phone points, & have the points wired in Cat 5 (or better) cable. Any new build or total rewire then has all the TV & phone cables wired back to a central point ( the "tableau de communication") where they can be patched accordingly. This might sound complicated but is there to enable computer networking within a house, as the phone outlet can be used as a bog standard LAN outlet if so desired. That's one on the left belpw.

A final tip about TV sockets: It's a good idea (but a bit more expensive) to use the triple TV outlets that have a satellite F connector, & male & female co-ax outlets for TV & FM radio, as on the right above. These are fed via one cable, with the signals being merged onto it inside your tableau de communication.

Obviously, Badger Électricité fits all such necessary wiring as part of full rewires, or can do so as an upgrade.