March 2010

Telephone & TV sockets - the truth!

Here follows an update of a previous posting, as things have become clearer of late:

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 power sockets, lights, communications outlets (TV & phone points) etc. These minimums apply to new builds & total rewires of existing property if they are to comply with regulations in force at the time of inspection*.

The normes specify that there should be a "prise de communication" (deemed to be an RJ45 type socket) in all "pièces principal". So, that means that all obvious rooms such as lounges, dining rooms, bedrooms, studies, etc. (plus the kitchen) need to have one, with the minimum total being two (for a small apartment I guess).

However, this is not to be misinterpreted to mean that all rooms need both a TV & a phone/communications point. This is because a "prise de communication" is ultimately intended to supply all communications needs from the one outlet i.e. phone, computer network/internet & TV signals. How this works is the subject of another posting, but if the cabling used for these outlets isn't up to the necessary standard to take the higher frequencies required for terrestrial TV &/or satellite TV signals it will still be necessary to install TV outlets ("prises de type coaxial") where they are required. As you'd expect, there is a minimum specification for this, being:

Two coaxial outlets for accommodation up to to 100m² habitable area.
Three coaxial outlets for accommodation over 100m² habitable area.
A place with under 35m² habitable area is allowed to get away with only one TV outlet.

All communications outlets need to be placed adjacent to a power outlet to allow easy connection of associated equipment i.e. cordless phone base stations, answering machines, computers etc. The same principle applies to TV outlets if they are in separate locations.
Don't forget if you wish to record from satellite TV whilst watching a different channel you will need to have two dish feeds installed to your receiving equipment.

Personally I think this is all quite sensible & takes future needs into account, but I appreciate that the whole multi-purpose communications socket thing is a bit confusing at first. As said above, this is a subject for a future posting.

*Any new build or renovation that has had a permis de constuire logged on or after 01/01/2008 needs to have RJ45 outlets rather than the old style inverted 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/coffret de communication") where they can be patched accordingly. This might sound complicated but it is a bit of "future proofing" & is there to enable such points to be multi-purpose phone, LAN & TV outlets if so desired, as already mentioned. That's one on the left below.

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 different frequency signals being merged onto it inside your tableau de communication, or even at the dish &/or aerial position.

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

No more dithering about with plugs

One of the most frequent questions I hear is "I need to swap the plugs on my UK appliances to French ones, but there's no indication which side of the plug is live or neutral - what do I do?". Until recently this would have opened a large can of worms as even the French couldn't seem to agree on the matter. However, I have always had a belief as to which side is correct, which has now been proven right.

Anyway, if you look at the front of a French socket (assuming it is the right way up, with the sticking out earth pin at the top), the LIVE (phase) is on the right (or clockwise from the earth if you like). Translate that to the inside of a plug, & it's the same. Put another way, it's the same as a UK 13 Amp plug. More to the point it's the same principal as the Europe-wide standard (CEE17) for industrial & weatherproof connectors that most people will have seen in the form of the blue 16 Amp plugs/sockets used for caravan hook-ups, or the yellow (110 Volt) version used for building site power tools. Although this standard also encompasses three-phase connectors & goes up to 125 Amp capacity, the live connection in a socket (viewed from the front) is always clockwise from the earth.

So, how do I know what's right? Well, in recent times Legrand & other major manufacturers of fittings for domestic installation in France) have introduced colour coding to their ranges. Lo & behold, the live is on the right! In the absence of any more official information this move is as good as it gets.

Whilst agreeing that in terms of physics the polarity does not matter it is really bad practice to mix things up in the same installation. What leads, adaptors etc. then do is whatever they do, but at least an installation should be correct.