Badger Électricité

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!

More about fuseboxes - where?

In France your incoming mains supply & its distribution are formed of two parts :

1. EDF's main cutout fuses, their meter, plus their "disjoncteur de branchement" (the device that both protects & limits your supply).
2. The property owners distribution board/fusebox/tableau de repartition.

EDF's responsibility for an installation ends at the customer side of the disjoncteur de branchement . They will not place their meter & associated stuff in places they don't approve of. Kitchens & bathrooms come into this category. There is an obvious bias to outside walls due to wanting to limit their cable run as well as the convenience of installing a "telereporteur" - a device that allows a meter reader to log your reading without entering the property.

Beyond the EDF side of things is your main fusebox/tableau de repartition. This is commonly next to the meter & so on, but there is no obligation for it to be so. You can have a run of appropriately sized cable to feed it in whatever location is best for you that also complies with wiring regulations (NF C 15-100).

A tableau de repartition must be no lower than 1m & no higher than 1.8m from the floor (see the "Make life that bit easier - keep to the regulation height"). New builds must have a GTL (Gaine Technique de Logment - a floor to ceiling section of trunking that houses the main tableau, plus 'phone, TV & satellite distribution). This should be in an entrance hall/lobby or other relatively easily accessible location (i.e. not at the back of the smallest bedroom that is accessed via a corridor!). If the main tableau is remote from the EDF disjoncteur it must include a main switch so that the entire installation can be switched off quickly in an emergency. I'd recommend a GTL if you are rewiring any property, new or old. A cupboard can be built to hide things, but everything must remain accessible & operable.

If you need more specific advice about your installation please don't hesitate to contact Badger Électricité.