Badger Électricité

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.

....& where can I put the light switches?

Having written an earlier post about sockets I now feel moved to set out the regulations regarding the placing of light switches (interrupteurs, ou appareillages de commande). Apart from common sense stuff like needing switches near doorways & at the top & bottom of stairs there are specific measurement ranges.

Firstly, the bottom edge of all switches should be between 90cm (900mm) & 1.30 metres (1300mm) above finished floor level. Personally I find that 1.1 metres is a good height (& is appreciated by anyone using a wheelchair).

Secondly, all switches should be placed within easy reach of the opening side of a door that you use to enter a room. In a corridor they can be up to 1 metre away or, if illuminated switches are used (interrupteur à voyant lumineux), then they can be up to 2 metres away.

As a footnote, it is now recommended that all switches are wired with a neutral wire in place. This allows for the future use of "dispositifs à détection de présence" - motion sensors/PIRs.

How high socket can a socket be.....?

A recent enquiry has made me realise that I haven't posted the following fundemental piece of information; namely, what are the permissable heights of sockets (prises) in France? All measurements are taken from the horizontal cente of the socket i.e. a line linking across the the live & neutral pins.

Firstly, the maximum height for all sockets is 1.3 metres (1300mm). An exception to this rule is when a socket for an extractor hood is required above a cooker or hob, when it must be no lower than 1.8 metres (1800mm).

Bizarrely (in my opinion) the minimum height above finished floor level for a standard 16A or 20A socket in a normal indoor situation is 5cm (50mm)! You'd be hard pushed to get certain right angled plugs in at that height (& you'd probably be down on your knees to do it....). I find that 40cm (400mm) is a good compromise of convenience & aesthetics. Sockets dedicated to individual appliances (washing machine, dryer, dish washer etc.) should be placed in relation to available space behind the specific items, if possible.

Sockets fitted above worktops in a kitchen or similar situation must be between 8cm (80mm) & 25cm (250mm) above the worktop surface. Sockets are not allowed above sinks or hobs (apart from the the exception for extractors already mentioned).

A 32A socket must be no lower than 12cm (120mm)

A splash-proof 16A socket (prise étanche) as required outside or in a cave/sous-sol must be no lower than 1 metre from the floor.

Of course, if you don't want to get involved in all this kind of detail & want someone to wire your property for you (& if it's within striking distance of Vire), then please get in touch.....

Sockets & their wiring - Part 2

As French socket circuits don't use the UK ring main principle (which allows the quite large rating of 32 amps) the number of outlets allowed on any one circuit is limited. There are two sizes of wiring allowed for use with sockets, which creates another level of restriction. For the moment please assume that one socket means exactly that - a single socket outlet.

Circuit wired in 1.5mm² cable: maximum number of sockets = 5.
Protection must be via a maximum 16 amp rated MCB (disjoncteur divisionnaire) only - no fuses are allowed.

Circuit wired in 2.5mm² cable: maximum number of sockets = 8.
Protection can be via a maximum 20 amp rated MCB (disjoncteur divisionnaire) or fuse of 16 amps maximum.

That's all fairly simple...... However, if you feel that only having 5 or 8 outlets on a circuit is really going to cramp your style, or create a silly number of circuits, don't panic! You are allowed to count double sockets as a single outlet, so your circuit of 5 sockets can actually be 5 doubles = 10 physical places that you can plug in to. A triple outlet counts as 2 sockets, as does a quadruple one. The reasoning for this seems to be that if you have 5 sockets strung out at 3 metre intervals there is plenty of scope for each one having a fairly hefty device pugged into it, whereas doubles are more of a convenience to plug in several small devices in the same location (TV & satellite box for example).

As no ring is involved when wiring a French socket circuit there is no need to string one socket after another in a "daisy chain" fashion. In other words, if it was physically convenient you could take the circuit from your consumer unit, daisy chain through two sockets, then into a junction box where another 3 outlets are wired out as individual runs in a star, or radial format. Just observe the rules about junction boxes, but that's a subject for another rambling.....

Sockets & their wiring - Part 1

People who are used to the UK system of wiring power outlets often find the French method of installing sockets a bit strange. It is, however, simpler & more logical than the unbiquitous ring main......

A principle difference is the French technique of having specific circuits & sockets for major appliances. So, there is an individual circuit breaker in the consumer unit for the washing machine, another for the dish-washer, another for a tumble dryer (there are others, but more of that another time). Each of these circuits consist of live(phase), neutral (neutre) & earth (terre) wired in 2.5mm² cable, & are supplied via a maximum 20 amp circuit breaker. The circuit terminates as a single socket outlet next to/behind the appliance. As in the UK, there is also a dedicated circuit for a cooker, rated at 32 amp, wired in 6mm² cable (this can be terminated with a 32 amp socket, or a simple cable outlet).

Shifting such major loads onto their own circuits means that the circuits supplying other sockets don't need the capacity that a UK ring main can supply. French sockets (prise de courant) are wired in a radial or "daisy chain" format i.e. the supply goes in & out of a run of sockets, then ends. There is no return back to the source of supply, as happens in a ring main.

More about general purpose sockets another time....