Non monsieur !

Little did I know that the French way of wiring up a property is totally different to how we wire a house in the UK. With the exchange rate with the Euro being lower than expected I had thought of buying all the cabling and fittings in the UK and then taking everything across to France for fixing saving a penny or two.No said the Artisan builder, it is not possible as we wire switches and fittings differently here and so your twin and earth cabling just isn't good enough.

In France the cables are always either single core or sheathed and have to be fitted in conduits for safety reasons and also so that they look presentable.In the UK we use a ring main system  but the French use a system of spurs known as a radial circuits. Wires come from the distribution box and each of these mains spurs is able to carry a maximum of 16 amps at 220 volts. An electrical plug does not have a fuse in it as the power outlet is protected at the fuse board.

Appliances such as washing machines, cookers, dish washers, water heaters are run on separate circuits. With wiring in France you’ll generally find that most buildings use a multi-junction-boxes and you must always make sure that the junction boxes that are used are accessible if needs be.

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