Didn’t know that, but not a big fan of plastic pipe anyway, presumably the higher mains pressure in France has something to do with this?
The French plastic/PE pipe doesn’t have any extra layer to it and it can easily be mis-shapen or kinked. It does come in a external flexible corrugated plastic gaine for protection, which can be a bit of a PITA, especially in tight spaces. Overall, a good system though when using permanent joints
This is interesting re plumbing
http://www.maison-construction.com/tout-savoir-plomberie/tout-savoir-plomberie.html
Hi Mark, I wasn’t talking about that one, that’s why mentioned multicouche at the end. Multicouche is used for under floor heating and general plumbing that’s on show, whereas the P/E is for general runs of hidden pipework although I have seen plenty of it on show it wouldn’t be my choice in that situation.
You learn something every day. Mind you, visible plumbing 
Brian : That looks like a triphase 280V meter. Just make sure you know which circuit you’re plugging your appliance into, I had a couple of unpleasant surprises with a system like this before I had it all rewired to monophase.
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Do tell.
Thanks for the heads up Alex, there are electric cables running all over everywhere at this place to barns lights workshop with some kind of heavy duty electrical saw bench so I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find that it’s triphase. Given how much water ingress there is in the buildings I’m rather loathed to try turning anything on to be honest. So it’s likely I will have have a new meter installed and mains board installed professionally and work out from there. But I’m not doing anything electrical until until I have watertight roof.
Well I managed to turn myself into a magician and create a nice white puff of smoke when I plugged my scanner into the wrong socket and turned it on. I knew something was terribly wrong when the scanner
started whining into an ever higher pitch, before it released the mini-nuclear bomb cloud.
I also managed to electrocute myself by naively thinking that the 2 pairs of wires running down the wall were both 240V and that I had switched that circuit off at the breaker to find that it was in fact a live 4-wire 380V supply…fortunately my reflexes at the time were still pretty good and I avoided serious injury…
Plugging in the 16A 2-pronged earth plug equipped vacuum cleaner into what was supposed to be a corresponding 240V socket, only to
Sorry, crappy internet connection…
only to find out that it was rated 2A and had no earth - the resulting burnt wire smell is always a good indicator of something not being quite right - plus the fact that the hoover went bang and the lights stopped working in that part of the house…
You live and learn, as they say 
Remaining alive is definitely the aim 
Never seen a 280v tri in France?
You’re more than likely on 3 phase 380/410v if you do not know the basics get an electrician. With the size of your place staying on 3 phase can help you in the future. But you have to know what you are doing.
Slip of the digit