Hi.
Does anyone have any experience working with the Consuel to obtain a cert of conformity for electricity. I would like to know what the minimum requirements are. We are renovating a huge barn, but want to do it in stages. So if possible would like our permanent electricity supply connected (already have boite de chantier) without having ALL fixtures in place across the whole building, sockets, light fittings etc. Also how long do the Consuel take to come out and check the work.
If anybody has any experience with this I would be grateful of the info. Thanks
We had to fit co-ax sockets in each room, and phone points. A neighbour who didn't want either in her bedrooms had to sign a disclaimer because anyone buying the new house in future was entitled to expect it to conform to the regulations at the time it was signed off, and hers would not, so the Consuel had to make it clear that it hadn't been his omission.
We also ran Cat5 cables around the house with network points in every room and the garage and a patch panel in the store room, because we need all the broadband performance we can get, and wifi has a lower maximum speed (more so then than now). Then came the CCTV cabling. The hardest part is knowing what new technology will need in a few years' time. If I were starting now I'd have HDMI points and a wireless speaker system too!
If you need basics to start with, fit lots of breakers serving one or two sockets, you can then wire more sockets into these original ones in future up to a max of, as I recall, 6 or 8 sockets per breaker. The Consuel has to check you have enough breakers for the number of sockets, he isn't bothered if you have allowed for future expansion which may not happen. I forget what the minimum numbers of sockets are for each room - check on this.
We have a column of cupboards on each floor with holes in the concrete floors where pipes, cables and tubes pass down from roof to ground. This has been our best design decision! Only yesterday we ran cables down to control tube heaters under each floor's water manifolds, connecting to a thermostatic socket on the ground floor, to ensure the pipes don't freeze while we are away! Without these, everything could have been hidden behind plasterboard and we wanted all services easily accessible.
By the way, changing the subject a bit, plumbing in plastic tube is fairly easy DIY once you buy the compression kit (around 60€ from Bricomarché). We did our own laundry room a couple of years ago with washing machine, sink, loo, shower and its own hot tank, all in plastic tube.
I will follow this thread with interest because when I did mine, my electrician convinced me to put in things which I personally do not need or want - like phone and TV points in the rooms. I am sure he was just covering himself but I was not clear whether what he suggested was the 'norms' or was just the recommendations.
I am interested because my son is about to fit out his very basic house and will want the most basic arrangement permissible in order to obtain the Consuel. In fact he is only doing it because his coffret de chantier is about to run out.
regards
geoff
Invite the Consuel when you are about 80% installed. We have 3 floors and a garage and wired up vast number of breakers, one board for fixed items, one for sockets, one for lighting each with a row for each floor, and a thick wire going to a separate consumer unit in the garage. We were inspected and connected within a week of calling the Consuel, when we had only just started wiring up the sockets and lights on the top floor. Some debate about earthing in the bathroom as all water pipes are plastic. Our electrician insisted we had to earth every tap, an expert UK friend disagreed so drastically that he added a module on the subject to the training courses he was giving to electricians, and in the end the Consuel said it wasn't necessary and we never connected the earth wires to the system! When connecting to the mains meter you will have to choose your tariff, effectively the maximum power you need at any time. The higher the Kw of the main breaker, the more you pay.