bobbi2

Are there any electricians who can simply translate this please for a none electrical buff. I know reports are always scaremongering anyway be it in the UK or here and probably some of this is standard anomalies on many older properties but a heads up would be much appreciated svp.... Our electrician has just retired and have contacted the company who has done the report but in the mean time someones help on here may go a long way. Many thanks in advance.

* La protection différentielle � l’origine de l’installation électrique et sa sensibilité appropriée aux
conditions de mise � la terre.

* La prise de terre et l’installation de prise de terre.

* La protection contre les surintensités adaptée � la section des conducteurs, sur chaque circuit.

* Des matériels électriques présentant des risques de contact direct.

* Des matériels électriques vétustes, inadaptés � l’usage.

* Des conducteurs non protégés mécaniquement.

dmu

Roughly speaking, the first three concern the earth and protection against surge on each circuit, and the last three concern the dangerous state of electrical equipment. If the vendors have been living with all this, they are foolhardy! Making good all the above will cost you....

cyrian

+1
In France, you have to get installations like electrical wiring signed off by a registered professional otherwise your insurance may be invalid.
In your other thread you say that they have not done work on the septic tank and have not finished their gite.
Have the electrics been a diy job?
What other problems are hidden within these properties?
Caveat emptor

dmu

Have to agree, the vendors give the impression of having been lackadaisical up to now, but it only concerned them. Now that they are selling the property, all the problems are coming to light and a lot of money is involved. The roof needs redoing, new septic tank, electrics, not to mention general renovation work for the unfinished gîte, it all adds up and, if bobbi2 is looking to take out a mortgage to pay for the property AND all the essential work before they sell their present house, IMO the potential and uniqueness of the property can't balance out the negative factors unless the selling price is drastically reduced to cover the essential work (roof, electrics, septic tank).
@bobbi2: As a matter of interest, how long have the vendors been living there and how far back does the arrangement between the farmer and former owners go? Quite an important aspect to consider....
Sorry, this should have been included in one of your other threads, not the specific electrics question!

bobbi2

They have been there many years and are moving back due a severe illness and through choice are wanting to stay at the house.

dmu

Sorry, I 'm feeling thick. If they are "moving back", how can they stay at the house?
The point I was trying to get over is that, if the neighbouring farmer (and/or his ancestors) has been working on part of the land in exchange for maintaining it, for over 30 years, he might well demand "prescription acquisitive". I'm playing at Cassandra here, anticipating the worst-case scenario, but it's a point that I'd ask your friends about...
Something more concrete - in an earlier thread, we advised that the SAFER will exercise its right of pre-emption and offer the property for sale to the farming fraternity. Only if there are no takers will the vendors be able to sell to non-farmers. The Municipalité and Département also have their say, and the procedure takes about 6 months before they have all given their respective green light and a sale can go through.

EuroTrash

Seems like bobbi2 desperately wants someone to tell her that non conforming fosses, dangerous electrics and the rest are all a lot of fuss about nothing, nightmares only happen to other people, and she should ignore all the reports and go ahead with the purchase because the sellers are their friends and therefore cannot possibly be trying to shaft them.
There's clearly something very appealing and aspirational about this property, obviously it was the current owners' dream but making the dream come true turned out too much for them, and now bobbi2 has bought the dream in her head even if she hasn't actually bought the property yet. Will she do any better, watch this space, but brushing all these problems under the carpet like the previous owners did doesn't seem a great idea to me.

bobbi2

It seems this forum is more about peoples opinion and rudeness on how to run peoples lives rather than helping with the actual query in hand. It also seems that people gossip amongst themselves without actually thinking that the person concerned is actually reading these posts. That I believe is down to people not having anything better to do with their day than slate everyone elses! I do believe the question was about electrical advice on a house report not peoples opinion on whether we should buy it or whether the farmer has right of use of the land. I notice as well that the same forum members seem to be experts on every topic on here rather than just replying to forum postings on what they have knowledge and experience in! It seems that people are very opinionated on everyone elses lives but their own. This is a forum and nobody knows peoples own circumstances about anything and has no right to comment on anything other than the topic in hand when they do not have all the facts. I am not sure who is monitoring the postings on this forum but more often than not these topics stray from the actual question in hand which makes posting anything hard work and infuriating.
This is when forums become gossip rather than facts about the actual topic concerned. I skim over most of it as very few responses are aimed at the question in hand or useful apart from those who actually are sparkies or have actually received any reports on house buying which have contained the same or similar factors in their reports too. I can only assume some opinionated people who seem to know everything about everything are either bored with their own lives and feel the need to offer irrelevant advice to others. Why are all forums the same!

south_bound

For what its worth (sticking to the electrics question), the very thorough report we got when buying our place had a series of "faults" such as lack of 30mA circuit breakers, lack of earth connections, bare or visible wires etc. We went in knowing the issues and fixed some, others we left and live with or are addressing them progressively...but the important thing is that we had a good idea of what is what when we bought.

It helped that I attended while the inspections were done and talked with the inspector so that helped me decide what is important and what is just not compliant with the ever changing rules. The previous owner did a lot of DIY installation and I am the same and able to take a view on how to deal with it. Just because it does not comply with the latest rules does not make it automatically dangerous, but you would need to know the specifics of the report to take a view - the OP states things like risk of direct contact (exposed cables?), non-protected cables (lack of gaines?) and inappropriate equipment (non NF or other?). All items which sound familiar from my report, and most of them not really a problem - at least not to me.

south_bound

sorry, that should read "exposed contacts" to be more accurate

BEVS

If I may.
Myself and Rosemary are moderators for this forum. If it is thought there is an issue with a post(s) or tone , then that can be reported using the ! button to the bottom left of any post.
The mods are volunteers and we don't spend all our free time reading each and every post so unless someone flags a problemo , we may not know there is one.

Yes. Topics do tend to stray . That is the nature of any conversation or chat between people but as long as it all remains within the Site Rules & the people/person concerned are OK with that , then that is fine. Hopefully somewhere in all the chat there is care, share and help.

People will always have their own opinions and points of view . ON BE we are free to express those within the site rules. Equally we won't all like or agree with each other all of the time will we, so some posts will be fine and not so fine to read. For those posters one does not wish to read there is an Ignore facility. You can find that in your profile.

...and yes. We don't all walk in each others shoes do we, so sometimes we all need to cut each other a little slack.
Hope that covers it.

Right-o. As you were.
Time for breakfast down my part of the world.

audio

I think DMU covered the basics well in post #2.


I remember in an earlier thread you said you flew aircraft so assuming they are not models you could ask an electrical or avionics engineer the next time you have a turnaround at a French airport. As I expect you know, most of the French engineer’s speak quite good English

Novocastrian

Bottom line. It's going to cost you a bunch to sort all this out. Your choice.