domestic wiring, belgium

[sheepy]

hi all, firstly if this has been answered previously i am sorry, i have looked but can't find info on it.
we now live in belgium due to work, and have now bought an old farm house, its livable, but obviously we are going to do some work to it, unfortunately i dont speak french or flemish enough yet.( i do try) so have to rely on people to speak english, when i was in u.k i worked with plumbing kitchen fitting, and helped out with some house rewiring, then it was professionaly tested, with no problems, so i am confident to rewire a u.k house but now i am looking to see how different they do things over here!
so my questions are, how different are the wiring, i.e ring mains, radial circuits, lighting circuits etc. as the plugs here are not fused.
does anyone know if there is a book on domestic wiring for belgium?
the consumer units look the same but is there a european standard for domestic wiring? or is each country different.
in advance, many thanks for all your help. (we are getting the new place beginning of sept, so i have time to swat up) thanks all

 

[bertiebassett]

I'm not a qualified electrician, but I rewired my own house in Belgium during a renovation (most people do this sort of thing themselves here!), so i'll do my best to help...

Ring mains don't exist here - everything is radial
Socket circuits use 2.5mm wiring with (usually) a 16amp trip on them - i think the rules state 8 sockets on a trip switch max, which means you can end up with a huge amount of trip switches in the box for a modern rewire!
Lighting circuits are 1.5mm for a max of 10 lights, with a 6amp trip switch
Large load items, or 'wet' items, such as dishwasher, washing machine, tumble dryer need their own 4mm circuit, and they, as well as the bathroom electrics, must be behind a 30mA differential.
The whole house is usually protected by a 300mA differential too.

Most of the time, people buy rolls of singles in 16 or 20mm ribbled plastic conduit for installations - you'll see lots of it in DIY shops

Watch out for the earth - most people have their own earth rod somewhere, but on some of the old houses i looked at, there was no earth available!

As floors (and often ceilings!) here are usually made in reinforced concrete, it's also a good idea when your are making a mess to put in some empty tubes for future cables (TV, internet etc) under the floor etc, which go to blanks on the wall (blinde afsluitplaten in dutch).

Virtually everyone uses 'niko' fittings (http://www.niko.be/)

There is an info guide you might find useful at http://www.atk.be/imagemap.atk/folder.pdf

Also, rather than buying at the big DIY shops (Gamma, brico, hubo etc) you can get a better price at the local electrical supplies shop. If you ask for it, they'll give you a 25% discount, and lots of good advice, usually in pretty good english too!

If there's any problem with the dutch, ask again and i'll do my best to translate!

 

[plugwash]

i think the rules state 8 sockets on a trip switch max, which means you can end up with a huge amount of trip switches in the box for a modern rewire!

If working with rules like this I would strongly reccomend you keep at least a couple short of the limit to allow for later additions