Saving Money on French Electricians

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Is it a realistic goal to save money by doing French electrics yourself?

In the late 1980's I gained various qualifications as an electrician in the UK.
However, French circuits and regulations are significantly different to those in England.

To wire a French house to English wiring regulations would be foolish and probably invalidate your insurance.
It would knock thousands off the potential re-sale value of a property and make it unsuitable for renting.

It's the regulations and not the circuitry that is the issue. Knowing the current standards can be a problem.

Obviously, the standards are not written in English and they aren't even that easy to find.

Artisans in France come at a premium. They often need to travel longer distances, pay higher prices for materials, fuel etc.
They need to pay heavy taxes and insurances. Unlike in the UK, many practical occupations are still well respected and are paid very well.

Whilst wiring an old house like ours, many of the complex skills and much of an artisan's knowledge will not be in use for 95% of the time.

The walls, ceilings and floors of our Grande Maison are constructed out of solid granite up to 2 meters thick.
Chiseling through those walls and dragging cables is simply unskilled, back-breaking manual labour.
Very little skill or special tools are required.

We have spent several hundred hours; so many we have lost count; routing over 1 mile (2.5km) of first fix cabling. We haven't finished.
There are 4 rows of trips awaiting connection in our fuse box.

Our house is nearly 200 square meters. It will have close to 70 new sockets, dozens of lights, heaters, appliances etc.

To have our house wired to the same specifications to what we're doing by a French professional would have blown our budget.
We had a quick telephone quote for a 'basic' re-wire of €25,000.
However, I suspect our final installation will be much more complex.

Although I'm confident in my abilities, if we do need the skills of a French professional, we can always call one to inspect the final installation.

So far, although progress is back-breaking & slow, everything electrical is going very well.

Hopefully once we are finally finished, we'll be able to get the finished installation inspected by the Consuel Electrique, but that is a way off yet.

When you go the DIY route, you do not get the 10 year guarantee that you get from a professional artisan. This is an argument that will polarize opinions of whether the DIY route is worthwhile. It can make a house difficult to rent or sell without such a guarantee. However, being France it is in no way impossible.

In rural areas of France, particularly as regulations change every couple of years very few old houses come close to meeting modern wiring standards. Many have wiring dating back many decades. If wiring guarantees were essential for the sale of a house, no house sales would take place.

Having a friendly French electrician is certainly a bonus.

The plus side is, our DIY re-wire should cost a fraction of the original quote and we will know every single millimeter inside out. No corners will have been cut.

We do not intend to sell our house in the next 10 years, so the 10 year guarantee is not an issue and it is not a requirement on our insurance.

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