Electrical work in Spain

knx

Anybody on here with any experience of domestic wiring in Spain.

Thanks..

meercat

sí señor
lo que en particular se le preguntaba sobre

knx

Very good.
Well I suppose I mainly need to know what the situation is with me heading over there and rewiring a villa.
What am I likely to come up against with regards to certification/connection ?
What is the spanish equivalent to T&E ?
Are their practices much different to our own ?
Any useful links ??

Solair

Spanish wiring's usually done with singles in flexible plastic ducts, not with multi-core / T&E.

The practices are substantially different to Ireland in some respects and I wouldn't recommend wiring a place yourself.

Get a local electrician!

Given the construction industry crisis in Spain at the moment, there should be lots of room for negotiation on price too!

For starters, the typical home has either very small single phase supply i.e. maybe as little as 15 or 20Amps, or, if it's a villa you will quite likely be dealing with 3 phase power.

There are major differences in pre-harmonisation colour codes.

Earthing is not necessarily done the same way, i.e. TT supplies with a power-company provided RCB are more common than TN-C-S.

Honestly, I wouldn't attempt it without local expert advice.

At worst you could end up causing major problems and at best you will land yourself into all sorts of regulatory problems when it comes to selling, renting or insuring the property, or getting a power company to connect it up.

knx

Thanks for that Solair,

I have some research done and understand the, lets say technical differences with regard to earthing requirements, connection types etc. Also getting recognition as an electrical contractor is not all that hard over there seemingly.

Now the thing is, this job has been offered from a company via a friend and I have actually seen the the cheapest of a number of quotes from local contractors. It is a job that I would probably quote €7.5 to €10k for over here and this quote is coming in at €26k. So I'm just wondering if these guys are chancing their arms or is there genuinely that much more work or materials in it because of their particular practices.

There are 6 more projects over the next 2 years up for grabs here so I'm kinda thinking 300 days of sun versus 300 days of rain per year.

Solair

Honestly, not really sure regarding prices. However, that seems very steep. Practices are different, but not that different! In fact, Irish houses tend to have a lot more fittings in most cases.

Quite a lot of things in Spain are a total ripoff. It always amazes me when you consider that on average incomes are a good bit lower.

M cebee

did i hear the cable is cheaper on the continent as well

Solair

I honestly can't see anything in Spanish wiring that would make it any more complex than Irish wiring.

It's generally a lot less so as they don't always provide separate socket and light circuits to bedrooms and areas where they don't expect heavy power use.

Our apartment in Spain was wired like this (dated from the 1970s)

Sealed master breaker : a whopping 15Amps ! (I am not joking!)

1 RCD across the whole lot (so any fault caused total darkness).

10A MCB - sockets and lights in the living room.
10A MCB - sockets and lights in the bedroom.
16A MCB - sockets in the hall and kitchen.
20A MCB - cooker.

Turning on 3 rings of the cooker + the oven would cause the entire apartment to be plunged into darkness!

Using the Iron and the kettle simultaneously would trip the socket circuits.

I don't mean to be insulting to Spanish people by saying this, but it was a total nightmare, and quite honestly a very "developing world" kind of electrical system in my experience.

In modern installations, e.g. in offices, the standards were much more consistent generally things were safe. But, there were a lot of 'hack jobs' and dangerously obsolete installations in use in both commercial and domestic premises.

Typical problems you'd see all the time:

Unearthed sockets that happily accept modern 16A earthed plugs. These sockets have been phased out in most European countries, but were still available to buy in the supermarket in Spain for DIY installation!

Old obsolete sockets in use of various designs. Used with adaptors or with 2 pin plugs jammed into them.

Inadequate number of sockets installed e.g. 1 per room, even in modern build leading to lots of extension lead and adaptor use and resulting burnt out sockets / fire hazards.

Lack of RCD protection combined with the use of unearthed sockets in wet areas e.g. bathroom sinks.

Use of totally inappropriate cable to add sockets e.g. zip-cord that was almost like speaker cord used to add non-earthed sockets to lighting circuits. (DIY jobs)

Endless problems with earthing!

In general, I would reckon that the overall standard of Spanish installations is pretty poor by international comparisons, particularly when contrasted with most of Northern Europe.

I'm not saying that Irish or British installations don't have their problems and risks i.e. DIY add-ons etc but, in general they're usually a bit less scary that what I've come across in Spain. Although, that being said, things have improved a LOT there!

If the price of an electrician is THAT high, I am not surprised that the standards are so low as nobody would be able to afford to hire one to do upgrades!

With regard to licensing over there, I honestly am not 100% sure what you will need to do. However, Spain isn't shy about imposing a lot of bureaucracy on things like this.