That's a really dodgy area. although, I don't think that Spain was historically that strict.

I wouldn't try it in Northern Europe.. you could find yourself in deep trouble should anything go wrong.

In Ireland you'd immediately leave yourself 100% liable to enormous legal implications if there was a fire/accident/shock related to the installation as it would be completely unapproved to any known irish reg.

Basically you could be sued until you were VERY VERY broke!

We don't have US bases etc.. so there would be no reason to do anything to anything other than the national codes.

Spanish regs are fine, the bad experiences of spanish wiring usually come from cheap and nasty 1950s/60s holiday apartments aimed at low budget tourists !

Any modern / proper spanish installation I've ever seen has been pretty similar to German standards.

Embassies thesedays usually don't bother to try and implement their own country's codes within the embassy building unless they're in a very underdeveloped place or connecting some very specialised equipment from home.

The US embassy in Dublin for example had plenty of BS1363 outlets on the walls and 230V everything.

It would make very little sense to have to request 120V lightbulbs from the Dept of State everytime one blew in Dublin [Linked Image]

Although I could see why a North American embassy might want 60Hz 120V available in Europe for specialised equipment or why a European Embassy in the US or Canada might want 230V 50hz available for the same reasons, but for the vast majority of things it makes more sense to just stick with local codes.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 12-03-2005).]