Is anyone interested in information about common electrical systems in Austria?

Texas Ranger:

Please explain the typical electrical system used in a small industrial and commercial building.


[This message has been edited by Joe Tedesco (edited 11-18-2002).]

Hello Texas!

Any signifigance to your choice of names?
Originally from the US?
Sure, We are always interested in learning new things and sharing information.


Bill

Guten Tag Tex, und wilkommen!

Yes please -- Let's have some details. You'll find everyone here friendly and interested in the way we foreigners do things!

I know you use the "Schuko" connectors and standard Euopean brown/blue/green-yellow colors, but some details of circuit arrangements would be welcome.

Do you use 16A branches for general outlets like most of Europe? How about lights: Mixed with sockets or on separate circuits as in France?

Are most domestic services 3-phase like other European countries? How about grounding? PEN system or separate rods with RCD/GFI? Or a mixture as here in Britain?

Welcome once again -- Come join the fun

Hi Tex.

Is there a particular Code Book down under in use????

First:
Thanks for the really nice welcome.
I'll try to answer your questions. This may be sometimes a little bit difficult as I'm only an ambitioned (and I hope well-informed) do-it-yourselfer.

To Joe Tedesco: Standard service is in cities usually 3-phase 230/400 V underground, each phase at least 60 amps.
Same as domestical, sometimes only single phase/230 V.
On three phase systems the neutral is usually not fused, on single phase ones it always has to be. there are only double pole breakers or in older systems two fuses for every circuit.
Grounding: seperate ground everywhere, only bonded at service entry. (ground is always insulated yellow-green, the only real rule for color coding)
Common color codes: neutral blue, phases all black, maybe numbered.
Standard wiring method is Romex or PVC conduit, either solid or flexible (more common for concealed installations)
Metallic sheathing is usually not allowed ( I think since the 70ies), metallic conduit may be used for service entry, but everything else (conduit, boxes, ...) has to be non-metallic.
There's also a special mixture of Romex and zip cord used for concealed residential wiring. very nice thing, as when renovating old buildings you'll most certainly have to deal with solid brick walls with about 1" plaster on it. Drywall or similar came up in the seventies, and still most exterior walls are built that style.
So far about wiring.
You generally use more junction boxees than Americans do, e. g. above switches or receptacle sor where the hot wire enters the room.
Code: There is a code, I don't know it's exact name, but it applies nationwide and has law character. Electricians have to be licensed , even for only opening a plug without supervision. All DIYers have to have their work checked by a licensed Electrician. (I don't know how many would do that, as that's very rare. Mostly everyone does what he/she wants, but we have about as much accidents as the US, calculated on the respective population. So the rule with the license is not obeyed very strictly, as long as you don't want any money for your work. Then they're quick. i knew a guy who had a flourishing business without a license. i think he went to jail.)
I'll try to supply photos, as our next-door appartment will be renovated soon, and it has wiring from the early 50ies. Will be interesting!
significamce of names:
i'm native Austrian, but soeone misspelled my scandinavian name to Ranger and tried to mock me. But i turne dagainst him, found that nice and now Walker Texas Ranger is my nickname.

Yeah, we usually have 16A breakers with a main GFI at the panel. sockets and lights are usually mixed. Standard domestic service is (e. g. for an appartment of 1000 square feet) 3 phase 230/400V, each phase 25A or more, sometimes only 20 in old buildings.
About grounding: I sometimes get confused with the abbreviations, but we either have a ground rod (mostly in rural areas) or ground bonded to neutral at service entry.
Any more questions?

Hi Tex,

Many thanks for all the information. Several of your points will no doubt cause some debate.

The continued use of double-pole fusing (hot and neutral) is certainly unusual. We had some such installations in Britain many years ago, but the use of a fuse in the neutral was taken out of our regulations back in the 1930s.

My apologies for using abbreviations you might not know. Even between here and the U.S.A. where we supposedly speak the same language there are ome big differences in terminology.

RCD (Residual Current Device) is the current British term equivalent to the American GFI.

PEN is the (non-American) English abbreviation for Protective Earth Neutral. It describes the system in which the main earth/ground from the house is bonded to the neutral at the service entrance. It is also called PME (Protective Multiple Earthing) in Britain, and it is the standard arrangement for all supplies in America.

The system you described with an earth rod and main GFI is also very common in rural areas in the U.K.

The ban on metal conduit is very interesting. Don't you use it even in heavy-duty industrial systems? (Sounds like the exact opposite of Chicago!)

Sparky:
What's with "Code Book DOWN UNDER" ? I think you need to clean your specs - He's in Austria, not Australia!

oops ! .....my bad......

Ah well... Nobody's keeping score!

thanks for your explanations, pauluk.
As i mentioned I'm not too familiar with heavy industry applications, but I think they use metal conduit there. I also saw it for overhead services, between weatherhead and meter box.
But for any other residential purpose it's banned. You don't have to replace it in most cases, but it's not used for new installations.
I have to say that that old style conduit was a really ugly thing. It was not a real pipe but made of thin metal plates, with an inside covering of asphalted cardboard. It is usually a pain in the ... to rewire that 'cause it's very narrow and rough.
However still better than single wires directly put into plaster, very common method from the 20ies to 50ies.
Boxes were the same style, round (7 cm in diameter), ungrounded and covered with asphalted cardboard. Kent already mentioned them in pauluk's thread. Maybe I sometimes send a pic of them, I found one that was never used. Junction "boxes" were rectangular wooden frames, the wires were pulled through between wall and frame. I really like them, because there deppht can vary, so you can put in lots of additional wires without having trouble. Also the hole in the wall doesn't need to be as deep as for boxes. Sometimes you hardly need to touch the bricks.

Yes, I thought about the description Kent gave of Swedish junction boxes as soon as I read yours. We've never used anything like that here. Conduit was used in some homes in the 1920s and 1930s, but (like modern conduit) it had no internal covering. The wires used back then were rubber insulated and normally had a kind of impregnated cotton covering.

There's nothing to stop anyone using metallic conduit in the home now, but of course the cost in materials and labor mean that it's almost never done. Since WWII just about all domestic wiring is sheathed cables, rubber at first, PVC since the 1950s. The fixture boxes for recessed switches and outlets are still usually metallic, and need to be grounded.

From your comparisons with U.S. wiring, would I be right in thinking that you have spent some time in America? If so, then you'll be aware of how American house construction varies from that found in Europe.

Here in Britain, though, we also have most houses built from brick, so the problems of plaster coverings put straight on to a brick wall sound very familiar.

As you describe in Austria, timber partitions with plasterboard (drywall) are now common for internal walls here, but exterior walls are still most often plaster on brick, making it difficult to run cables and to sink boxes into the wall. And many old houses have solid brick interior walls as well, though some have brick in strategic load-bearing areas and lath-&-plaster elsewhere.

Do you have most meters inside the house, or mounted in a panel outside? Do you have tariffs that provide cheaper power at night? What sort of prices do you have to pay per unit? Is there a fixed monthly charge, or does it vary depending upon the maximum rating of your service as in some other parts of Europe?

By the way, your English is pretty good!

We used the same wires as pauluk described, but until the late 50ies. In the 30ies insulation usually was rubber with cotton only wound tightly around the wire. When you start pulling on a single end you can rip down the whole covering. It was used for either surface mounted knob and tube wiring or directly put into plaster as far as I've seen. In the 60ies PVC insulation came up, either single wires in conduit or a special type of double sheathed zip cord, with more space between the conductors. still common, in Germany more than in Austria. Romex came up in the late 70ies or early 80ies, but had to be in conduit when put in plaster. Since the early 90ies it is common to put Romex directly into plaster or use flexible PVC conduit. In cellars or other damp locations the only way of wiring is still to put Romex in conduit.
To the differences between European and American building: I have been to the US only for short periods, but once I lived in an old house in NYC that was short before breakdown, there I had good possibility to study the inside of walls, ect. Furthermore I'm interested in international building, kinda hobby, so I searched the web.
Most meters are inside the house, another difference. Power is cheaper at night. We have different tariffs depending on the rating of the service. For instance there's one for small homes, one for bigger homes, one for small business,...
thanks for the comments, "blame" my teachers, I learnt it at school.

Now I have a question mostly concerning the Americans in this forum, but evereybody who knows about, please help me.
A friend asked me for a favor. He wants to have one room wired American style. That means 120V, american boxes, switches, receptacles,...
I found very much info on the web but I'd be glad for every hint you can give me.
We're going to start with a standard 15A plug-in transformer from the next electrician. This will be enough as he also wants to keep up a 230V circuit for some appliances that only work at this voltage.
Now I need to buy the whole stuff on the internet, and I even found some electric supplies that sell over the internet. But I could only find boxes listed by inch size, so I have no real idea what i need for example for single switches or duplex receptacles.
Do you know any electrical supply you know that it ships to Europe?

Hi Texas Ranger,

well.... if your going to step down & create a nuetral, you'd have what we might call an SDS, or seperatly derived system. This gets into a bruhaha of grounding, etc...( at least according to our NEC here..)

Internet suppplies? yes yes..
http://www.e-barnett.com/
(they'll send a catalog if asked..)

edited for SP....

[This message has been edited by sparky (edited 12-20-2001).]

OOPS!



[This message has been edited by sparky (edited 12-20-2001).]

Tex,

I think you'll find that the standard single-gang mounting box is about 4 inches high by 2-1/4 inches wide. It will take a switch, single receptacle, or duplex receptacle. You can then fit a cover plate which has the appropriate openings and of the style you want.

Some single-gang boxes are designed to be gangable, e.g. you could fit two of them together for two switches and use a single cover plate of the appropriate size.

Thanks for your help.
As I'm already working in some kind of "grey zone" I don't think much about problems with the code. (All fixtures are not approved in Austria, ect) I was mostly interested in practical and security issues. I think the biggest problem will be that we will have to get even the lightbulbs in America as there's no 110V country around.
e-Barnet doesn't seem to be a really good idea, probably I'll try electricsupplyonline. However they use more abbreviations than you can imagine. So shopping there will be a nice pile of work. I'll also maybe get some stuff from laner.com. Does anyone has experiences with these companies?

You could order a limited range of 110V filament bulbs from England if you want.

Although all our "normal" lights are 240V, we have 110V power for lights and tools on building sites. You won't find candle, colored, or other fancy types, but regular pearl 40, 60 and 100W types are available in BC (Bayonet Cap) and ES (Edison Screw) fittings. The latter are the same bases as used in the U.S. and in Europe.

Try www.tlc-direct.co.uk

Have you found a suitable transformer for your project?

One of our surplus dealers here currently has a 5kVA unit, tapped 220-230-240V primary and 120/240V center-tapped secondary for about £110 (plus 17.5% VAT, although I wouldn't want to guess at the shipping costs to Austria!).

The thing about the bulbs is a good idea.
They sell plug-in type transformers with 1600W for travellers, they're around ATS 500,- ($30).
That will be enough for the 3 light bulbs, the stereo and the phone answering machine he wants to use.
I also won't have troubls with extra fusing for protecting the transformer and so on.
Interesting facts about the 110V in England!

Ah, that's sounds fine -- I wasn't sure exactly what your friend wanted to run from the transformer. Some places here also sell small (100VA to 2kVA) transformers ready fitted with a U.S. outlet for those wanting to use imported equipment.

Just one point about the audio equipment though. Does it include a record deck, and was it intended for North America? If so, and if the deck motor runs directly from the AC line then it will run slow due to the difference in supply frequency (60Hz America, 50Hz Europe).


The 110V for lights and power tools on building sites here is required by Health & Safety rules. The transformer used to supply the power has a grounded center-tap on the secondary so that no line is more than 55V to earth (big sites can use a 3-phase 110V xfmr which gives about 63V to ground on each leg).

I know some parts of Europe (including some of France and Spain) had 127/220V distribution, before standardization at 220/380. Were such 3-phase systems used in Austria?

You might also like to look at the thread "Historical systems" in the General Discussion area. I posted a quote from a book about a early (1880s) system used at the theatres in Vienna (Sorry, Wien!).

Merry Christmas!


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-24-2001).]

About the audio equipment: it's a Sony compact stereo from the late 70ies with only radio and tape deck, intended to work nearly everywhere. You can set it to 100, 120, 127, 220 and 240V, works on 50 or 60Hz, but has a standard unpolarized, ungrounded American plug.
I found some nice pics, try to post them (some taken in the US, the family I was staying with once had rather strange arrangements in their NYC appartment, some from a german DIY book "Basic electrical repairs easy done", contains pics and wiring schemes, some taken when rewiring an appartment.)
Question: What are those standard US switches called? I mean the light switches with a small handle sticking out of them.
I like them, they were common around here in the 50ies and early 60ies, was rather surprised to find them everywhere in the US.
A little bit late, but merry x-mas to all.

Sorry, already found out about the switches when browsing the Home Depot site. Must be toggle switches. Interesting what they sell, especially those "fit a grounded plug into an ungrounded receptacle"-adaptors for 57 cents. Impossible to even think of selling that kinda stuff here.
What do you think of computer power cords for 83 cents each?

Toggles were common here until the 1970s, but the British manufacturers only make rockers now, except for a few high-priced brass types (e.g. mock Edwardian).

I prefer toggles, and I particularly like the American traditional-style types. If and when I come to do a rewire on any future house I buy, I'll probably order a batch for myself. Some types are rated 277V (used for commercial lighting in the States), so they're fine for our 220 - 240V in Europe.

By the way, which way up are your light switches in Austria? Down for on as in Britain, or up for on as in America?

Usually up for on, but it's hard to distinguish, so most electricians put them in as they want. Sometimes even the labeling on the switch is top-down, as the one in my room. I personally prefer the American way.
Historic facts: Until the mid 70 ies there was the old color coding. Hot was black, neutral grey, and, important for anyone used to the British system, GROUND is red. It's still Legal in old systems and as the wires are mostly in decent shape you'll find it quite often. However, no one stuck to this. Most commonly all wires had the same color. I've seen both wires black, both white, both green, both yellow, zip cord buried in plaster, ...

Yeah, most electrical accessories like power cords are cheaper in the U.S. than anywhere in Europe (Just like books, clothes, cars, food, houses.... Sigh!)

I grew up with the British down=on, but having gotten used to it in America I prefer up=on as well. I was already used to this arrangement on a lot of imported Japanese test equipment anyway.

I was going to ask about Austrian color codes before the European standard came in. I'd read that Germany used to use the black/gray/red scheme, so I wondered if it had also been used in Austria.

I've often tried to find out what was used in other European countries before brown/blue/green-yellow, but I've never had any luck tracking down the details.
Getting a list of the other countries' systems might give a clue as to why the present colors were selected as a common standard.

The U.K. adopted the common European colors in 1970, but only for flexible cords on appliances. Fixed wiring cables stayed with the original colors, which leads to some conflict (although the original green for ground was later changed to green-yellow).

By the way, due to trading & historical factors, the Republic of Ireland has generally followed British practice.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-27-2001).]

As far as I know the GDR and Hungary also had the black-gray-red-code. Hungary also had aluminum wiring. Maybe Kent can tell us if that color code was also used in sweden.
I know the old British color code since I took apart a really old Tape recorder years ago. It was manufactured by Modern Techniques, no idea when. It had no plug, only bare wire ends and I tried to hook it up but didn't succed. No wonder when you try to connect the hot to the ground. However, no one got shocked and it was broken anyway. So I threw it to the dump. Never saw something like that again.

Maybe I'll tell something about phones in Austria. Now we have tonbe dial and a semi-digital system like most other countries, but since fall 2000 there was also the old system, based on pulse dial. Due to the fact that there were not enough phone wires in the streets in the 50ies or maybe even earlier our national phone company invented two kinds of phone connections. There was one, more expensive, where a customer had an own line and could call whenever he/she wanted. And there were parted lines, called "quarter accounts". 4 to 10 users shared one line and only one could talk. the phone had a button you had to press before dialing. If you got the dial tone you were lucky, if not, you had to wait. In suburban areas like the one i live in, the phone lines were built for one single-user connection per house, but in the late 80ies big appartment blocks for wealthy people were built who often had a single connection in every appartment, so the other people hardly ever got those connections. (My father applied for one for 10 years because he needed it for his business. He never got one. The lapidar answer by the post officer was: There are already five phones at that line. We cant't hook you up too. Wait for the change to digital system. We never figured out how they managed to hook up five single connections to one line, even with the help of a telecom worker.)

I've always been fascinated with telephone systems, so your comments are interesting. In fact, some years ago I worked for British Telecom. That was just after privatization in about 1982; prior to that our telephone network was state-owned and run by our GPO (General Post Office), much like the PTTs you have in many parts of Continental Europe.

Digital exchanges are now installed in all but the most remote parts of the U.K. Tone dialing started to be introduced in the 1980s; the DTMF tones are the same as those used in the U.S. and worldwide, although our supervisory tones (ring, busy, etc.) are different. All lines will still accept pulse dial.

We also had party lines here, but usually with only two subscribers per line. Most, if not all, have now been phased out.

Distinction between the two parties was by simple wiring changes to the phones at each house. In British terminology the "tip" connection (+) is the A-wire and the "ring" connection (-) is the B-wire. For a normal line the bell is wired with its series capacitor across the line.

For a party line however, a ground rod was installed at each house. The bell on one phone (called the X subscriber) was then wired B-wire to ground, and that on the other (the Y subscribe) from A-wire to ground. That way the exchange could ring either bell separately.

The "Call" button, used to obtain dial tone, was wired to interrupt the normal loop and ground the B-wire on one phone (x), the A-wire on the other (Y).

In practice, the wiring in the telephone at both subscribers was identical, but the A and B wires would be swapped over at the junction box of the Y subscriber. Party-line phones were always hard-wired.

The colors used for the phone cords then were: red (B), white (A), blue, and green. Blue was normally used between extension phones to prevent bell-tinkling. Green was usually the bell return -- grounded on party lines, strapped to white at the junction box on normal lines.

The same colors are used on modern phones with modular-style jacks (not the same as U.S. types), but the bell wiring is different. Fixed wiring colors are different again.

I know some rural areas of the U.S.A. used to have party lines with 3 or more subscribers. I believe they added frequency-selective bells for ringing and outgoing calls were identified by the phone placing different values of resistance to ground.

Maybe the Austrian system used some combinaton of these methods?

More about phones.
ALL our phones were hardwired. single lines had a 4-conductor junction box, though only 2 were used, maybe three for an additional bell. I think tip and ring are reversed here. a is white, b is brown. Party lines here were much more complicated. There was a complicated circuit at the service station, and more electronics in the j-box, which was about 20 to 20 to 10 cm. They used a 10 conductor cable between box and phone, with lots of colors. Party lines had always numbers with one additional digit (in Vienna 7 digits instead of 6) and the last digit distinguished between the users. So you could see by the numbers who hung together. They have all been replaced by I think November 2000.
Additional: Old party line phones (until mid seventies) had a circle indicator. Normally it was black. when you picked up the handset it started turning black and white, then the line was free. Or it immediately turned white, and the line was busy. So you didn't have to press the dial button when you knew the line was busy. First phone numbers in Vienna had 5 digits. In the 20ies or 30ies a new system came up. 6 digits, the first one a letter, for example U 26 350. It was like the American 1-800-NYTIMES numbers. Then in the late 50ies the 6- and 7 digit system came up. Now all numbers have 7 digits, in smaller cities or villages 4 to 6. Our OEPT (Oesterreichische Post- und Telegraphenverwaltung, Austrian Post and Telegraph department) was privatized to PTA (Post und Telekom Austria) around 1997.

[This message has been edited by Texas_Ranger (edited 12-29-2001).]

Your party line systems sound as though they were quite complex with a relay set and indicator on the phone. Did the system prevent you from over-hearing conversatios; it sounds as though the complex switching might have done so.

There was no special relationship between the two numbers for a party line here; each line could be jumpered to any valid outlet on the final selector.

Numbering schemes here used varying numbers of digits, from 3-digits on small rural exchanges to 4, 5, or 6-digits in towns. London had 7 digit numbers, originally assigned as 3 letters plus 4 numbers, e.g. MAY 2765 (Mayfair). Five other big cities had similar schemes. The dials were slightly different to U.S. types, in that 6 was just MN, and the letter O was on the zero. The letters were dropped about 30 years ago to give more capacity. Were Austrian dials any different?

STD (Subscriber Trunk Dialling) was introduced in the late 1950s, but it was already possible in many areas to call neighboring exchanges directly with local dialling codes (e.g. 9, 91, 82).

The STD code for London was 01, those for the other five big cities 021, 031, etc. Originally they were written with the middle digit as a letter, e.g. 0L1 (051) for Liverpool.

The smaller towns were allocated codes such as 0FA6 (Falmouth) and 0BR2 (Bristol), but again the letters were dropped later to give 0326, 0272, etc.

Over the last few years there have been a lot of changes. The 3,4, and 5-digit numbers have all been made up to 6 digits, and London and a few other areas have now been given 8-digits.

The STD codes have changed as well to make room for more mobile, premium, toll-free codes etc. The recent changes were badly planned: The code/numbers for London have changed no less than three times in the last few years.

Have you implemented the new EU-wide 112 emergency number there yet? What are the Austrian codes for emergency, operator, information, and so on?

Yes, I was told that the party line system was about the most complex system ever used here. It prevented from over-hearing conversations. There was only one special issue: When the handset was taken off without calling, anyone who called could overhear the conversations in the room without being noticed. On single lines he/she would have gotten the busy signal under these circumstances.
I have no idea about the letter scheme as it was dropped long before I was born. I have a phone from 1949, but it has a newer rotary dial without letters. I think STD was introduced about the same time, but rural areas had operator based manual connections until the early 70ies. With the area codes they messed around a lot. In the last 15 years nearly everything changed. If you get a phone number that is older than 10 years cou can be almost sure it won't work any more, because during the exchange to digital system everyone's phone number was changed. Some area codes remained, but for example Vienna was changed from 0222 to 01 a few years ago. There were also special short area codes in some areas, for example from Baden to Wien (about 20 km or less) it was 9 (I think), though I'm not sure as I never used them, and they all started with 9.
The 112 number is not yet implemented, our emergency numbers are 122 for fire department, 133 for police and 144 for ambulance.There are some more of those 1.. numbers, for example the automobile clubs have special emergency lines. Numbers for information, service hotline (we have a special hotline to report numbers that doesn't work, broken phones owned by the company, ... With Telekom Austria in Vienna 11120) have changed so often I always need to look them up.
Some words about directories here. There are directories for every one of our 9 states, bigger states like lower Austria have more than one, for example Lower Austria north-east, LO north-west, LO south-east and LO south-west. Bigger cities have their own directory. The Vienna directory once consisted of four yellow A4 size, 2" thick books, white pages A-H, I-Q and R-Z, and yellow pages. Now They took thinner paper and print smaller, so we've only got A-L, M-Z and yellow pages.
Normally your number, with full name, title and address shows up in the directory, but you can pay extra money every year for having it not show up. Those numbers are called "secret numbers". Another viennese speciality is that you'll rarely find a company by their company name in the directory. You'll probably find it under the former owner's grandfather's name or something like that. Sometimes we make jokes about the companies, that they don't want to be found.
We have 5 mobile phone networks at the moment, 4 GSM, 1 analog ETACS, will be shut down on February 1st. Thats's a real pity, it's far the cheapest, and the used phones come for about $10 in excellent shape. The STD codes are: analog D-Net 0663 + 6/7 digit number, A1(fomerly E-Net) 0664 + 7-digit-number (owned by the same company, former monopolyst) max. 0676 + 7-digit-number, ONE 0699 + 8-digit-number and TeleRing 0650 + 7-digit-number. Ther were some other networks, for example the A-net, operator-based car phone network, no idea when it was shut down, The B-Net, also car phone, for the STD you had to know where the person wasfor example I think Vienna area was 02225. Then there was the C-Net, cellular car phone network, STD 0663 and a 5-digit number, shut down in 1997.
At least in Vienna we have an area numbering scheme. When you see a number a number you can tell by the first 2 or three digits where in Vienna the subscriber is located, for example numbers starting with 51 are downtown, numberst starting with 2 are somewhere on the end of the world, across the danube. However, this is only practised by Telekom. Alternative companies usually provide numbers starting with 9, In Vienna this would be Priority Telekom with 92, 93?, 94, 96 and 97 numbers spread all over Vienna.

112 has been in operation here for a couple of years now, though few people know about it. BT announced that they have no plans to withdraw our traditional 999 emergency number (in use since the 1930s) for the forseeable future.

In pre-STD days people just dialed 0 for the operator, but that was changed to 100 to allow 0 as the long-distance prefix.
There are other operator codes as well, such as 151 for fault reports, 150 for customer service and so on.

The London codes changed in 1990 as they split the old 01 area into 071 (inner) and 081 (outer). Then a few years later all normal STD codes were changed to add a 1 into them, so they became 0171 and 0181 (and the code here - 0692 - changed to 01692). Then most recently they decided to make London numbers up to 8 digits and put them all back into one area with the code 020. Business people in the capital have not been happy with the trouble and expense for new signs etc. every time.

Many other codes (e.g. 0800, 0645, 0336, 0839) had been added haphazardly for toll-free, special rate, mobile phones, pagers, etc. so they're now trying to re-organize the codes to make them more consistent.

The first digits of a local number used to tell you the district within the STD area code, but that can't be relied upon anymore due to number "portability" and all the alternative carriers that have started appearing.

To be blunt, in the last 10 to 15 years our telephone network has become an absolute mess.

It's interesting that you have to pay extra for a "secret" number. An unlisted number (called "ex-directory") is available upon request here at no charge. These days it's also possible to have a sort of intermediate status where your number isn't listed in the book but can be obtained via directory assistance (called "directory enquiries" - dial 192).

If you're interested in the "good old days," you might like this:

www.light-straw.co.uk/ate

A little late for those of us on this side of the big pond, but Happy New Year!

[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 12-31-2001).]

I found out some additional stuff. Some unlisted numbers can be obtained via directory enquiries (118 200 for numbers in Austria and Germany, 118 202 for the rest of the world), some not. No idea why.
The operator service for manually connected long-distance calls is still in service, it has only changed from 09 to 118 16.

Back to standard electric.
I was sometimes really surprised abvout the small number of different receptacle/switch styles in the US. Here in Austria you have a wide range of differently styled fixtures, which only thing in common is that you can put in the same plugs. For example you would never be able to combine a Legrand wallplate with a Kopp receptacle, as you can do with a Mulberry and a Leviton one.
Some common wiring pratice:
Any horizontal wiring has to be within I think about 1' from the ceiling or floor, most commonly rhe ceiling, so there's less "chain wiring" as seen in the US. This rule tells you where not to drill holes, and it exists to reduce the risk of drilling holes into wires. Diagonal wiring is completely forbidden. So most wires are horizontally beneath the ceiling with a junction box above most of the switches/receps. Or we use one j-box between two or more fixtures and pull l-shaped lines down.
In older buildings these rules are not necessarily obeyed. Some electricians must really have loved diagonal wiring, wires running in circles, ...
Very common is also the "T'nT" splice. Before the chocolate block type connectors came up wires were twisted and taped together, then usually put in plaster or in one of those wooden frame junction boxes. Those block connectors were also sometimes put in plaster. Even without tape...
Love to scratch the plaster out of the screws!
Nice example for often repaired and extended work here: We have 7 j-boxes, 4 receptacles (2 ungrounded) , one wall light and one ceiling fixture with simple on-off switch, all that in 3 rooms. The wires start in the biggest room in a j-box. 4 cloth and rubber covered wires in plaster, not really in code but nothing unusal about. the second j-box is where the wires would normally go. They don't show up. Then there's the first receptacle. It has 2 plastic covered wires in plaster coming in ( and a later added ground). The second receptacle in this room is fed by 2 very thin ( 0,75 sq mm) plastic covered wires running beneath the ceiling through a 3rd j-box above the door to the second room where the wires to the 2nd room's light fixture should go. Now about the second room: there's a j-box (#4) directly next to the switch and receptacle # 3. Here we have 1 cloth and one plastic covered wire, coming from diagonally downwards, obviously from receptacle #2, what can't be true as the box there only contains 2 wires. No ground any more. j-box #4 has also 1 Romex leaving to 3 more j-boxes, the bathroom wall light on the other side of the wall and receptacle #4. Now to the switch: The phase goes from the receptacle to the old toggle switch and then disappears upwards. There must be a neutral somewhere! In junction box #3 you can actually see THREE wires going up to the ceiling fixture, where only 2 arrive.

Remember that it actually works!
Concerning the receptacles it can be figured out quite easily what they did, but I have no idea about the light. I just have to rip open these walls. I'm too curious.

[This message has been edited by Texas_Ranger (edited 01-02-2002).]

You can still get the operator to connect long-distance calls here, but unless you really need to (e.g. for collect calls, called "reverse charge") you'd be mad to do it, as it's horrendously expensive.

The days of knowledgable operators are gone as well. A couple of years ago I called our international operator to ask for a current U.S. area code (somewhere in N.C. if I recall correctly). She said "00 1" (prefix and U.S. country code) so I expectantly waited for the rest. "That's it," she said, "00 1." I tried to explain that I needed the 3-digit area code, but no luck. She didn't seem to even understand what I was asking for. Quicker to just call the AT&T operator direct and get it.

I had a similar experience trying to get a number in Ireland from directories here. I ended up having to give the operator a lesson in Irish number schemes
but still didn't get it. He kept giving me a 1850 number which can't be dialed from outside Ireland. I eventually called the Irish operator who took pity on me and connected me for free!

***

I don't like the sound of twisted and taped wires just buried direct in plaster. It sounds like something a GC I know would suggest.

Similar routing restrictions apply under IEE Regs.: Horizontal runs within top or bottom 1 ft. (300mm), vertical drops in line with fittings where possible, and no diagonal runs.

The smallest size cable currently permitted is 1 sq. mm., although that's reserved almost completely for 5A lighting ciruits. We use 0.75 sq. mm only for flexible cords.

Most wall switches and receptacles used domestically here are a one-piece device and cover plate. Individual devices and plates are available, but tend to be more expensive so they're used mostly in commercial work.

Where individual devices and plates are used they usually need to be the same manufacturer. They all fit standard size mounting boxes though, as do most of the one-piece types.

Do you like the Schuko plugs and sockets? I know it doesn't really matter for most appliances, but I'm not sure I'm happy about them not being polarized. There are one or two cases where it can be important. Did Austria ever use any other type?

With the operator it's the same here. You always have to pay for full 3 minutes, and I don't know how much.

I don't like that either, especially in case of loose connections, when you have no idea where that splice exactly is and have to trace the whole wire by ripping up the entire wall. However, sometimes it's the same with j-boxes. The covers are often under so many layers of wallpaper and sometimes even a thin layer of plaster that you'd never find them. Sometimes they even are in the next room.
With the combo devices it's the exact opposite here. Combo devices that usually fit a single-gang box are horrendously expensive, so if any possible you avoid using them. Standard are modular frame wall plates where you can fit in almost everything, like switches, receptacles, phone jacks, TV jacks, Network jacks, ...
You just buy a 1, 2, 3 or 4-gang frame and the inserts that already come with the covers and screws. Frames and inserts have to be from the same manufacturer, except for some cheap imitations that fit the original. For example at Baumax (like Home Depot) you get the E-Tronics series that are imitations of the Kopp series and can be mixed. The boxes are all the same, either single, 2 and 3-gang or gangable. The biggest frames available are for 4-gang boxes.
0.75 sq mm wires are not permitted for fixed work here either, but the wires I'm talking of are at least 30 years old and probably have never been in code. Standard wire here is 1.5 sq mm rated for 16A.
Another nice thing about these rooms: All that stuff is fused for 16A. A licensed electrician did that 10 years ago. I first got suspicious when I hooked up a 150 W computer and a 60 W light to one of these receptacles and the lamp always got darker when the computer was switched on. i opened the receptacle and found 1.5 sq mm Romex. Then I traced it back to the next j-box. 0.75 sq mm single wires. Nice!

Schuko plugs and sockets: I have nothing against them, only they're a little bit big. We don't think much about polarization here, except for DC. I found an old book which stated that in ceiling light sockets the black wire has always to be connected to the bottom of the socket, the gray one to the screwshell.
However, that does't apply to modern sockets.

Older receptacles were nearly flat, with a 5 mm depp round hole that prevnted things getting between socket and plug, plugs were round with 2 prongs slightly thinner than the new ones. You can easily put a Schuko plug in one of those receptacles. Then there are special plugs for higher currents and for 3-phase. They look almost the same, only size, colour and number of prongs are different. 3-phase plugs are gray-red or yellow-red, fairly big and have five prongs. (3 phases, Neutral, ground). they're fairly common, for table saws, air compressors, farm equipment and most construction equipment like concrete mixers and that stuff.
Another nice story about that appartment and our licensed electricians: There were 2 journeymen working. one wired a junction box. he only twisted and taped (forbidden, you have to use block connectors everywhere). When the the other one saw that he asked him what he was doing. He said "Why not? It had benn that way before!" This in broadest viennese with yugoslavian elements. "Wieso? Des woa ollaweu so!"
So much about qualified work around here.

So your "code" now allows wiring either way to a light socket? That's interesting, as both the British IEE Regs and the American NEC require the outer shell to be neutral.

Unlike the U.S. and Europe though, Edison Screw bulbs aren't so common here. The majority of bulbs are a twin-contact bayonet type and thus reversible, so it makes no difference which way the holder is wired.

If you consider the Schuko plug to be big and bulky, I'm not sure what you'd think of the British 13A plug. That's really bulky!

I've seen the old 2-pin non-grounding plugs you describe elsewhere in Europe. The plugs are similar to one of our older types, except our pins ar slightly shorter, thicker, and spaced a little more closely together. They were conservatively rated at just 5A though. The grounding version had an extra pin (longer and thicker) in triangle formation.

The much larger 15A version had huge pins.



[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 01-03-2002).]

I dont have exacz ideas about that light socket stuff, but our modern light sockets have 2 terminals at the bottom, so only the bulb, not the socket goes hot. Furthermore I never again found anything about that rule, it seems to have disappeared in modern books. And it only matters with fixtures. Every lamp with a plug can be plugged in either way, so the wiring of the socket is quite unimportant.
I know the British plugs, they are huge. I always think of Italian, Swiss or American ones, where especially extension strips are much smaller than here.

I know what you mean as I've seen extension strips for Schuko outlets, and the ones for French plugs which are almost the same (just the reversed pin for ground instead of the side contacts).

We can get 3-way "cube" adapters for our 13A British plugs. One of those with a full complement of three 13A plugs is huge!

That's one reason why I still like to use the older 5A round-pin plugs in my workshop. They're much smaller and neater, and ideal where you have a lot of low power equipment.

Back again!
As soon as I get the film developed I can post tons of violations. I stumbled over an appartment where it is senseless to count how many and which rules are broken. It would be more interesting to count which rules are actually NOT broken.
Just think of yellow-green phases, live bare copper wires just plastered in, arcing connections in junction boxes, ...

Texas,

Welcome Back,
Where've you been, on 'walkabout'?

...Oh, that's Australia, Right?
(couldn't resist that one)

I'm looking forward to hearing about and seeing those pictures.

Bill

Let's start at the meter panel. Here in Austria the meter is usually inside the appartment, in one box with the fuses/breakers.
Before I actually saw that appartment I thought of one or maybe 2 6 or 10A circuits. When i opened the door of the fuse box I found 4 16 A fuses staring at me (phases and neutrals for 2 circuits, nothing unusual here.) However, all wiring was rated for max. 10A. Normally it's impossible to screw in greater fuses, but some ingenious guy had removed the screws at the bottom of the element that should prevent that. One of the hallway switches (an old toggle) works only after several slaps on the cover, some switches only stay in the box because the 4-5 layers of wallpaper keep them in place,...
bare copper wires in the plaster,... I have no idea why that never burnt down.