French sockets in Swiss house - Electrical inspection, will it pass?

Accomodation, House and Garden
1
Hi all - still working on my house, spent a fortune at Hornbach to buy swiss sockets and switches. I'll be fitting all of that for my regular house here in Switzerland. HOWEVER, I am building a separate studio in my house that will be independent from the main house, and will be used by friends and family when they come to visit (and the occasional airbnb guest).

I want to just set up the whole studio with French sockets from LeroyMerlin at 1/10th of the price of their Swiss equivalent, and I am tired of enriching Hager (which by the way, is of shockingly poor quality). I need to pay for an inspection of my electrics at some points in the next 4 years as I just bought the house, will the inspection pass assuming everything is done up to European standards and Swiss standards? Anyone has done this before or experienced this?

Thank you!

2
If you fail. Fit Swiss sockets.

Then after the next inspection...

3
No, they will not pass.

Make an extension board with French sockets that plugs into the Swiss, and you will be fine, but it MUST NOT BE A FIXED INSTALLATION!

Hope this is clear.

Tom

P.S. BTDT, a couple years ago, with local guys who were very friendly and were happy to relate the fine details, and even some of my home-brew stuff passed, and other stuff not, and I learned why and how to fix it.

4
You WILL fail with Schuko sockets, as the P and N can easily be inverted.

They are dangerous foreign garbage!

Tom

5

French aren't Schuko, they are with a bolt in middle and it cannot be reversed.

6

Very clear, thank you))

I'll pass inspection on the house and put one of the old Swiss socket I'll retrieve from the kitchen in the studio as a lonely socket for now before wiring it all up. I still have to replace the electrical board for the house, fortunately those seem to be the same in Switzerland as in France...

Ps: Swiss sockets in the kitchen are around 10 years old so have those grooves to make them compliant fortunately, rest of the house wasn't!

7
Tom is right! Never ever use power outlets from France or any other EU or non EU countries. The inspector won't like it. Chances are that he's a French frontalier himself but he has to abide by Swiss regulations. If your house catches fire for whatever reasons and they found out you were using non Swiss plugs, you can get into serious trouble.

8
Can't be done - they are incompatible.

Not just the shape of the sockets/plugs, which is what you're talking about, but in general. For example, in Switzerland it's mandatory to use solid copper wires inside the walls, in Italy it's forbidden (Chtulhu knows why).

In CH you must follow CH standard, and only that

If by "grooved" you mean "recessed", new installation of non-grooved (T12) sockets is forbidden, but existing ones can be kept.

While I appreciate the extra clarity given by Swiss code regarding P and N, I never truly grasped the practical* difference for home usage, since million of people live daily with invertible (and inverted!) P and N.

Only hi-end esoteric audiophiles recommend to search and label your P on the stereo socket.

Not complaining here, just curious.

*of course P is switched and N isn't. But as long as I don't fiddle with the socket, my hairdryer won't notice the difference, will it?

9
So that's why! I did not know that... but having fiddled with the plugs in both countries I can tell you the swiss system is much less easy to fiddle with, as the wires are not so pliable.

Getting the plug or switch boxes back into the wall is a right faff.. and colours of cables come in all sorts (because of dimmers and what not) I have to use a live wire tester on each one each time.

And I concur, swiss prices are crazy .... Search for a Dimmer in Jumbo CH costs 120 to 210 francs... do the same in Obi in Italy 25 to 70 eur... TIS

10
The prices are just silly - for light switches I doubt they can fail you for using simple switches from Italy (I don't know the answer, but it wouldn't make sense). The electrical cables are copper in France and are the same at Hornbach or LeroyMerlin. Electrical standards for the bathroom I checked and they seem to be the same for France and Switzerland, I guess I should have said France and not EU standards. I got the France Schneider Electrician guide book for all my electrics, and it's a French guide book, I follow it to the letter, checked a couple of things earlier on b/een Swiss and French standards and found them to be the same so just went and wired everything according to French standards (apart from the type of sockets, thus the question)

Thanks all for your inputs!

11
You are allowed to fit foreign sockets but you must have a Swiss socket in the same combination/ immediate vicinity.

Qualification: Elektroinstallateur EFZ

12
Regardless of trying to pass the electrician check - if you change it afterwards and then it burns down, it’s likely your insurance might not pay out.

How often do you have to have this check, we had it done when buying property, but wondering when it’s next due?

13

I changed broken dimmers to Zigbee electronic ones that fit behind the switch. I then put in Feller push switches with the push-to-make momentary action enabled.

They are as little as 40 CHF

Now I can control the lights in many ways:
Push switch to turn on Push switch to turn off Push and hold to dim or increase brightness Ask Alexa to do that, or from a mobile. It’s also set up with my home automation system so they turn off when all the kids have gone to school or come on at a set dimmer level when you issue a specific command to Alexa.
They also work well with modern dimmable LEDs compared with the old Feller rotary dimmers which had a variable success rate.

14
First of all it won’t pass and secondly doing this kind of thing just gives your insurance company the possibility of not giving you a payout if something goes wrong. So while you might save a few bucks on the wiring, you’d waste money on the insurance.

15
Will definitely not pass the inspection. I know the sockets are more expensive in Switzerland but I'm afraid you'll just have to stump up the cost and fit them.

16

DoIt Garden Migros has 25% off electrical sockets at the moment.

Have a look here .

The brand is Feller

17
Just a thought have you tried typing T13 Steckdose into Google and then clicking on "Shopping".

There seem to be some much cheaper alternatives/brands.

18
One last tip ... have a look on Ricardo, there is a lot of choice at very reasonable prices.

19
I just spent a week at a hotel in the Valais. They had sockets that appeared to accept just about every plug known to man. Swiss, Italian, European, UK, N. America, Antipodean ...

Didn't take a photo though.

Is this some special dispensation for hotels, or can anybody do it?