Electricity

Power limits & the Linky meter

In France, a house can only draw a limited amount of power at once. If that limit is exceeded for too long, the power cuts out. You won’t see a tripped breaker — instead, the whole apartment will simply lose power.

If that happens:

1. Go to the Linky meter. Facing the garage door, go up the stairs on the side; there’s a white box at the top — open it to see the meter.
2. The display will show something like “Puiss dépassée — Appuyez bouton” (power exceeded — press the button).
3. Turn off a device or two to reduce the load.
4. Press the button on the meter to restore power.

This should be rare — there should be enough headroom for everything you’d normally want to run from cold — but avoid running lots of high-draw appliances (heating, oven, dryer, etc.) all at once, especially upstairs.

Cheap electricity hours

The cheap tariff runs midnight–6am and 3–5pm. Worth keeping in mind if you’re running the dryer or similar.

Apartment fridge

The apartment fridge is plugged into a powerstrip at the bottom left, next to the vacuum. Switch it on — it may already be on. Please switch it back off before you leave.