Hi EveryoneCan anyone help with a question about lighting fittings

12/26/2020 - 03:58

Hi Everyone

Can anyone help with a question about lighting fittings for my Italian property please? I've bought a large property that needs renovation and want to buy my lights in the UK, and have them fitted into my Italian home. I am aware they won't (quite) be compatible and will need the Italian electrician to make some kind of conversion. Has anyone any knowledge or experience of handling this? It will be ceiling / pendant lights and also wall lights that I want to fit.

Many thanks!

Lin

Topic

Living

Location

Pisa

Comment

Not sure what the problem with UK lighting in Italy is.

Suppose there could be a problem with earthing in really old installations, but that's the only possible problem that I can think of.

One suggestion though - I found it very difficult to find bayonet fitting light bulbs, so buy fittings with the screw fittings. (And takes LED bulbs with you as they use so much less power -- my place only has a 3kW supply, so having lots of non-LED bulbs on can take up a fair bit of the supply.)

I would say, however, that you will get a really good choice of light fittings in Italy

Good luck

You need ES (screw) not bayonet fittings as AlanH says. You cannot buy incandescent bulbs in Italy so they must be LED. Otherwise they are exactly the same as UK light fittings, unless you want to earth them.

So can I use led, screw lamps from uk in italy without changing anything? I always wondered whether voltage would be an issue. I buy almost everything in italy but sometimes time is limited and I have a couple of spare table lamps and a spare hedge trimmer that I could use in italy. Would they work after a plug swap?

Any electrical equipment, lighting etc etc bought in the UK will work perfectly normally in Italy. The voltage is totally compatible

..............................

The only problem I've ever encountered is that some uk electrical things like toasters,irons , kettles etc have high wattage ratings, and can take most, if not all, of the available wattage from the house supply. It depends on how much your supply is. It may effect the possibility of using a hedge trimmer. There will be a plate on the trimmer that says what power, in Watts, the trimmer draws

As an example, a 3kW kettle would use all the 3kW supply in my Italian house, and when my daughter and 3 friends stayed here and all got their hair curling tongs out, the trip switch blew!!!

Many thanks. I'll give it a go when this madness is over and we can travel. We are in a small town in a fairly modern apartment so it might be okay for the trimmer. Fed up of using the hand cutter for my hedges. The worst that can happen is the trimmer gets a return trip back to UK.

If you have a copy of your electricity bill, you can probably see what your property's Wattage is.

On mine it has two figures

"Potenza contrattualmente impegnata" (Contracted supply amount) 3kW .......and

"Potenza Disponsibile" (Max wattage than be drawn (for a short period, but not for long)) 3.3Kw

So you can see what you can operate on it

Good Luck

Alan. Thank you. Every day is a day at school. I shall get a copy when next over there, I just pay on DD and I've never thought to read the detail on the bill. Tony

We made the mistake of taking over a U.K. electric job for our kitchen in italy. It uses too much wattage and causes the power to trip so we now need to replace it. It’s quite easy to upgrade the power supply. We were 4.5kw and recently upgraded to 6kw. You just need to visit the local office of your supplier and they switch it electronically without the need to change cables or equipment.

I never thought to check the kWh rating. Mine is a holiday home too but it was previously rented out before we bought it and my neighbours hedge trimmer worked okay plus we have the usual white goods so I suspect my supply is strong enough. I feel compelled to now find out. I have an online account with Servizio Electrico but I leave it to a relative to manage. Anyhow I can't face hand trimming hedges and lawn cutting anymore so power tools it is.

If your power supply isn't up to hedge trimming and lawn mowing, you could always get battery powered equipment.

At my place you can only run one of the following at a time;-

Oven
Washing Machine
Hoover
Electric Heaters (When we arrive in Winter, until Fire and Central Heating heats the place up)
Hair Dryer and
Iron

But, once you're used to it, it's easy to manage.

I've got all of those other than a vacuum cleaner. I also have a well pump. I shall turn everything on next time just to test the limit. I've got a battery trimmer but it's a bit fiacca, I used to borrow a petrol version from my farming uncle and that was a proper job. I shall now not rest easy until I know my kWh. thank you all especially the first posting, let's hope we get a better year.