Ok, now comes the girl with no idea of electricity question. I am moving in a new place in 2 weeks and I observed that the flat do not have bulbs or anything, just dangly wires. What do I have to buy for fixing the bulbs?? I will appreciate picture and name.
I would like to have everything ready for the 1st day...If not I will need big candels.

Picture:



Name: Electrician

HA HA, very funny.
I will do it myself, I just need to know what to buy.

If you don't know what to buy, you almost certainly aren't qualified to do it yourself. With almost anything else involving home repairs, I'd urge you to have a try, but with a 220V electricity system you don't want to take chances unless you're absolutely certain what you're doing. Saving money on an electrician is a false economy.

In terms of fixtures and wiring, any wall-mounted light in Switzerland should have the necessary wires. If you're looking for something cheap-and-cheerful, try Ikea. Other well-known lighting stores include Lumimart. Either should be able to sort you out with something and offer you advice on fitting.

There are several handymen who advertise on English Forum. You should be able to find someone to fit your lights at a reasonable price on here.

Thank you.

I would like to know if you (men) know everything before doing...because always there is a first time. I help my father many times, it will not be a problem to do it myself. I just do not know the F$%&%$§ stuff I have to buy and even less their bloody names in German or english!

By the way, I have very good friends as well that they will be happy to help me. But will be easier when they have the stuff they need.

coop home and hobby, jumbo, bauhouse etc etc all sell light fitting, in the electrical dept, they are basic screw bulb fitting were you just push the 2 wires for the light into, you can't miss them, they are a few francs each. they have a little metal blade in that grabs the wire so they shouldn't fall out again (give the wire a little tug to make sure its securely in) you'll need to strip about 1cm of the plastic insulation from the wire to expose the metal core, the push one of the wires in each hole, doesn't matter which goes where (if you only have 2 wires, if you have an earth wire, usually green, then it most certainly does matter!).

Now the tricky part, there seems to be no standard wire colours here, electricians have there own colour schemes, as long as you only have 2 wires sticking out of your ceiling you should be ok, blue is usually neutral and live can be brown, black or purple (at least from what I have experiences here).

If in any doubt at all the get someone in, its really not worth the risk to yourself or that rather expensive electrical panel in your apartment

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Like I said before, for most things there is nothing wrong with a 'learning by doing' approach. If you hang a picture wrong, worst that happens is you end up with a hole in the wall. If you repaint a room, worst that happens is that you splatter paint. If you retile the floors, worst that happens is you break a few tiles and have to start over.

When it comes to electricity or gas, however, there's a good chance you can seriously injure or kill yourself. It's okay to do something the first time, but make absolutely sure you know what you're doing before you start. Whether that means learning from someone else or learning from a book, whatever you do don't guess about what is right. Make sure you turn the power off at the circuit breaker (not just at the switch) before you start anything.


I consider myself pretty handy around the house, but electricity is one thing I always let a professional handle. I understand wiring theory, but when confronted by mismatched wires put in by a Swiss electrician, I'd rather someone else take the chance of playing "which-is-which?". And I sleep better at night knowing that I'm unlikely to cause the house to burn down.

I can't stress this enough!! the swiss way to wire up lights is to put the switch on the live line, but the neutral line is straight from the mains 'as is' so even with the light turned off, if you touch the wires you can still get a shock

Essential kit when playing around with electricity...


...even after you have switched the fuse off...

At c. 5-10 CHF, probably the cheapest life saver around.

Totally true... and make sure that you're standing on a grounded object when testing. I tested, thought electricity was off, and managed to almost kill my husband in the process as he put up a bedroom fixture. It was quite the surprise when everything was attached and the light immediately came on! And I'm an engineer!

I'd keep that quiet around the workplace...

No kidding!

And do test this thing first on a live socket. LEDs have been known to fail and nothing is more dangerous than a false negative.

We like to know how everything works. And, to discover how things work, we'll either read up on it or take things apart and put them back together again - several times.
And then we'll make them better than they originally were.

We don't want to know that something works, we want to know how it works.

That's why men crash more cars. Everyone knows that there's a limit to road-holding ability. Men want to know where that limit is.

Boys like Meccano, technical lego and bits of wire and batteries and gearboxes.
Girls like dollies *

* Of course I'm simplifying things here a bit before one of you ladies bites my head off.