Electrickery

Today a happy announcement: the electricity in the living room and bathroom nr. 2 stays ON! Since the new earth wire the "earth leakage circuit breaker" (ELCB) tripped, and we were without power. We narrowed the problem to the living and that bathroom, because they would trigger the problem. But what caused it? A spider in a socket? We were afraid of faulty wiring, as the "electrician" that installed the cables here is a damn *@$^^@(^6!Grr IDIOT (see below).

Anyway. Decided to disconnect everything, and see if there is a (change in) resistance between the two wires, or to earth. Removed those IKEA chandeliers first. Measured a resistance between the wires of 700Ω with open light switch. Flip the switch and it would be 78Ω. Odd, and not good. I expected ∞. Flipping the light switch for the bathroom made the resistance change too. Removed the lights in the bathroom. Still not good. What else. Ah, there still is that old wall ventilator. Cracked it open, and disconnected it. Ahhh.. now we're in the range of 17MΩ between the cables. Still not ∞, but the ELCB has not tripped since, so we're still good. (Fingers crossed.)

Yes, putting these blocks in plaster like that is a great idea. NOT.

Switches like these, with holes to stick a wire in, are intended for solid copper cables, NOT the multi-strand wires like these. Tinned it's a bit better.

Here we have a junction box, where wires in the wall are connected further. If you use multi-strand copper you need to tin the ends before screwing them tight in a block. Else you can just pull them out a few years later, like the visible copper. I could pull that out without unscrewing the block. Morons!

Here is a wall socket that was loose. Again, untinned wires just stuck in there.

Three wires in one hole, which does not fit, so you cut off half the strands. And you don't tin them, of course. F*cking idiots!

And no, this is not Spanish workmanship. So far we only encountered decent professionals here. This is British' work. Well, some 15 more switches and wall sockets await improvement. Things can only get better.

Home improvement - the kitchen - FINISHED! (well, almost)

Despite this being a giant kitchen, storage is not abundant. We need more cupboards. And surfaces! All our sufaces are gone!

So where's IKEA? They usually have quite nice cupboards. Well, the doors are nice. Made of aluminium and frosted glass, like we had in Amsterdam. The cupboards themselves are made of chipboard, and rubbish. Well, I can make them myself of decent plywood (multiplex).

IKEA has "Jutis" glass doors for €30. And hinges for both vertical and horizontal usage. And METOD horizontal cupboards. Or, a vertical one: METOD vertical:

Remains the question what to do. Use the chipboard IKEA frames complete with the glass doors? I don't like chipboard, and the cupboards are quite deep (38cm), while we think 22-25 cm is enough. And do we prefer horizontal or vertical?

Home improvement - the kitchen - FINISHED!

At last, finished. A whole week without a kitchen is no fun. Everything is stored somewhere else, and the fridge is hardly accessible. It's a bit like camping, but not in a fun way. But, here we are, all done. The plaster is not all white, but is a light grey. Quite stylish, actually. We were told that this is an original colour finish in old houses.

For the first time in 200 years a decent tiled staircase. It used to be plastered with hollow rounded sides. We did leave the original wooden slats in place, of course.

Cellar entrance with (fake) antique tiles. And some junk still to clear away.

Our Kewlox cupboards were put outside. Unfortunately we have a lot of wind gusts here, and one toppled the big white Kewlox. As a domino it toppled the nice red one with the glass top. It no longer has a glass top, and 3 doors are now cracked.

Oh, and this door stopper is not a door stopper, but a wooden base for an ancient light switch. Which makes perfect sense, as on the first floor above there are antique electric insulators screwed to the beams of the roof.

A nice significance to these insulators is that this means the roof is at least made before the 1930's, as that is about the last date these were used.