Category Archives: Electrics

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The bathroom is really starting to take shape now. The tiling is complete!

Bathroom Tiling 1 Bathroom Tiling 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally we could see what the floor would look like with the tiles down that everyone else was so nervous about and thankfully we love it. The tiler assured us that tiling the whole shower in brick tiles would be the best solution for a number of reasons so that’s what we went with. Hopefully when the shower enclosure is installed my previous fears about edging will all be unfounded.

Kitchen No-Lights

 

So just as the bathroom is progressing well, the electrics situation seems to be taking a step backwards.

Faults have been found and rectified, such as the shared neutral for the landing light, but still the downstairs lighting circuit wont play ball. Current thinking is that there’s a problem somewhere in the kitchen area, so the disruption spreads..

 

A Less Shocking Headline (Hopefully)

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Spot the difference..

Fuse Box

New-CU

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not too difficult I guess. Whilst there were new electrics going into the bathroom for underfloor heating, heated towel rail etc, it seemed like a prudent time to uprate fuse box with a new safer consumer unit.

Now for bonus points, spot the problem with the picture of the new. Did you get it? Downstairs lighting now isn’t working. The Heath Robinson affair of wiring through the bell transformer under the stairs has also been disconnected. Sadly that wasn’t the cause of the woes and despite a day of fault finding, we’ve been left without lights downstairs whilst the electrician ponders why the circuit keeps tripping out. Most likely suspect is a Neutral-Earth fault it would seem, but every light fitting and switch has been off and tested with no obvious fault found. I get the impression this is going to be a longer (more expensive) job that anticipated.. -gulp-..

The keen eyed will also spot the mysterious trailing wire to the left of the cupboard. This was previously connected to it’s own little fuse unit, but no, we’ve no idea what it was for either!

Bathroom – Day 4

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Back in Blighty now and everything has arrived for the Bathroom. We’ve completely lost the use of the hall now with all the stuff heaped up. Can’t wait for the weekend when we have to move it all upstairs!

Bathroom in Hall

Bathroom in Hall

One of the challenges we have with the new bathroom layout is how to heat it. We previously had a white ladder rail plumbed into the central heating, which was great in the winter, but meant we had no way of drying towels in the summer.

With part tiled walls going in with a bevelled border, I wasn’t convinced a new full height ladder rail would work as it would have to bridge the tiled and non-tiled part of the wall. We’re also quite tight for space in the bathroom, so I set about the task of finding a slimline, dual-fuel (plumbed/electric), towel rail, ideally of a period design. This proved to be much more of a challenge than I anticipated.  It’s easy enough to get hold of a new half-height ladder rail that can be plumbed in as well as having an electric element, but ideally, we wanted something with a bit more of a period feel.

The first part of the challenge was just trying to find a period radiator that was slim enough to fit. Ideally it had to protrude no more than 15cm from the wall. For some reason, the vast majority of ‘classic’ towel radiators seem to have a deep towel hanging rail at the top taking them to around 25cm in depth at the top. That just wouldn’t work for us. A google for “Slimline Period Towel Radiator” started to yield more positive results with various options coming in, but none seemed to be dual-fuel. Plenty of plumbed in options available as well as some extremely expensive electric only.

Geyser Radiator

Mastering the google search, a few options popped up, but we were looking at serious money. £500+ for a radiator!! Finally, I came across www.geyser.co.uk who seemed to offer nearly all of their radiators in plumbed-only, electric-only or dual-fuel!

With a reasonable price tag and next day delivery it all seemed too good to be true! I ordered and true to their word, the next day it turned up and can be seen among the bathroom paraphernalia in the photo above.

It’s obviously not connected yet, but I have to say we’re really pleased with it having unpacked it. Looks to be well made with the heating element in an eminently sensible place. The proof will be in the pudding once it’s finally installed and connected up, but for service and product range – Geyser certainly seem to be worth a look!

Shocking! (or hopefully not)

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After moving into any house, there follows that period which I call the “Discovery era”. You start to notice things that you probably should have noticed before buying, but nonetheless they turn up now.

Fuse Box

The wiring on the house was one thing that we knew we would have to sort out at some point. The fuse cupboard contains a historical account of wiring through the ages. My view has always been though that the last people had lived here with this wiring for 30 odd years, so it’s probably not going to combust on us tomorrow.  That said, it’s definitely near the top of my list to sort out in the future.  Looking through the assortment of fuses, I’m sligtly alarmed to discover that the kitchen is on a spur rather than a ring seemingly and only protected by a single 13amp fuse. Quickly doing the math of a halogen hob, oven, microwave, kettle, fridge freezer – seems like we may be pretty close to 13amps of usage at peak! -Mental note not to use the kettle and microwave at the same time methinsks- (Wonder how long that’ll last)..

Also – following the trail of mystery wiring around – slightly perplexed to discover this:

Bell Transformer

..hmm yes – the door-bell transformer seems to have been used as a handy junction box for wiring in the hall and study lights as well as a cabinet light in the lounge. Another area to pretend I havent seen for the time-being methinks and besides, at least it’s all protected by this:

Big Switch

Yes – that does seem like a very appropriate fused switch to protect the door bell! (In someone’s mind I guess).