Why It Needed Replacing
New Regulations 2016
The Job
Snazzy, right?
We also had to be without electric for around three-four hours. Which meant no wifi, no computer and no way to charge my iPhone after I drained its battery from four hours of constant use. Yep, it was boring to say the very least. Here’s some ‘progress’ pics:
Lead Cables?
As this house is 100+ years old and the wiring has been added to and added to, it was inevitable that we would come across a few problems. The most unexpected problem was that we still had a live lead sheathed electrical cable coming out of the meter! Say what?!
Seriously. These cables are old (somewhere between 1900-1950) and they’re dangerous. We traced it across the basement and it appeared to be going through into the next door property. The electrician told us that back in the day they used to use one house in a set of terraces to supply the others. Bonkers! There was the small possibility this cable was still supplying our neighbours property, however this seemed unlikely as the house next door had been changed into three flats at some point in the past. He was able to disconnect the cable without anyone losing their electric supply, so all was good. If you’re wondering, the cable was on the ‘other side’ of our electric meter, so the supply would never have been read by our meter reader.
So we now have these beefy (it’s huge!) new consumer unit, which will hopefully be good for many years to come.
Just….No.
I have one more little niggling issue to share. I specifically asked for a isolation switch for the shower, as opposed to a pull-chord. They break and they look ugly. This was my justification. He said “yep, no problem”. We discussed a number of possible places to put the switch but the easiest was at skirting board height, bit like a plug. Seemed A LITTLE bit out of place, surely on top of the door, or outside the bathroom would have been more normal? But non-the-less, I like easy, so I agreed.
But I did not expect THIS:
Seriously. Is this a joke? What is that?! Just…Just…What?! I didn’t want a pull chord because they’re ugly and he fitted THIS. My reaction was somewhat an eye-rolling “typical!” response. Designers, electricians are not. I know they like to do things on the cheap to maximise their profit. But come on now. Does this thousand pound (and more) bathroom really look like I wanted THIS? Am I being just a little bit fussy?!
This needs changing. For SURE.
Costs
(rounded to the nearest pound)
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