| 4th February 2006 | ||
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February already! Work has been continuing on empowering the garage today by taking the cable through the back wall of the house and into the under-sink cupboard in the kitchen. This is where it meets the PVC cable I have already run to the same place from the main fusebox. In the garage it is a matter of getting all the sockets, switches, and lights fitted and tomorrow I will be able to start working on running the cables around the rafters. All very exciting (and time consuming!). |
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| 12th February 2006 | ||
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So I started the wiring as promised, and ran all the cables for the mains ring,
but couldn't do the same for the lights as I didn't have the correct cable clips.
I also spent some time trying to get an earth rod in near the garage, but despite
firm encouragement from my (actually Bobs) friendly lump hammer, something pretty
solid about 3ft down had me beat, and so it will have to be at the far end of the
wall with a long cable on it. Onto this weekend, I paid a visit to the electrical shop, finished running the cables for the lights, fitted trunking for the wires to hide in, stripped and connected all the tails to the sockets and switches, ran the earth cable from the rod along the armoured caale on the wall into the garage... oh and I also bought some loft boards to start looking at boarding some of the garage loft space to help tidy up a bit in there. So now I'm ready for the electrician to come next weekend and do the final connections, tests, switch it on, and sign it off. |
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| 18th February 2006 | |||
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As hoped, I had a visit from my electrician friend Ben today to help finish things off
with the garage power. A quick once over of my work so far suggested that all was ok,
except I needed to add some sleeving to my earth cables, so I got on with that whilst
Ben was working connecting up the consumer unit. After a little while, we were all done in the garage, so then we moved into the house where Ben did the connection in the main consumer unit here, and I worked on the connection between the PVC and SWA cables under the sink. Again, this was pretty soon done, and time to flick the switch. It was all worked fine first time, but not second. A bit of testing later and it looks like I have a faulty RCD in the consumer unit in the garage. It tripped first time, but then won't trip again. So close... looks like I'll have to wait until next week, to return the RCD and get it swapped, but I do have working power in the meantime, just not proper RCD protection, so it's not so bad. |
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| 19th February 2006 | |
| Nothing very exciting today, just a bit of tidying up really. I finished off yesterday by starting to put the house back together by re-fitting the skirting boards which had been removed to hide the indoor cable run behind. So I spent some time doing filling on these, and putting furniture etc back where it lives, time consuming stuff. I also fixed the junction box under the sink onto the side of the cupboard - I've left all the slack on the cables just in case it's needed in future, you never know. |
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| 25th February 2006 | |
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First job was to swap the RCD over - doesn't take very long, and hurrah it seems to
work fine. I'll have to get Ben back to do the testing on it. So that's basically the electrics all
done and working! Phew. Only took about 6 weekends work... As I said a few entries back, I had bought some loft boarding on one of my DIY shop trips, with a view to creating some useful space in the garage loft. Having had a chance to see how they fit, I worked out a plan to board the one third of the roof space at the workbench end. So after another trip to get another couple of packs of boards, and some wood, I spent the entire day working on boarding out an area of the loft. It was mostly straight forward, but it's a bit fiddly and awkward, going up and down the ladder, etc. But it is a good job done, and whilst restricted on height by the slope of the roof, gives me some useful storage space. |
| 26th February 2006 |
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I spent the morning having a damn good sort out in the garage. I cleared out a load of
boxes and stuff that was no longer needed, and tidied up all the roof space using the
new boarded area. I also had a tidy up and sweep up at ground level - the floor is so dusty it is a real pain, so I think I am going to have to get it painted soon. I can survive ok without doing the walls right now, but the floor is bad enough that it's worth taking some time now to get it done. |
| ©2002-2009 David Hackett |
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