Tag Archives: electricity

Friday 23rd October 2009 – Even more Fiat Lux

attic woodstove 230 volt LED lightYou might think that this photo is rather blurred and underexposed, but it was taken with just 2.4 watts of light.

This morning I wired in the 230-volt lights but for some reason (presumably because of my bragging yesterday) I couldn’t get them to work. While I was musing on the subject Terry and Liz turned up so Terry (who is a sparky in his day job) had a quick look and noticed that I’d wired the light switch up wrong.

D’oh!

So once we’d got the wires in the right hole we had some light! All 2.4 watts of mains LEDs and you can’t dispute the brightness of those. This pic was taken from outside the room at 20:00 when it was pitch black outside.

You can also see the pot-bellied stove too. It’s all assembled and in place and it’s tiny. I’ve been cutting wood to a length of 30cms and I’ll need to cut that in half again in order to get it to fit in the aperture.

And would you believe that the chimney that came with it is the wrong size! The aperture is 107mm and the chimney pipe is 117mm. After much messing around I cut down another piece of chimney, sliced it downwards, fitted it inside the aperture (there’s a rim to stop it going into the fire) and lined the slice and the joint with fire cement. The natural springiness sprung it back into a tight fit and the fire cement should seal it, and then I sleeved the chimney over the top. Tomorrow I need to get a joining piece for where I had to cut the pipe and then I can fit the chimney stack completely.

I’ve also grouted the tiling. Krys was right when she said that grouting covers a multitude of sins. But there must have been more than a multitude with the tiling that I did.

Terry, while he was here, had a good look at my door.
“Do you know” he said, “that you can buy doors that come supplied with the doorframe?”
“Hmmmmm. I can see the advantages of that“.

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Thursday 22nd October 2009 – FIAT LUX!

12 volt LED lights attic LIDL les guis virlet puy de dome franceAnd we aren’t talking about Italian cars and washing powder either.

This photo here was taken at about 20:00 this evening and the reason that you can see inside the room here is that I now have four lights all properly connected and switched!

They are in fact four of those 12-volt LED lights that I bought from LIDL a few weeks ago and while they may not look very bright; that’s just 4 watts of lighting in there.

Dunno about you, but I think that’s quite impressive.< And that's not all. I now have 12-volt power all around the room, and also mains power too. My electrical day was quite profitable and, much to my surprise, everything worked straight away. I didn't need to make any adjustments at all.

I’ve not done the 6-volt circuit yet though because I ran out of time doing the 230-volt lighting so I’ll do that tomorrow morning. And neither have I done the telephone. In fact, I dunno how to wire up the telephone plug so I’ll have to do some research into that.

Liz and Terry are coming round to pick up some stuff so I told them that if they can’t find me anywhere, look to see if there’s anything black and shrivelled stuck to the ceiling. That’ll be me having made a false move with the mains wiring.

But talking of Lux, the washing powder, do you remember the advert from the 1960s?
“If it’s safe in water it’s safe in Lux<" I wrote to them at the time "Now, about my goldfish ....”

In other news, I’ve been spending more money that I don’t have.

I’ve effectively abandoned night action photography because the lens on my camera won’t stop down far enough to let in enough light to take effective photos. And when I crop them they are far too grainy, as you will have noticed.

But that’s the problem with budget lenses – and by that I mean anything under about 500 quid and I don’t have that kind of money.

Rhys and I were discussing that last night and he found a second-hand lens, a Pentax 100mm f2.8 telephoto on the internet . If you don’t know much about photography, basically it’s one and a half times as long as the maximum on my zoom lens (which is a 17mm-70mm) so it needs less cropping, and it only needs about 2/3rds of the light that mine uses. It’s an old lens but they had a very good write-up and were much in demand by action and portrait photographers back in the old days.

And the price? Well, only $129 (plus $40 postage from the USA). I’m not going to get anything better than that on my limited budget so I’ve bitten the bullet and it’s on its way to here. I hope it works properly and does the business for me, as I’m not going to get anything better without spending a real shed-load of money.

And in other other news, this blog attracts quite a wide audience. It has its regular followers and contributors, but it also has a considerable number of lurkers who just quietly read it. I was talking on a messenger program last night to one of the aforementioned lurkers – Sheila – who I haven’t seen around for some time. It appears that Sheila’s mother has suffered an aneurysm – the same that did for poor Liz back in March – and while she has had the operation the prognosis is not too optimistic.

So what would be nice would be that we all find a quiet minute or two and think about Sheila and her mum and send them both some positive vibes. They could do with some right now.

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Wednesday 21st October 2009 – WHAT YOU CAN’T SEE …

clear varnish tongue and groove attic les guis virlet puy de dome france… in this pic is all the varnish on the tongue and grooving. That’s because, for once in my life, I’ve found some clear varnish that really is clear.

So clear in fact that I couldn’t see where I was up to each time. I was impressed with that.

What you also can’t see is all of the rubbish, debris, sawdust, polystyrene offcuts and the like. I decided to start by tidying up and picking up all of the stuff.

And after half an hour of this I thought “This is ridiculous – I’ll be here forever” and got out the yard brush. One reason why I started from the top is that you brush the rubbish downwards.

And when I get to the ground floor? well, that’s easy. I’m putting in a suspended floor and all of the rubbish can go underneath.

Which reminds me – it rained today – about 8mms – and I happened to put my hand on the sandy soil that is the ground floor of the house (at least where I dug out for the battery box) and it is as damp as heck. A suspended floor is pretty much essential, I reckon.

And while I’m on the subject of that, now that I have the door on upstairs, the temperature is keeping pace more-or-less with what I get in my room. But it’s a totally different kind of temperature – like it’s a dry temperature upstairs and a damp wet one down here. I’m surprised I haven’t caught pleurisy living in here and I can’t wait to move in upstairs.

I’ve also installed all of the light fittings upstairs and started on the plugs at the “other” end of the room. It looks like I’m heading for an electrical day tomorrow.

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Friday 16th October 2009 – And while I have something vaguely resembling an internet connection …

electricity 12 volt domestic circuit wiring atticI’ll post Friday’s pic.

There I was, fiddling around with this perishing beading that never seems to want to go on where I want to put it, and suddenly I had a horrible thought.

Next weekend is, I reckon, the last weekend in October. And the clocks go back and although I gain an extra hour in bed, I lose an hour’s light. And it’s already getting dark far too early for my liking. Time to cut my losses and go with what I’ve got and get myself in there.

So b*****ks to the beading and I’ve started on the definitive wiring. On the back wall is, from left to right, a British 13-amp double socket (for mains voltage – I prefer them as the plugs are fused), an American 110-volt double socket (which I use for my 12-volt circuits as they are designed for hefty cable) and a British 5-amp single socket – which I’ll be using for a small 6-volt circuit seeing as I have a pile of 6-volt stuff.

Round the corner are the light switches – one bank of 2 for the 12-volt lights and a single one for the 230-volt lights, then another bank of American and British sockets, and a telephone socket. I now have 12-volt power into the room and if you look carefully you can see the mp3 player that is my hi-fi (connected to a pair of powered computer speakers) and a table lamp that’s actually working.

So downstairs and put my feet up, and no perishing internet. And no telephone either. The whole circuit is down. So use the mobile phone to dial up the repair service and “sorry, you cannot access this number from a mobile phone. Please use your landline to report the fault, or consult our website”. Someone should tell them that this is France, not Ireland!

So I dashed down to the local hotel-cum-bar-cum-restaurant-cum-meeting place …“that’s a lot of cum” – ed … to find out that it doesn’t open on Friday nights, Saturdays or Sundays. It’s also closed for holidays during August – what kind of way is that to run a business? But that’s another story.

In the end Liz very kindly reported the fault (it’s a general collapse of the Virlet exchange and everyone is cut off) and she posted a note on the blog to calm my eager readers. And consequently my mailbox is swamped with mails of goodwill, which is extremely nice.

There’s even a mail from a member of the OUSA Executive Committee – who shall remain nameless as reading my blog is punishable by death. “Hurry up and get back on line. We look forward to your pithy comments. All we have to read at the moment is this circular from Turdi de Hatred. Your postings are like shafts of wit. Hers are .. errr …. well, quite!”

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Thursday 15th October 2009 – Today’s photo is rather dark.

attic tongue and groove around windowBut there’s a reason for that – and I blame my own popularity. In fact I’ve never been so popular than I seem to be just recently.

I took the dolly round to Bill’s this morning and stopped for a coffee, where I was entertained by the Hound of the Baskervilles.

After that, I finished off the rest of the tongue and grooving as you can see in the pic, if you shine a torch onto it.

This afternoon, in between the phone calls, I started on the beading. I’ve done the corners of the 2 windows in the ceiling and I’ve started on the beading round the edges of the t&g. But it’s not going half as far as I reckoned it would and I’ve nowhere near enough.

And as the battery in the chopsaw went flat, I started the electric wiring at the stairwell end of the room, and just as I was getting into the throes of it, Bill and his neighbour appeared – they had brought back the dolly. So they had the guided tour too. I’ve had more visitors this last few weeks than I’ve had this last few years. Because I forgot to say – while I was round at Bill’s, Terry came round here.

What with all of that, it was dark by the time they went and so I went to take the photo. But firstly, no memory card in the camera – so back downstairs for the card. And secondly, flat batteries in the camera – so back downstairs to get some fully-charged batteries. Hence it was dark by the time I’d got my pick.

Last night it was -2.5 degrees and the water had started to freeze. In the heat exchanger it was -7 degrees. Winter is early this year. I reckon that tomorrow I’ll make a start installing the woodstove upstairs and get it running in.

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Wednesday 14th October 2009 – This should keep Krys and Rhys happy

tongue and groove attic ceiling plasterboard stud wallWhat I did today was firstly to make the framework for the top of the doorframe into the cupboard and then to make the door (which you can’t see in this image).

And after that. I roofed the cupboard (and that wasn’t as easy as it might have been either).

Next job was to finish the rear half of the ceiling. This involved trimming lengthways quite a few pieces of T&G but I’ve sussed how to do this now. You may remember me talking about standards (battens of wood 25mm x 25mm cut to a specific length), and how I have a 600mm standard (as a gauge for sheets of insulation) and a 1195mm standard as a gauge for sheets of plasterboard). I now have a 2000mm standard (2000mm being the length of a piece of t&g) and I’ve knocked a row of nails into it that protrude about 3mm out the other side. My circular saw has a bed of 50mm so the cut is 25mm inside the edge of the bed (if you see what I mean). So when I’m measuring up the width of a piece of t&g that I need to cut, I overstimate the measurement by 25mm, press the standard into the wood at the overestimated widths so that the protruding nails hold it to the piece of t&g, and then run the bed of the circular saw along the piece of t&g while being guided up against the standard.

Works every time!

So after much vicissitudes and a major rerouting of the wiring, I finished the rear half of the ceiling.

After lunch I set about doing the front half of the ceiling, but I never got anywhere. The phone went non-stop – firstly Bill wanting to borrow the towing dolly (I have to run that round to him tomorrow morning so that’s put paid to the early start), and then someone wanting to talk to me about fitting some solar panels to a new house in Montlucon (I have to go and look at the job on Monday afternoon so that’s that put paid to any work on Monday afternoon but I’m not complaining) and I can’t remember what the other call was.

After that, I had a visitor. Someone is rebuilding a house and wants to have solar panels on it so he talked to someone who talked to someone else etc etc and eventually my name crept into the frame. So he came round for a chat.

He was here for ages and it was dark by the time he went so that was the entire afternoon spoken for. But again, I can’t complain. I could do with earning some money.

And tonight, I finally succumbed and I had the heater on. The temperature outside has dropped to 2.5 degrees and winter draws on. After all, you know what happened to the three brass monkeys.

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Thursday 8th October 2009 – It rained today.

“So what?” I hear you say.
Well, the fact that apart from some trace amounts of rain that fell on 4 days recently, the last tine that there was any measurable rain was on … errr …. 20th September. And how long ago was that?

But never mind, because we more than made up for it today with 20mm of rainfall, most of which fell in late morning. And going from having run out of rainwater over the last two weeks, I now have more than I know what to do with. I might even have a wash!

tonge and grooveMeanwhile, back in the attic, I’m still tongue-and-grooving. I didn’t do as much as I wanted to because even though I worked relentlessly until gone 19:00 (when the light went) I had some rewiring to do and I also had to track down some nails as I’m running quite short of them.

Tomorrow should see me finished as far as I can, and then I need to cut the bare plasterboard for the partition walls and do this electrical wire. Once that’s done I can finish it off completely.

And in other news, my furniture has arrived at Conforama. I can pick that up on Saturday.

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Friday 11th September 2009 – I HAD ANOTHER ONE …

space blanket wall insulation attic flooring counter battens les guis virlet puy de dome france… of those days where I couldn’t seem to get going.

Mind you, I was so exhausted after yesterday’s exertions that I had a lie-in until 10:00 to recover and it wasn’t until 11:00 that I got to work.

I finished the wiring at the far end of the room and then finished off the insulation down the two side walls. That involved fitting the battens and then xylophening them to protect against woodworm and the like. Then I had to stretch the insulation across the battens and staple it on.

space blanket insulation attic flooring les guis virlet puy de dome franceThis afternoon I started to fit the rest of the floor.

This involved pulling up the old pallets that I’d been using as flooring, xylophening the beams and then fitting the sheets of OSB.

A couple of them needed trimming down and cutting for shapes and I did such I good job of this (I even impressed myself!) that one piece took about an hour to tap into place. And I was giving it such a whack with the mallet that I’m convinced I’ve broken my finger when I missed my aim with the mallet
“Your whole finger?”
“No – the one next to it”
I’ve done almost as much as I can now before the major engineering starts and it was at 19:45 when I came down from the attic. By the time I’d unloaded Caliburn ready for the fray around Brico Depot tomorrow it was 20:15.

It’s all working though. The lowest temperature in the house is higher than the lowest temperature in my room – and that’s saying something. Just wait until the floor and the insulation are finished and there’s a wall around the head of the stairs.

Today was grey. miserable and overcast. No snow though although we have been told that it’s on its way. Only 13 amp-hours in the barn but over 60 in the house. A good move putting these panels on the roof.

And in other news, the footy restarts tomorrow night. YAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY.

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Saturday 25th JULY 2009 – I WAS GOING TO SHOW YOU ALL ….

kwikstage scaffolding plywood les guis virlet puy de dome france… a photo of the front of the house with the insulation on, but we didn’t have time to take a photo of it.

I was up early this morning and while waiting for Terry I did some tidying up in the barn. I have to record this as me tidying up in the barn is a pretty rare event,

First thing that Terry and I did after he arrived was to thread 4 strands of 6mm cable through a 25mm flexible conduit (for the two solar arrays that will be on the roof) and 2 strands of 6mm cable through some 25mm flexible conduit for the wind turbine that will be on the apex of the roof. Then we cut a channel through the wall, fastened the conduit in and cemented it down. So that’s the wiring organised.

Dave turned up some time through the performance and if two pairs of hands are a vast improvement on one, then three pairs of hands are an even greater improvement. We had the insulation on in no time and without stopping fastened down the battening and had half the plywood on by 17:00. That was some impressive work and we can be proud of what we accomplished today.

Tomorrow Terry is having a day off and taking Liz to the chainsaw-carving. We have to keep Liz happy as our supplies of food depend upon it and the food is too good to miss out on. I’m going to have one of those rare days where I’m going to sit around the house and do absolutely nothing at all. I think I’ve earned it.

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