Electrical diy

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

It is to let the smoke out ....

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

never mind you have us now...what a nice bunch of guys .....

[Mark Carver]

How many times (in terms of occurrences per century) are you expecting that to happen ?

[John Rumm]

I wish mine were that organized. I have three decent coat hooks on the back of my office door, on which is hung assorted IEC power leads, telefunken and cloverleaf leads, a few spare laptop PSUs, spare patch leads, vga, hdi, and dvi leads, plus some more esoteric stuff. All carefully arranged in pseudo random order that makes the process of finding anything a game of "identify the end, now wiggle and find the other end, now work out if you can pull it out of the festoon of wires if it looks like it might be about the right length"!

I always found other kids were of limited resource, they could not answer the questions I wanted answered!

[John Rumm]

IME experience relatively frequently if you have reasonable number of outside sockets and lights and outbuildings. Hence I have all my outside stuff served from a dedicated CU.

[Mark Carver]

Oh, I missed the 'outdoor' bit !

[Robin]

I've got a large cardboard box in the loft labelled "power leads, trailing sockets etc" where pulling one flex empties the box. I don't feel, I know.

[SH]

particularly with my outside lights and with teh PIR sensors, I've had at least 4 of these slowly fill up internally with rain water and case a leak to to eaerth tripping said RCBO.

All my switches for outdoor lights are 3 position switches as On (for outdoor parties etc) Auto (controlled by PIR) and Off for lamp changes and isolation sould one light develop a fault.

On some of my outdoor sockets they have "push out" hard plastic grommets on all four sides.

The idea being you push one of them out, fit a plastic 20 mm conduit and terminator... rain water then wicks through by capilliary action on teh top pushouts and there is a drain hole in the bottom corner.

Occasionally I do get a earth leak so I appreciate the ability to electrically isolate one socket and have the others back on within minutes and then I can fix teh outdoot socket at my own leisure when it has stopped raining!

[Owain Lastname]

You say that, but your next project on the wiki will be a cable tidy! In a variety of hardwoods and casually inlaid with engraved labels.

Owain

[Andrew]

9 out of 10 moulded plugs (that expressed a preference) said they thought the hole made it a bit chilly.

[Andrew]

Ditto, but mine are hung on the back of a white moulded-panel door which now has a black mark in the shape of a quadrant where they all swing as I open and shut the door :-(

[Jim GM4DHJ ...]

only kidding...

[ARW]

Not a footballer but yes dropping the line alerted a control centre.

Also leaving too many internal doors open at another house some years ago called the police.

[ARW]

I nearly did!

As an aside I now fit dp switches on outside lights.

Modular so they fit into a normal light switch and no one would notice the difference.

[Peter Johnson]

I did, and do. One day, but not just now, I'll swap the spur for a switched one, no point in being given professional advice and ignoring it, and see what scope there is for straightening up the back box. The inner skin of the wall is some sort of lightweight block that was quite easy to chip out. (Then I'll label the plate before installing it, to make sure it's level.)

I've seen that done on high-end woodwork but I didn't know electricians would do it, too.

Bosch washing machine.

[John Rumm]

Hmmm, na, it has not reached the pain point where I can be bothered - yet :-)

I think next project will be replacing the rattan back on some chairs.

[Andrew]

Pop down to the Weald and Downland Museum and tell the Repair Shop that they are family treasures, and they might do it for free.

[Andrew]

When the old Southern Region slam door trains were refurbed down at Eastleigh they always lined up the screws on all the ?mahogany trims around windows and inner doors.

[John Rumm]

Bit late - already ordered the materials (from Vietnam via alixpress!)