Electrifying
May 28th, 2008 - Posted in eco-building, geekiness - by Brendhan|
We recently passed a milestone here at the Croft as we now have power to our workshop! After our last building related update we had a reasonably weather proofed building so we decided to get on with power ASAP. After the quotes came in (scary stuff!!) we selected the one that was happy for us to do a lot of the work (and the cheapest). The first job was to drill holes on the studs for the electrical cable to pass through.
Brendhan drilling a hole in our framing.
This was a lot of fun with the insulation getting caught in the drill a few times until I sorted out a method of holding the stuff out of the way (Sarah)! I guess the professionals drill the holes before putting the insulation in. After the holes were drilled it was simply a matter of pulling through the cable provided by the electrician for the three power circuits (one for the caravan point outside) and the single lighting circuit.
The cable in place waiting for the electrician.
We also screwed the lights to the trusses and fixed the wires in place. The electrician turned up on time with all the bits he needed which was a good start. Then a few minutes later the electrical inspector turned up to switch the power over from the old temporary supply box to the newly installed (by yours truly) meter box. Unfortunately the wiring was not completed by then (he was supposed to be on-site about an hour later) so he just hung around chatting with the electrician who happened to be an old friend. Which was all well and good until we got the bill and discovered we were charged $57 +gst for the hour of chit-chat!
We have power and light – yay! (note the black comms cable lower right)
So while the inspector chatted with the electrician and I chatted with our neighbour who happened to pop over at the time we all left Sarah busily digging the hole around the old meter box to move the cable over to the building. Much to our amusement our neighbours’ 8 year old son found this very confusing coming from a real west coast family (ie Dad digs holes and Mum cooks and cleans)! Since Sarah had dug the hole I then reasoned that it should also be Sarah who filled it in so afterwards left her to it while I got on with the far more interesting communications cabling…
Sarah filling in the hole she dug.
With the boring 240volt stuff out of the way it was time to move the phone from the caravan to the garage/workshop. Of course not being allowed to touch the little white telecom box we phoned telecom to come out and switch it over for us (not!). After I had moved the telecom box to the workshop I pulled the extra wire through the walls in the same way as the power and connected everything up to the 4 port network I’d installed earlier.
The most important bit – the comms cabinet awaiting its door
So all the network stuff (ADSL modem, Wireless access point etc) lives in the comms cabinet with a structured cat6 wiring running through the walls to a couple of points around the workshop (horizontal wiring). There will also be another four cat6 sockets next to the four at the top of the cabinet that connect the workshop to the main comms cabinet in the house (vertical wiring) once we have built the house.
on May 29th, 2008 at 4:25 pm
BRENDHAN !! WHERE’S YOUR HAIR ?
on May 30th, 2008 at 2:32 am
In the compost bin.
on June 1st, 2008 at 8:48 am
Wonderful progress, neat, tidy and looking good. The wiring looks ok too.
on June 1st, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Soon have the webcam?