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My Switches got Broken!

Posted: 07-06-10

Switch blocks. Broken switches. Radiator retainers. Paint, paint paint paaaainnt...

So I ordered the timber switch blocks from Bungalow and Villa Friday before last and they arrived the following Monday. They were supposed to be "PQ" (Paint Quality) which I took to mean "bare timber, paint later". No it means they were painted white already and we needn't do a thing.

Bonus.

We went up to the house on Thursday to see what the sparky had made of the switch blocks which is to say a lot and not a lot. The double power points had been nicely installed into the 2-gang switch blocks (They just about fit a PDL600, see last post about that) but as the installer must have been using a power drill as a screwdriver, 4 switches had their mounting screws driven too far which had ended up busting the porcelain.

6 months it took to gather these from all round the world. Some were donated, some I paid a dollar for and other sets cost $60 or more. Basically, they're pretty much ireplacable, especially the doubles and yet we found four of them had been badly cracked and one of those doubles had actually been broken in half!

I took them home, nursed them back to health (Superglue, an invention of the late 1970s and still as useful as ever) then took them back to the house with a wee note. Trouble is, if they break again, which is highly likely as the stress points are now much weaker, they'll be a bugger to fix as the cracks will all be clagged up with dried glue.

I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

The plumbers have finished installing the rads but the retaining faceplate that keep them from falling over in an earthquake, were latched to the outside. You could see these 'orrible steel fixings on an otherwise bright, white radiator and we found it hard to understand how the plumber decided it was a good idea to put them there. I called him to ask him to change it, which fair play he did right away. As these are 4 column rads, I got him to attach the retaining faceplate to the rearmost column instead of the front one.

I spent all of Queen's Birthday holiday sanding all the door jambs, removing the doors, painting them and re-hanging the doors, 14 of them I think. They needed painting before code compliance could be issued (surfaces needing to be sealed from moisture etc). Only some minor bits and bobs to do on the outside before our part might be considered finished.

As it stands, we move out and in on the 20th.

Cross yer fingers everything goes to plan for us.