I have spent the past two days doing an inordinate amount of wiring. This has been a process made less fun by my dislike of US outlets, and the tightness of some of our boxes. I’ve also come to realise that while it’s hideously inefficient (in terms of number of connectors), I far prefer to use a larger number of block connectors, and no twist connectors, because the twist connectors occupy much more un-controllable volume.
Once you’ve twisted together 6 wires, they’re difficult to bend, especially in the horrid flexy plastic boxes that are the mainstay of US wall wiring.
That, and the fact that either side of the outlet, when you wire it and install it, are bare, unprotected connections to the live and neutral sides. That means if your irritatingly unflexible ground cable wants to sit near the front of the box, then they sit right next to the ground cable. Not quite touching, but close. Close enough to make me feel uncomfortable, then have to take the switch out a bit and spend some entertainingly trying to shove the wires back in the box without breaking it or bending it so far that it won’t sit where it’s meant to.
The single boxes aren’t too bad. It’s the triples that are upsetting.
Anyhow, that being said I have installed many things.
I finally got around to installing the last two breakers in the fuse box today – partly because I wanted to find out if the light around the front door works (spoiler: it does, but a bright sunny day isn’t the best for taking photos of it).
Also – testing revealed that there is light in other locations now:
We have two installed and functional lights. We have many, many outlets. I’ve still got 8 to do tomorrow, though. I also need to work out whether our complex lighting multi-way switching is working. I can only test the hall tomorrow, but that’s the most complex one. If that’s right the others are most likely right. Or at least easily fixable.
It is quite exciting, though, to have more than one functional outlet. And having lights…on a switch… than you can just use? Oooh, that’s fun.
