The great thing about moving is that so many folks come around to give you assistance when you move in, (or they at least want a nosey at the place). So it was with parents.

Mum got the task of cleaning the kitchen, and Dad with his electrical experience was changing some light fittings.. That’s when we discovered that the re-wiring of the house might need to be brought forward a little.

Not only is there no earth wire in any of the light cables in the old side of the house (the extension does seem to be blessed with these and a more modern fuse box, separate from the original frankenstein unit), but also there’s an issue with the switch and the light and the power. Apply power, fuse goes bang.

So firstly where did we pack the fuse wire? And more importantly where is the fuse box, and which fuse is it? Since it’s the old part of the house, we shutdown power to everything just to remove the cover. Underneath are a pile of ceramic fuses, one with a nice black mark around it. The other has a whole pile of red cables coming out of it. It looks like the lights are on one fuse, and the rest of the house on another.
So we pull the fuse and swap wire a couple of times, but we need to get the light working as Benjamin’s going to need the bed at some point. So I have a quick look.. and discover the switch in parallel to the light, so when thrown, it connects live and neutral together and pop goes fuse.. I’m not sure that was how it worked previously, so we wire them in series, replace the fuse wire (again!), and throw the switch.

Title says it all really..