Electrical-Photos.com

Bender

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:40:36 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: Bending tool for Bergmann conduit. The top jaw makes the indents, the round bottom part shapes the bend. I happened to find this one unused and likely about 50 years old when a paint and tool store closed down nearby. This kind of conduit was not used any more after about 1965, PVC conduit, which was easier to work with made its appearance in the 1950s.

Exterior

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 11:36:47 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: This is the front of our new house. It's actually L shaped and extends pretty far to the back on the left. The pine trees are threatening our roof and the neighbor's so we decided to have them removed.

Panel/meter combo

Texas_Ranger — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 10:23:53 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: 1976 panel/meter combo, 3 meter bases made by F&G Austria. Moeller has kept the basic design until today. Left to right: day rate 3ph meter, tariff switch, night rate 1ph meter, the latter two have been removed since.

Conduit

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:17:09 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: Different kinds of conduit - top: old dark grey rigid PVC conduit, bottom: modern light grey flexible conduit. Also shows the Perilex 3 phase receptacle used to connect the electric range (a rare thing to find but a real good idea).

Nail in conduit

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:57:43 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: The term "hot rod" gets a whole new meaning considering the curtain rod was nailed right through this piece of conduit... thankfully it was made of wood. The picture also shows the oldest kind of conduit, Bergmann conduit. It's made of very thin metal with an interior lining of tar paper. Bending it required a parrot beak-like tool which indented the interior radius. Each of these indents was made individually and spaced to create the desired bending radius. One had to be very careful not to rotate the conduit while making the bend.

No plaster

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:57:42 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: Old wiring not covered by the usual layer of plaster. You can somehwat guess the layout, a lot of junction boxes below the ceiling and mostly vertical runs down to receptacles and switches. Conervative electricians still largely follow this practice.

Bad connection

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:57:41 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: How not to hard wire an electric heater... it was surface-wired using PVC trunking and solid NYM cable, this is how the bright sparky made the connections to the flexible cord feeding the heater. Code says splices are only to be made in boxes which can't be opened without the use of tools.

Old light switches

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:42:48 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: Two older light switches - the white one is likely late 1960s or early 1970s, the bottom one probably late 1940s or early 1950s and dates back to when this house was first wired for electricity. The village did not get power until 1949!

Two receptacles

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:35:14 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: Pure work of genius here... there used to be a Schuko receptacle (flush). Someone took it out, covered the box and installed the ungrounded duplex. When electric heat was put in, the electrician installed this IP44 (outdoor rated) beauty above - mind you, this is a living room!

Junction box 2

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:32:03 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: Real old junction boxes pretty much look the same all around the world. The white zip cord (low voltage door bell) really isn't supposed to be here at all.

Hallway light

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:28:18 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: How to install a light fixture in... say 1950. Generally practice didn't change much, but today the connection would be made inside the fixture rather than above.

Junction box 1

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:25:40 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: Typical junction box with a mix of old and new wiring (new in this case being 1976). Note the bare wire close to the metal box at the bottom right...

Switch 2

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:22:53 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: The "background" of the aforementioned stroke of genius.

Light switch

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:19:18 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: How not to install a light switch. Apparently the previous owner did not have a flush switch at hand so he slapped a board over the box, threaded the completely fryed to bare copper cloth covered wires through the holes and slapped up a surface mount switch.

New breaker detail

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:15:43 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: This is how the electrician attached the DIN rail for the new breakers. The original breakers were supposed to be bolted to the rails in the background.

Close-up of day rate section

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:11:15 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: Note the copper bus bars at the bottom. The breakers on the far right are (in theory) locked and tagged out as they used to supply a no longer existant well pump. The wires are just cut off and not even taped at the former pump location and when we took possession one of the breakers was actually on. Range (3 phase) has a switched neutral... *kaboom* should anyone turn off the neutral breaker.

Panel open

Texas_Ranger — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:06:31 +0000

by: Texas_Ranger

Description: Overview of the panel with the cover removed. It's split into three sections: bottom left general circuits, 4pole 100mA RCD. Bottom right: dedicated circuits for electric heating installed in the late 1990s, 4 pole 30mA RCD. Top right: night rate for water heater, 2 pole 100mA RCD (defective) and 16A breaker, currently disconnected.