Cave Electrics

For the interior side of fitting electrics the job is quite simple, as mentioned before though plenty of dust and carefull planning (if I could do mine again I would do it differently) The pictures show the walls that have been "channelled" with the plastic piping "conduit" layed in the channels and stuck in place with yeso. At a later stage you or an electrician will pull through all your earth, live and neutral cables to a junction box. From this box you can lead to switches, sockets and to the next room and do the same again.


Cables, and I would definatly advise stranded core as apose to single core cable because it is more flexible and easier to work with are pulled through the conduit using a "draw wire" - this is a length of coiled cable its self with a flexible "nose" and and eye on the end to connect your earths, lives and neutrals, simply feed it into your conduit wait for it to come out the other end and then pull your wires through. Dead simple eh? well no. Here are some tips to make life alot easier....

* Use stranded core cable
* Use correct grade conduit for the job (15mm/20mm/25mm + are available, for a switch or socket you will be pulling 3 cables so use the smaller size, for juction boxes room to room you may be pulling 3 earths/lives etc if not more so use the larger size conduit) if it all gets jammed half way through get the grinder out again..
* Corners, a draw wire will go 90 degrees around a corner but not alot more so think about this when channelling try to work slightly "up the wall" at a corner to lessen the angle.
* Draw wires, if you see one for 7 euros and one for 20 euros side by side - buy the one for 20.

When channelling the walls I found that a small standard grinder with a 5" disc cut to the ideal depth for 25mm tubing, this is cutting into existing plaster. In many of our other rooms it was simply bare cave rock so a cold chisel and club hammer did the job to make a concave indent into the rock. Forget about the mess because there will be lots of it and it will look simply awfull but once plastered over you will honestly never notice.

Do take photographs too. I have referred to our photo album numerous times to see where are cables are! Simply nailing a picture to a wall and going through a wire can have a less than desirable outcome. Also make it your first job the amount of dust you will generate is beyond explanation. More on getting your fusebox and the Spanish electricity process soon.

Next up though, living on site, lots of mud and oh yes, BIG bugs