Having finally had enough time to make a start, the rest of the old kitchen’s stay of execution has expired.

The remaining cabinets put up a surpassingly tough fight considering the state of them but it didn’t take too long to remove them.

Based on the delights found previously in this house I wasn’t particularly surprise to discover the state of the old kitchen’s wiring. It seems that whoever attempted to fit the old kitchen didn’t really have that much of a clue about how to do things safely – yet alone sensibly!

For example, cooker circuits are supposed to be dedicated to supplying a cooker/hob… Just a cooker… Not a cooker, oven, extractor fan, and central heating system! This is before you get to the array of sockets someone had thought it’s be a good thing to add.

Evidently the idea of ring mains had passed them by somewhat. They’d come across the concept of “spurs” however, and put it into use to supply all the kitchen sockets from what looks like a single ringmain connection!

Its quite amazing that anything worked without problems…

This is before we get to the heating systems – all of which bar the boiler had seemingly been boxed in behind kitchen cabinets! Who knows what you’re supposed to do if a pump or valve needed attention – rip out half the kitchen perhaps?

A project for a summer day will have to be sorting out the heating – it needs a rewire as a start, along with a new programmer & plumbing alterations as I’ve had enough of not being able to run the hot water circuit without the radiators!!!!

We never did quite work out how you were supposed to be able to fix motorised valves when boxed in and hidden from view…