Kitchen revamp - Dumb ways to die

The little animated video "Dumb Ways To Die" is a safety gimmick intended to stop people walking in front of trains, that "went viral".  It shows, using simple but effective animated graphics, lots of ways of killing yourself, including "doing your own electrical work".  Well, my own electrical work is what I have been doing.

The electricity supply here is three phase, that is, three separate lines of 220 volts a.c. each are supplied, each one 120 degrees out of phase with the other.  It was commonly used when connecting heavy users at the outskirts of the network, since the individual current drawn down each phase is less than if it all goes down a single phase.  The result is, however, that although each separate live wire is at 220 volts with respect to the neutral wire, any two live wires are at about 380 volts with respect to each other.   And whereas a 220 volt shock is painful, 380 volts will kill you.

The distribution box in this house is one of the nastiest pieces of electrical knitting I have seen; I am going to have to replace it and bring it up to current safety standards, but in the mean time, I've connected in the hob, the oven and the sockets in the new kitchen.    As any sparky knows, problems with electricity usually manifest with a bang, a flash, or both.  Anita's unannounced flash photography was not appreciated, resulting as it did in a new personal best at the backwards-leap-from-squatting event.

And while you're here, here's a picture of the sunrise the other day, that made me glad I'm not a shepherd.

These are the last pictures of the kitchen project that I'm going to post; it's all over bar the shouting.   It all works, there's a bit of finishing up to do, but nothing dramatic.  Good.