A bit of a chiseller

It's been a while since I did electrics, but when the old dining room becomes the new lounge having only two double sockets in the whole room will be way too restrictive, so I decided to install a couple of extras on the other side of the room. It was a pity to have to lift any of the floorboards - the floor in this room is one of the best in the house and all still original - but some of them at least are going to have to be raised to supply gas to the new fire, so I didn't feel too bad about it.

Employing Isaac Asimov's principle of Minimum Necessary Change (it's incredible how often that concept has popped back into my mind since reading The End of Eternity "over thirty years" ago) I selected a single board that would give me access to both new socket points, and set about removing it. I'd like to say I got it up with no damage, but there was a small amount of splintering. Nothing that will make the floor wobble or creak when it goes back down though, and as we're carpeting the room the only real damage was to my pride.

If I'd chosen 25mm boxes, I could have got away with just removing a section of plaster, but I prefer to have more room for wiring even though the new boxes will only be taking a single cable (the most load each of these sockets will carry will be a table lamp, or perhaps occasionally a vacuum cleaner), so I'd opted for 35mm boxes. This will certainly make life easier when the house is eventually rewired and the new sockets are included on the ring, but the downside for today was that I had to chisel out a 10mm depth of brick. Luckily the bricks on this internal wall weren't too hard, so this didn't take too long. Even so I was knackered by the time I'd completed the second box.