Asbestos, I laugh in your face!

We thought the asbestos would be our biggest worry - there is a section of guttering and a [broken] downspout that are asbestos...

I also found what I suspect is the rest of the asbestos guttering that had been replaced in the newly-accessible side part [annexe? (yay to hacking my way to that!)] of the garage...  And various bits of gutter and soffit board in among the 'flower bed' I was clearing.  I had been wondering why they didn't replace the whole gutter when they did the other three quarters, but talking with Steve (vide infra) later it's all dropped into place - the main electricity supply comes in on a bracket that is attached to the fascia board just under (and touching) the old gutter; I'm guessing it's that?

We will have to deal with it at some point, but everyone agrees for now that left completely untouched, it's causing no harm.  So, apart from clearing the guttering and taping together the downspout, we're going to 'let sleeping dragons lie'.

Paul came and fitted the gate he and Claire gave us, and did a temporary fix on the missing roof and ridge tiles; we're going to need them seeing to properly, but he needs a scaffolding tower for that, so it will have to wait a little longer; he's going to give us a quote.  He's also going to give the measurements for the windows to a friend of his, Paul, to price up the two windows that are bashed in (out?) and the ditto back door.

And speaking of Paul's friends, that's where Steve comes in: and promptly condemns the whole of the electrics in the house!

He was going to perform a £100 safety inspection, but kindly agreed to save our money - every single room (including both eaves, if you can call them a room) he went into had at least one instance of practice so bad it would condemn the whole house, and we are very lucky that we didn't electrocute ourselves on the un-earthed brass light switches.

Ward & Partners are pretty lucky, too, as the electrics won't have improved since they were showing round lots of people at the viewing days; I think they would have been sued for millions if anyone had got fried under their watch - there was no mention of danger, and the system was live [we switched on the light in one of the eaves to get a better look].

Steve tested the earth, and it was intermittent at best.  The most hilarious part [we decided laughter is better than tears] was when you turned off one supply at the fuse box and a previously-earthed solid brass power socket became live!  He used a meter for testing the supply, which goes up to 2.99 kΩ [MΩ, I forget what he said now], and our reading was mostly at least 2.99 kΩ [MΩ?], but he couldn't tell what the reading actually was as the instrument wouldn't go any higher.  It meant 'totally unearthed', at least some of the time.

Oh, and of course enough of the light switches/socket fronts are hanging off the walls to add to the excitement of the Russian roulette...

Did I mention the exposed wires?  Or the bits of wire joined in the eaves [think nicely insulated area] and wrapped in tape?  Or the "fuse" for the sitting room lights [I thought it was actually one of the heavier duty paperclips, unwound, but he noticed it had a copper core, so it must be legit, right?]...

Or what about the exposed heavy copper wiring on the wire coming from the grid into the house, before it reaches the meter, fuse-box or any earthing (should there be any)?   [Imagine the 'lights go out when you're in the shower and the torch has died' scenario...]

He's turned off the supply at both fuse boxes, and advised us to get onto UK Power Networks as a priority [am leaving it till tomorrow morning as I suspect we might have to escalate it to a supervisor to get it actioned promptly, and I'm not sure anything happens well with skeleton staff on weekends in big utility companies, if they are even open], and DO NOT TOUCH the electrics!

Bang [not literally, now] goes the hope of buying a kettle and having hot water to clean up a bit and make nice cups of tea!

For your entertainment I attach photos of the supply cut-off [the main wire that comes into the house (black in the first photo) with exposed, unfused, copper cabling, and the 'fuse' for the sitting room lights:

Supply cut-off; exposed copper cabling

"Light fuse" for sitting room lights

Steve is going to go away and prepare an estimate for a complete re-wire.  We would save money by chasing out the walls ourselves [myself?] so I'm seriously considering that, especially in light [did you see what I did there?] of his expression when I mentioned how many light switches I wanted...  The one 'mistake' I made in France with the wiring was not having a switch for the bedroom light by the bathroom door; I'd go to have a bath in sufficient daylight, and end up walking to switch on another light before walking back to switch off the bathroom light [or, like David does, fumbling around in the dark to find the light switch].  All other rooms have switches at all the entrances/exits.

Or we could ask him to do what other householders have done [always a feature I have admired in their properties *end sarcasm*], and just tack exposed electrical cabling along the most visible surfaces in the most visible places...

[I think I can hear my dad 'turning in his grave' (or whatever it is cremated people do; spinning in the ether?); sorry, Dad!]

Puts a minor asbestos infestation into perspective!


Let's end on a happy note: David reached the outbuilding with his bramble-strimming, and I found a toad!

Escapee from my chopping/slashing activities