The Good News Thread

[L CC]

It has 22 sockets in the kitchen. 22.

I don't live there so can't count to check, but I reckon my folks kitchen has that many. And then another dozen in the utility room.

(I'm just going to ask my dad via the wonders of facebook)

He says 20 and 10.

[Chris S]

Kitchen and computer room. Two rooms that can never have enough sockets. I put loads of the buggers in the kitchen in the previous house - but once various teens had plugged in their assorted iStuff and so on, there still wasn't enough!

[interzen]

Kitchen and computer room. Two rooms that can never have enough sockets. I put loads of the buggers in the kitchen in the previous house - but once various teens had plugged in their assorted iStuff and so on, there still wasn't enough!

I don't think I'd get to 22 sockets in the entire house even if I counted those that are on extensions - there's a 10-way in my office but even that's not fully populated now that I've streamlined my working setup. I manage quite nicely with three in the kitchen (cooker, microwave and washer)

But then again, I don't have teens wanting to plug iStuff into the wall ...

[Butterfly]

It has 22 sockets in the kitchen. 22.

• kettle
• radio
• toaster
• coffee maker
• juicer
• steamer
• raclette grill
• pancake maker
• electric wok
• electric frying pan
• slow cooker
• ice cream maker
• kenwood chef
• food processor
• electric carving knife
• toasted sandwich maker
• george forman grill
• hand blender
• waffle maker
• sauce maker
• electric whisk
• extra oven/microwave

There are none left, they'll have to charge their phones elsewhere.

(All gadgets genuinely owned by my gadget-loving parents over the years )

[mcshroom]

Where do you plug the radio, tv, freeview box and wifi speakers in though?

[Butterfly]

Where do you plug the radio, tv, freeview box and wifi speakers in though?

Radio was number 2! I don't have a tv, so I didn't think of that!

[clarion]

Ah, but that's not enough ovens for your parents!

[Butterfly]

I thought the other 2 plus grill plus the built in ovens plus built in microwave/oven was too many duplicates for the list. I mean, who else has 6 ovens and a separate grill? For 2 of them?

[Vince]

What about the ultrasonic mouse scarer?
We have 8 sockets 3 of which are unused. But we only have about 2 square feet of usable work-surface, so no room for electric woks etc.

[Greenbank]

Wondered what to do with my old Open University modules, seems they have a reasonable resale value to people wanting to get a head start on a course (or just study something without getting official credit for it).

My old modules should fetch ~£600 if I can get rid of them all. Two (or 10) gone within minutes of listing them.

Really? I have a stack of Computing course materials from my fairly recent OU days. I might have to investigate. Cheers

http://www.universitybooksearch.co.uk/index.asp is the main place. It's endorsed by the OU: https://www.open.ac.uk/platform/services/study-support/buy-and-sell-course-books

There's a Facebook group too for the OU that allows you to sell them.

[clarion]

I thought the other 2 plus grill plus the built in ovens plus built in microwave/oven was too many duplicates for the list. I mean, who else has 6 ovens and a separate grill? For 2 of them?

[L CC]

I thought the other 2 plus grill plus the built in ovens plus built in microwave/oven was too many duplicates for the list. I mean, who else has 6 ovens and a separate grill? For 2 of them?

 

My parents have 2 electric cookers AND an aga and 2 fridges and 2 freezers.
Maybe it's for the cat food.

[Butterfly]

I thought the other 2 plus grill plus the built in ovens plus built in microwave/oven was too many duplicates for the list. I mean, who else has 6 ovens and a separate grill? For 2 of them?

 

My parents have 2 electric cookers AND an aga and 2 fridges and 2 freezers.
Maybe it's for the cat food.

I didn't even count the fridges and freezers! Or the dishwasher. OMG we need about 40!

[David Martin]

We have extension doorbells that sit in the mains sockets with a pass through. It is an effective cacophony around the house when the front door bell rings and three different tunes play in different rooms.

[mcshroom]

I could have added cordless phone cradle and wireless extender too

Thinking about it, my kitchen has 18 sockets, of which 9 are in use
1 - Fridge-freezer
2 - Microwave
3 - Toaster
4 - Kettle
5 - Oven
6 - Radio
7 - Dishwasher
8 - Washing Machine
9 - Bluetooth speaker & phone charger

There's also an electric grill and chopper that can be plugged in but usually aren't

[Kim]

It's not about number of gadgets, it's about not committing to what gadgets you're going to have and where you're going to use them before you put the tiles up.  Perfectly sensible to make sure there's a double socket (no point in fitting singles) at each end of a stretch of worktop, as well as plenty in the spaces where appliances are (or might later be) installed.  Then you put in another double socket everywhere that you're putting a back box for a fused isolator or lightswitch or phone socket or whatever.

The real question is, of course, how many RJ45 structured cabling jacks do you have in your kitchen?  Wifi's all very well, but you'll regret it when your IPv6-enabled fridge drops off the net every time you use the microwave

[clarion]

Our kitchen has (in order of priority):

Kettle
Radio
Toaster
Fridge
Freezer
Bread machine
Food mixer (newly promoted up the rankings since the Little Duck has started on solid food)
Microwave
Battery chargers

Then other stuff...

[mrcharly-YHT]

The real question is, of course, how many RJ45 structured cabling jacks do you have in your kitchen?  Wifi's all very well, but you'll regret it when your IPv6-enabled fridge drops off the net every time you use the microwave

The house has TV aerial cabling to every room; there are five cables emerging at one point (presumably where the sat/freeview box sat. We have no interest in TV.
 
This is run in the central heating/hot water piping space, up through two floors to the top floor (location of boiler).

So Virgin fibre optic box in front room, cables under floorboards to central heating 'riser' and hence up to each floor.
Fridge doesn't have net connection but it does have blue led status indicators on the front.   

[Vince]

Food mixer (newly promoted up the rankings since the Little Duck has started on solid food)

"Here comes the train into the tunnel...."

[matthew]

The real question is, of course, how many RJ45 structured cabling jacks do you have in your kitchen?  Wifi's all very well, but you'll regret it when your IPv6-enabled fridge drops off the net every time you use the microwave

Fridge doesn't have net connection but it does have blue led status indicators on the front.   

In the 'contains beer and food' vs 'does not contain beer and food' variety or in the 'is cold' vs 'is not cold' variety. 

[hellymedic]

David has just bought n+1.
It's gorgeous!

[Kim]

The real question is, of course, how many RJ45 structured cabling jacks do you have in your kitchen?  Wifi's all very well, but you'll regret it when your IPv6-enabled fridge drops off the net every time you use the microwave

The house has TV aerial cabling to every room; there are five cables emerging at one point (presumably where the sat/freeview box sat. We have no interest in TV.

When my parents' house was rewired I stressed the importance of such things (do it once, and do it well).  TV coax^[1] and phone wiring to every room.  It was just before twisted-pair Ethernet went mainstream, of course.   

Turns out that you can run 10base2 Ethernet over electrician-quality 75ohm coax surprisingly well if you keep it to single point-to-point links and play fast and loose with termination resistors.

I fully expect that in the unlikely event of ever owning a house, I'll fill it with cat8 UTP five minutes before everything switches to fibre.


_{[1] I come from a family of television-as-wallpaper people, so it made sense.}

[Greenbank]

When my parents' house was rewired I stressed the importance of such things (do it once, and do it well).  TV coax and phone wiring to every room.

A friend did similar although he had them install string along each run along with some blank faceplates so he could pull through anything else at a later date. This made it much cheaper for him to get Cat-5 and various other audio-visual stuff put in at a later date.

[Kim]

When my parents' house was rewired I stressed the importance of such things (do it once, and do it well).  TV coax and phone wiring to every room.

A friend did similar although he had them install string along each run along with some blank faceplates so he could pull through anything else at a later date. This made it much cheaper for him to get Cat-5 and various other audio-visual stuff put in at a later date.

Yeah, that's the alternative approach.  Taken to its logical conclusion, you can have a loft that looks like you're growing conduit.

[jsabine]

When my parents' house was rewired I stressed the importance of such things (do it once, and do it well).  TV coax and phone wiring to every room.

A friend did similar although he had them install string along each run along with some blank faceplates so he could pull through anything else at a later date. This made it much cheaper for him to get Cat-5 and various other audio-visual stuff put in at a later date.

Yeah, that's the alternative approach.  Taken to its logical conclusion, you can have a loft that looks like you're growing conduit.

It's a genuine regret that when I moved into this place the electrics were in too good condition for me to justify rewiring. Any changes have been piecemeal (we've now got a dozen sockets in the corner of the lounge where the TV and stereo live, on the grounds that that's better than filling two six-ways running from a double socket) - mind you, I don't really miss the Cat 5 that I'd prefer to have.