Texas,
I've never been to Austria, but I would imagine that a lot of them were built in similar ways to those in Britain -- Quite different to American buildings in many respects.

Probably the strangest construction I've seen was a house in the Charente area of France. The walls were built entirely from roofing tiles laid flat and overlapping, held together with mortar. The place was built just after WWII, so I can only assume that there was a shortage of materials but somebody had a few thousand tiles to spare. Most peculiar.

Peter,
You're welcome to come and help out! Too late to enjoy the "fun" of the attic though, as all the second floor lighting wiring is finished now. (Yes, I wanted to get the worst part over first! [Linked Image])

Today's work has uncovered some disconnected lengths of rubber-sheathed cable, which I would guess were abandoned in the 1950s rewire. Also, I uncovered a length of abandoned m.i.c.c. (mineral-insulated copper-clad) cable. This is the first time I've ever found m.i.c.c. in residential wiring. It was under the floor of a bedroom above an old boiler room, so I'm guessing that it was part of the wiring to some old furnace. Very strange though: The sheer cost of this stuff and the labor-intensive nature of its installation means that it's usually strictly commercial/industrial.

Virgil,
Please do 'splain! I have no idea what you're talking about!


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 06-27-2002).]