The construction locally in Mayenne defies belief, but the mortar is just pure red clay. No cement, no lime or gypsum.
Same here... except it's yellow clay.
For that reason (and many others!) I love old buildings!
Well... I'm not the guy who deals with them, I only do the work, but I heard the secrataries and whoever else moan only at the thought of having the offices renovated, and they seem to have quite some impact there. I have no idea about the insurance, but the most common policy with wiring of that kind is just to repair and repair until a complete rewire absolutely can't be avoided any more. We just told them to use the rewired circuits for the vacuum cleaner from now on! According to my mate the splice was actually made by somebody from our company years ago, if not decades...
Anyway, it's a holiday job and it's my last week, so it doesn't really bother me. Just wanted to share some of the usual every day problems here.
Back to the bakers guild: I think they got the first floor completely and most of the ground floor rewired already, the main panel is brand new, only three or four offices and the hallways on the ground floor are left with the ancient wiring. Some of that seems to have been replaced in the 70ies (like the failed splice... the incoming cloth wire was spliced to PVC wire with 60ies color coding in PVC conduit...)
