ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades Austrian Diazed Panels

Well, if the wiring looks ok right from the beginning it's probably safe as long as you don't start messing around. Accidents are pretty rare, in spite of the obviously bad state of some of the wiring. Besides: As long as they're dry plaster walls insulate pretty good. We had some bare wires inside the plaster yet didn't get more than 6V on the wall surface.
The panels aren'T that bad, it's pretty hard to stick your finger inside of that. You'd have to bend y<our finger all the way round like an oldfashioned umbrella handle and touch the terminals from the back. Besides they require a cover to be fitted whenever such a panel is altered. Depending on the quality of the mounting they last quite long to only a few days (the ones were the screws fall into the plaster chunks on the floor and immediately disappear once you take them off the first time, after you got new screws you notice the threads have worn out and dump the entire cover). I've seen 2 of them so far. one was pretty solid work, green translucent acrylic glass with round holes for each fuse. Only problem with all of those covers and the main reason why I "accidentally" "forget" them is you have to unscrew _all_ fuses before putting them on again. Imagine an apartment building, 6 apartments on one floor, supplied by one main fuse box like this. Now try telling all the tenants you gotta kill their power twice because you'va got to retighten the screws on you main fuses...
Besides I actually like being able to see right into the panel when opening the door. I wouldn't ever have been able to take pictures like these... and after all I'm an electrical maniac like most of us who cares more for the wiring of a place than for anything else...
We still have the tiny version of something like this, that is a 4 space + RCD breaker panel and above a small Diazed panel with only 2 circuits (it's an almost square thing that sits on porcelaine insulators screwed to the wall surface. Atop of it I put a box of replacement fuses.

O yeah, regarding the gas water heater: it's the almost legendary Vaillant Geyser type. I think a modern version of it is still made.

Is that the correct spelling, or a typo?

There's a make in Britain named Valiant.

Vaillant is a German company with a long tradition of producing heating systems and components. www.vaillant.de


The company was founded as a simple plumbing company in 1874.



In 1894 Johann Vaillant invented his first gas water heater. In 1904 he invented a heater called Geyser, which was with several modifications built until at least 1970. Maybe the name still exists.

The house where I live was built in 1913-1914 and all seven bathrooms were equipped with such water heaters right from the beginning, judging by the still original gas lines and mounting brackets. Pretty fancy, back in those days most new apartments didn't even have running water inside, only a sink in the hallway and a shared toilet on each floor. We think the house was built as cheap upper-class apartments, built to make as much money as possible. From the distance everything looks very luxurious but as soon as you take a closer look it's shoddy. Cheap parquet (long and wide boards were much more expensive, we have formats from 3.5x25 to 5.5x25 cm, large ones were 6x60 or even larger), thin walls, ... but electrical wiring in all rooms, seperate toilet and bathroom,...

Edited to remove unnecessary pic.

[This message has been edited by Texas_Ranger (edited 11-05-2003).]

Here's a pic of an old style Austrian breaker panel for comparison. The breakers were much higher than modern ones and the RCD is only 100mA, illegal nowadays (I was even told the entire panel would be illegal).



Hope this image works, I finally managed to gain access to my university web space, I guess it should support hot linking. If not I'll give up.

it works

i didnt think that they were din rail appliances with more height that 45mm.

Old Breakers in Germany were just higher from the rail (the distance rail - panelfront was bigger), and they were 2 Units wide for just one pole.

Those were 80mm. The distance DIN-rail-panel front was the same as with new ones. This type of breaker was used until some time between 1987 and 1991 (2 rewires I've seen, the 1987 rewire still has the old ones, the 1991 rewire already has the smaller type). Width was always the same, only the RCDs have gotten narrower, putting a new RCD into such a panel leaves almost enough space to fit a single pole breaker. 1p + N or 2p breakers are double width. I actually like the old ones better because the handles are bigger. When we had an electrician to check our wiring after we relocated the meter he looked at our panel and said: "Those Diazed fuses aren't gonna stay?" We just said: "No. they're just temporary." Then he said: "Don't let the PoCo guys see that panel. The breakers aren't legal any more either." I didn't ask for reasons, so I have no idea why you can't use them. They're pretty expensive at Ebay, since there are no replacements any more. Though I don't have the slightest idea why anyone would buy a whole panel like the one in the picture (I took it from Ebay), except for a nostalgia nut like me

They may or many not react according to the standardised Cenelec and EN rules. So would be outlawed.

MCBs are pretty much identical around europe thesedays. With the exception of the UK's ring circuits the differences in installations around europe are becoming smaller and smaller all the time.

to get the old thread back up, i made some pics today of a recently installed panel (big panel) to show how it might look these days...


Cabinet



left side opened. left: Main breaker, must be capable to shut down the unit even in case of a total short. Middle: Breakers for lights, small machines, Schuko receptacles etc, right yellow sticker: Overvoltage protectors, bottom: 3.phase Neozed fuse units, can take 2 to 63A fuses.


inside. the terminals in the back are the outlets from the Diazed fuses (nothing connected yet), the Neutral is shared by the copper bar, the Ground is shared via the Din rail (green-yellow terminals feet make electrical contact to it).



Connections from the breakers. again N shared via copper bar and PE via din rail.


Power disconnectors, these can hold NH size fuses up to i think 200A? not sure, there are 4 different dimension types of them.


electronic relays controlling the lights via EIB (European installation bus).


switches for the lights with white LEDs


[This message has been edited by :andy: (edited 12-02-2003).]

Cables to the lights coming in. Recognize the new gray color for third phase.



again nice bundle work in the lights cabinet



hope anyone is interested to see this

have a nice day