Here's an interesting item found in a "Homes & Gardens" style journal.

Here we have a complete modular kitchen and bathroom unit, pre-plumbed and pre-wired, ready to slot into place in your new home and connect to water and power.

Unfortunately, this is the only picture, so we can't see what the bathroom on the other side is like, but this whole ready-to-go module could have been yours for £550 ex-works in 1964.

I would kind of envision modular homes built in that sort of module system, but I don't think anybody really does, at least commercially.

"includes two power-points" ? We have come a long way sence then.

"Hello? Modules-R-Us? Yes, I'd like to order one kitchen, three baths, five bedrooms, a laundry room, and the living-room/dining-room package. Oh, yes, the detached garage, too."

Why? Cuz it's "modern", of course! How silly to even ask.


Yeahbut...
Look at the lack of counter space. Methinks the NEC would require only 3 receptacles there even now (none required over the sink or cooktop).

I love to look at stuff like this, which is not to say I would want to cook with it. I've seen a 30" unit from the '50s, with 2-element cooktop, super-dinky sink, and fridge below. Not very practical, but it could enable one to boast of having the Swiss Army Knife of major appliances!

Try as I might, I can only see one. The unit to the right of the stove is the traditional British "cooker control unit," with an isolator for the stove and an integral receptacle, something like this .

But where is the second outlet?

In all seriousness Paul, I believe it's probably behind the fridge.

Ah, I hadn't thought of that. You're probably right.

I have a townhouse here, that when I moved in, the kitchen had 4 socket-outlets, 2 of which were on the Range, but due to the way the range had been built into the window-sill, you couldn't use either.
The other was for the Fridge.
Things have changed a lot here since though, the whole place only had 8 socket-outlets (all singles), now it boasts new lighting (Down-lights) and about 25 socket-outlets and a new switch-board.
This place was built in the 1960's and it's plain to see how loadings in Domestic places have changed even in that period of time.

4??? That's ridiculously much!
We had two when we moved in, one of which was occupied by the refrigerator!

Similar modular units were common in Britain as a quick means of constructing houses after the War, when labour and materials were short. The one I've seen had a hot water cylinder in the middle with kitchen taps poking out one end, bath taps poking out the other, the electrical panel in the middle (for the immersion heater and the cooker in the kitchen)

Ragnar,
That's rediculous!.
I've always maintained that the more socket-outlets you have in a house, the less likely the owners are to try and add more or use extension cords between rooms (which is BTW illegal here).
We've had discussions over in the Non-US Area about the minimum number of Sockets in a house.
I have a personal level of at least 25 double outlets.
Anyone disagree?.

{Spelling error}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 03-24-2006).]

Here in this room (sort of living/bedroom) I have: 1 Schuko at either side of the door near the floor and 1 ungrounded above, at switch level. A double Schuko and two ungrounded scattered along the long wall. One triple ungrounded on each side of the window and a triple Schuko for the computer and stereo.

The house I grew up in was very limited on outlets throughout until I learned enough (and with my EC cousin's direction) to install more outlets & circuits.... 1 ungrounded to each room, 1 for a kitchen counter about 10' long, 2 in the living room, and one on the ceiling in the dining room (???). 4 circuits and a Bulldog panel with the screws broken off in most of the breaker spaces =(

We all know the codes in place nowadays that give us a fairly copious amount of outlets throughout a new house, but it's interesting seeing how things have evolved to where we are today. It seems in alot of the 1950's homes I've come across that it, at least, was industry standard to place an outlet about 40"+AFF in the dining room for a toaster or percolator. But kitchen counter outlets were scarce for the most part. A 1906 house I went to once had no outlets whatsoever in the bedrooms, (but there was a gasline in the baseboard. A 1903 house in LA I went to had an outlet halfway up the stairs, and one for the entire kitchen...

That raises some interesting historical questions.

1. When did the NEC first specify what must be installed? (As opposed to just specifying how things which the designer wanted to fit should be installed.)

2. When did the 12-ft. rule for receptacle spacing first appear?

3. When did the NEC first specify the two small-appliance circuits for the kitchen area?

I'm guessing that the latter was the most recent. Or were those older "four plus range & main" panels ever used with two fuses for the two small-appliance branch circuits and the other two serving general purpose recepts/lighting in the rest of the house?

2. 1928 12 outlets per 15 ampere circuit.
1940 receptacle spacing 20 ft.
1956 receptacle spacing 12 ft.
3. 1959 NEC was the first to require two kitchen circuits.
Creighton

Thanks! The 1959 date makes a lot of sense, with kitchen gadgets of all descriptions becoming far more common at the time.

As a matter of interest, do you know how far back the 3W per sq. ft. rule for general illumination circuits goes?


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 03-26-2006).]

Pauluk: 1947 Dwellings 2 watts per sq. ft.
1951 Dwellings 3 watts per sq. ft.
Creighton

1960 was probably the most significant year for household construction.
This is because 1960 saw the election of John F. Kennedy as president- and more importantly, the rise of the "whiz kids" he brought with him into the office. For every "whiz kid" working in the White House, there were likely a thousand out there in industry, waiting to make their mark. "Can Do" was their motto, and technology their icon.

America's exploding population saw the first real standardisation of housing components. For example, window dimensions were standardised- no longer ned every single window be custom manufactured.

Along with this was a very real explosion in household apliances. No longer was the refrigerator in the kitchen an 'afterthought.' Clever designers tried to create 'modules' of common home components, but with very limited success.

One reason seems to have been that, dreams of designers aside, everyone wants something a bit different when it comes to their home. Another factor was the continuing changes in the appliances we demand.
For example, the module shown is missing at least one appliance that no kitchen today is without- the micro-wave oven!

A kitchen I recently saw had, as installed apliances, a fridge at least three times the volume of the unit shown, with triple the freezer space. The stove had six burners. There was a 'normal' oven, a convection oven, and a microwave. There were two dishwashers, and a wine cooler. Oh- and don't forget the garbage disposal, and the under-cabinet lighting!
Portable appliances? Gone are the days of the hand-held mixer and toaster being alone in the cupboard. Add the heavy-duty dough mixer, the small electric grill, the bread machine, the blender, and the pizza heater. Each of these can have significant current demand. They also need working space.

Contrast this to my "ahead of it's time" 1940 kitchen. It has exactly ONE plug -for the fridge- and a switch for the exhause fan, with a single light in the ceiling. It measures a generous 5ft wide by 8ft long, with the fridge set in a pocked added to the end of the 8ft. dimension. Take away the stove and sink, add the top of the water heater, and I have a total of 6ft counter space, broken into three segments. Sort of like out module- but shorter!

Apart from the style of the appliances the kitchen pictured is still pretty typical for Europe, especially for apartment construction.

In the 1970ies and 80ies standard for Vienna City Council housing was 1 receptacle per room, larger rooms two. Kitchen had a fridge ooutlet, a dedicated dishwasher circuit and maybe 2 or 3 general purpose receptacles. Everything else was on 2 or 3 10A circuits. Just to give you an idea of what were the minimum stabdards.

Well: Our old house (wired in 1952) has one duplex recepticle per elevation in the main room. The other two downstairs rooms had an outlet/switch at the door, as did the largest room upstairs. The other rooms had just pullchain surface fixtures.

My Grandmother's house in Don Mills (suburb of Toronto), han one counter outlet, one fridge outlet, and one by the table.

It's quite interesting that while the loading for appliances which would normally have their own dedicated circuits has been increasing steadily over the years, the figure for general-purpose circuits has remained unchanged for over 50 years.

Paul, that's because on the one hand our aspirations to own pointless $1000 lumps of junk to save us from the minutest physical effort have mushroomed, while on the other, our eyes are the same as the bloke in a cave knapping arrowheads from a nodule of flint!

Alan