Rewiring an entire appartment
Over the past few days I've been pulling wires and being frustrating at the stupid north american electrical standards that somehow made their way into Mexico and became the norm here too. I also cursed at the Mexican interpretation of these standards, a lot!
They even have a name for it, NOM-001 or something. I didn't bother with it too much, but read up on a few things for 2-phase power and how to ground things - Or why everything needs a ground. Whoever thought that making every housing, frame, pipe-socket and other touchable surfaces from metal was a good idea should be punched in the face. And whoever decided that every mounting screw should just stick out between wires in junction boxes needs at-least one kneecap forcibly removed.
Anyway, I've removed about 20 meters of useless wire from the appartment. Wiring somehow got doubled up, went in loops or just flatout made no sense. I've also removed about 3 rolls of black electrical tape and replaced that with proper wiring caps.
Some of the wiring was too thin and has hardened over the years. Probably from over-loading it. These got replaced with new flexicble wiring. Dreadfull to use. But hey, that's the standard. And it works!
Because of the lack of maintenance I still need to replace about 80% of all wall sockets and lightswitches. And replace the barn-style light sockets with something nice and suitable for a home. But that's for later. I'll make a huge list and replace everything that needs a new thing in one go, for all appartments and the house.
I just about finished rewiring appartment 3, The breaker box is done and now has 1 extra group for the kitchen. And I believe the overall safety of the installation has improved greatly. I'm far enough along that I can start thinking about apartment 1 and 2. I'll probably start tearing that up next week. Apartment 4 and the house will come last.