I'm building my personal Gaming Room...

[leonk]

It still blows my mind that in Europe, the outlet boxes are round! In north America they're rectangular, much easier to screw into 2x4 vertical stud (boxes have small teeth on them, you hammer them onto the vertical wood stud and then use screws or nails to secure permenantly) also, by code, electrical outlets are steel, not plastic.  The ground wire connects to it, making sure any electrical fire or spark are kept in the box.

[Etienne MacGyver]

In case of woodbuilding i have to agree with your arguments, but most of the buildings and structures here in Europe are made by bricks and stone/concrete.

if you want to make extra outlets or switches you can easy drill a hole that fits exactly with the plastic cup



a little cement or plaster will keep the cup in place

[level42]

Dude, the stuff used in the US is ancient.

The boxes in Europe are round because of the reason Etienne gave and we use this type of outlets:



As you see, they are square shaped. It would be very hard to put a square shaped outlet in a rectangular box, or it would be a major waste of space.

Our boxes can be connected together so accommodate several outlets or switches like this:


There are pre-fabbed punch-out holes to make it possible to route the wires between the boxes.

Having everything metal is a royal  PITA when installing because you have to ground everything. It also doesn't add any safety. You have to ground the boxes BECAUSE hey are metal.
What kind of "electrical fire or spark" are you going to expect happening ? It's never the wiring, it's always devices in electrical fires, unless you seriously overload wiring, but then a metal grounded box is not going to help either.

IMHO the metal boxes are much riskier than our plastic stuff (everything is plastic, pipes etc. etc.). If you have a poor or missing grounding, and the live wire will touch the box, you have a problem. Impossible with plastic.

We've had a fire-alarm installation at a certain customer who had hired an Irish contractor (they use UK standards, much more like US one's than mainland Europe standards) to do the installation. To our disgrace they used EVERYTHING in metal, boxes, pipes everything. And I mean the loop wiring to which the smoke detectors etc. were connected, these use 24V DC.....why on earth would you want metal pipes and stuff for that ? It is MUCH more expensive too, and I'm not even considering the extra hours it takes to install metal compared to our plastic materials.

In our terms, an installation that uses metal pipes is from 1908 and we had LOADS of ground faults because of bad installing at that project.

Besides that, using 110 VAC is a waste of energy, the higher 230V we use causes less losses over the cables and makes it possible to power more per fuse/breaker.

[uncletom]

Hehe,.. awesome. You seem quite well educated on the subject. I will repeat your lesson in my mind several times today.

Although, you cannot argue that the US waffles aren't the best waffles in the world, that is with a certain amount of maple syrup ontop. I had one in St Raphael this summer, and it made me feel so disappointed at our swedish waffles being so tiny. I could go on about the burgers, and the thai take-aways where they serve giant portions, and there's no shame in taking the rest home with you on a plastic box.

[level42]

Some things are better in the US but you obviously never tasted a Belgian waffle.....

I read a lot about maple syrup before I ever tasted it and I was seriously underwhelmed when I finally did. I think it's a rather pale taste compared to syrups we have here.

But tastes differ thankfully

But now we are gliding TOTALLY of topic

[leonk]

Dude, the stuff used in the US is ancient.

The boxes in Europe are round because of the reason Etienne gave and we use this type of outlets:

It's all fine and well, if the entire house was made of concrete and nothing else.  What is the cost of heating a home made of concrete compared to one made of wood?  Due to much colder weather up here in the North, electrical boxes are on the warm side of the hot/cold barrier, so they have to be rectangular.  You don't want cold to come into the dwelling through the box, nor do you want hot/cold to mix in the box (causing moisture/corrosion in the outlet!)

Electrical fires are much more common than you might think.  Some common causes are:

- rodents biting on wire - a mouse can chew through plastic - not steel.  And for those of you with rodents at home (e.g. my pet bunny) know how these animals love to bite on electrical wire!
- ancient wire upgrades - in the 1970's it was common to use aluminium wire.  With renovations, people upgrade to copper.  You can't mix copper + aluminium - it causes fires
- sheet rock installers screw right through electrical wire!  That's why wire is protected inside steel conduit or metal plates are used.

[level42]

I have a deja-vu feeling about this discussion 

Hope Bruno doesn't mind....here we go:

It's all fine and well, if the entire house was made of concrete and nothing else. 

It really depends a lot per country here in Europe, like our languages, our building techniques and regulations differ a lot.
This is also due to climate of course. Buildings in Greece differ immensely from buildings in Holland.

Here in Holland, concrete is _the_ building material. Why ? Because it is extremely strong (it withstands the worst storms, unlike wooden houses), durable, easy to handle and cheap.

Homes are usually concrete, but on the outside there are bricks. In between there is some excellent insulation of course. I am pretty sure that the average home in Holland consumes only a fraction of the heating costs of an average US home (that is also caused by the average size admittedly).

Due to much colder weather up here in the North, electrical boxes are on the warm side of the hot/cold barrier, so they have to be rectangular.

What effect does the shape have of being on the warm or cold side. Here the boxes are on the warm side too.

You don't want cold to come into the dwelling through the box, nor do you want hot/cold to mix in the box (causing moisture/corrosion in the outlet!)

Naturally this is prevented over here too. Don't ask me how, i'm not a construction expert.

Electrical fires are much more common than you might think.  Some common causes are:

- rodents biting on wire - a mouse can chew through plastic - not steel.  And for those of you with rodents at home (e.g. my pet bunny) know how these animals love to bite on electrical wire!
- ancient wire upgrades - in the 1970's it was common to use aluminium wire.  With renovations, people upgrade to copper.  You can't mix copper + aluminium - it causes fires
- sheet rock installers screw right through electrical wire!  That's why wire is protected inside steel conduit or metal plates are used.

-Well, rodents aren't able to enter brick/concrete walls AFAIK
-aluminium was NEVER allowed in electrical installations over here so we don't have that problem
-That one is funny because AFAIK in the US it is allowed to put electrical wire totally unprotected in inner walls. At least I've seen it on pictures from guys making gamerooms.
The plastic pipes gives protection against this. Because they are round it is very unlikely to screw through them.  However, if it happens, there are circuit breakers and earth-leak detectors demanded in our installations.

[uncletom]

Oh man, I love regulations. Really. They keep me alive.

[leonk]

Homes are usually concrete, but on the outside there are bricks. In between there is some excellent insulation of course. I am pretty sure that the average home in Holland consumes only a fraction of the heating costs of an average US home (that is also caused by the average size admittedly).

I'm not sure what code is in Holland, but in North America code differs by region as well.  Up here in Eastern Canada, typical new construction insulation is rated by R value.  Attic/roof insulation is about R50, and walls (6" thick insulation) is R20+.  Homes are heated using natural gas via ducts around the house using central HVAC (same system is used to cooling in the winter). Only really old homes that don't have central systems in the walls use the old water boilers / radiators / electric heating (which costs a lot more run, results in uneven heating around the house, and can't be used for cooling).  Having homes build of wood allows one to hide water / HVAC much easier between wood joists (both for heating/cooling runs as well as return air for reheat/recool)

As aluminium wire .. you'd be surprised.  As far as I know, all high voltage wires (the multi-kwatt high tension lines) are aluminium.

[atarikid]

Could we stay on-topic please? 

[uncletom]

Exactly.

.. what was the topic?

[DarthNuno]

The 'OSB' task is over, at least for the main room :







Still OSB panels left for the toilet/way between V2/V3... 

[DarthNuno]

Next step : Finishing to fill the empty spaces between the 'osb walls' and the roof.

Products of the days :



The space to fill :



Here we go :





Two different products, two colors...



After one day, it's solid... let's cut the unwanted! 



Et voilà. 

[Sonic 1992]

Hoped you used rubber gloves!!!  Once that crap is on your hands, it's there for life!!!!!!!!  you'll be peeling it off for like ever!!  lol

[Wil2000]

Dude, that room seems really huge with the wood panels on the walls! I can't wait to see the Galaxian back to life in this amazing gameroom!