Electrical

The electrician has been and done the first-fix electrical. Mostly what he has done looks good, there are just a couple of switches that look like they are going to be in the way (note for next time: you really should dimension everything, including heights for power points and windows). The only thing he's done which really irritated me is he has nailed down some of the structafloor catwalks I had cut. Now I had deliberately left these loose so I could move them, and because I didn't want people putting their stuff on them. So what has he done? He hasn't just nailed them down, he has run electrical cable down their length and nailed it on with clips. Git.

Oh boy am I running out of time. I have finished one roll of sisalation and started the next one, and I have rolled out 100 m of speaker wire and bought another one. As always I wonder if this (especially the sisalation) is really worth the effort, but you can feel the effect even on a cold day when the sun warms the steel roof for a few minutes. Behind the foil covering the radiated heat is much less.

Oh, by the way, many people are confused about which way the reflective side should face. The funny (and confusing) thing is that it really doesn't matter as long as there is an air gap next to the reflective side (100mm is plenty). The reason for this is that a highly-reflective surface has low emissivity, so one way around it reflects heat up and the other way around it resists radiating heat down, ultimately reaching a higher surface temperature until it radiates the same amount of heat upwards. It would presumably work twice as well if it was reflective on both sides, so it's a bit of a shame that it's usually painted on one side. Incidentally, the reason there needs to be an air gap next to the reflective side is because otherwise thermal conduction will ensure it is at the same temperature as the material it is in contact with.

I'm taking the day off tomorrow to do some more, and meeting the supervisor later so I can ask when it might be finished. He has the tendency to tell me what he thinks I want to hear, when what I really want is a realistic estimate.