20180331

Out of Africa - Jon and Sarah's home

Most of you will know that Jon and Sarah (my daughter) are spending a year in Kenya on a voluntary basis to start a school. Here are some of my pictures from my recent visit. The house and garden that they have free use of is owned by a charity.

Sarah in her garden

Spot the differences!

The house is a bungalow made of local bricks: I think the walls are one brick thick (no cavity - no need for insulation here!). The roof is tin on somewhat scary timbers. All the windows and doors are barred for security and individually made by local metal workers. Thus these two windows are nominally the same but you'll notice many differences if you look carefully!

They collect water from the roof for washing and showering. Drinking water comes from the local communal spring, and Sarah boils this. They have mains electricity (most of the time) and have a fridge and gas cooker (though no kitchen as such yet).  And they thankfully have sit-on loos (which discharge into a cesspool under the garden).  As such the accommodation is a good deal better than the average in this area but then we are m'zungu's!


Water storage collected from the roof

Cinnamon buns are actually cheap to make 

Washing clothes the Kenyan way

Visitors from the church enjoy chocolates I brought over

Kenyans and us enjoying a m'zungu meal

Sarah's garden after heavy rain

Jon's coffee making was legendary

Sarah does school prep most evenings

Typical Kenyan evening taken just outside their home

20180330

Out of Africa - life in Kenya

A few random photographs of Kenya generally, to give a flavour of the culture there.


On the way to a market in Kisumu,
the half-completed roadworks are a typical scene

The afore mentioned market

These rudely made carcasses will become quite presentable armchairs

A funeral procession, horns blaring, outside our church in Mudete

The same, with a Boda Boda passing by. Crash helmets are rare.

A hardware shop in Mudete. Note the bars and the spelling!

Click to enlarge and check out the writing on the bus

Passing a crowd going to a bull-fight, on the way to Kakamega Forest

Boda Boda delivery man

The main road deteriorates whilst a bridge is being build

Scary scaffolding abounds

Market in Kakamega town

We purchased some mangoes

A pretentious dwelling outside Kisumu 

20180324

Out of Africa - Electrics

One of my tasks whilst visiting J&S in Kenya was to install lighting and a 13A outlet in the new school room. Some allowance had been made during the building work, so there was already a conduit from a 13A socket in the adjacent church to the roof space above the school room.

This post is about what I learnt about Kenyan wiring and some confessions.

The incoming supply is overhead from a roadside pole where only two wires are visible. As far as I could tell, then, the earthing system is 'TT' i.e. the protective earth is supplied by the customer and there is no explicit connection to the supply authority's earth.

I learned that, as a rule, red = Live, black = Neutral, green/yellow = Earth. And that all domestic carcass wiring is done in 20mm black plastic conduit. I say "as a rule" because apparently rules are there only to be broken.


Incoming supply switch-gear

You can click on these images to enlarge them. The picture shows the supply authority's switch-gear which is mounted in a rough metal enclosure on the outside wall of the church. The incoming supply is the black (coaxial?) cable entering at the top and terminates in the DIN-rail double-pole switch at left. This is turn connects to the HXP100DIM metering module via scarily thin wires possible only 2.5 sq.mm. This module has a twin wire data connection to a coin-slot meter inside the church. The supply connects from here to the larger switch on the right where it is joined by an earth cable presumably connected to the customer's earthing rod.

There is a thoroughly normal consumer unit inside the church building with several MCB's which supply lighting and power outlets.


Showing the incoming supply cable in the angled conduit

You'll see that nothing is properly fastened to anything - the supply authority's conduit is roughly supported at a crazy angle only by the geometry of the wall.


Church socket wiring, with my spur connected

Within the church, which is in effect a large single room, there is what I take to be a ring circuit running around the perimeter. It runs in conduit under the plaster but becomes visible at periodic conduit boxes none of which are fitted with lids. For all that effort I could find only two double 13A sockets on this ring, both on the platform. One was hanging (not screwed in). The other (shown above) was properly fastened and was where the provided conduit to the school terminated.  You'll see from this that the colour scheme adopted is:

Green/yellow = Live, green/yellow = Neutral, red = Earth.

In spite of that unfortunate choice the wire gauge appears to be correct i.e. 2.5 sq.mm for Live and Neutral.

My wiring uses the correct Kenyan colours and can be seen connected as a spur in the above picture.  We purchased our wire by the metre at a hardware store in nearby Chavakali.  Here I specified 2.5 for power and 1.5 for lighting, and the store (and I) judged the correct gauge by the larger outer insulator diameter for the supposed 2.5 sq.mm. However when I started working with this wire I found the outer diameter to be a lie, as shown below where I latter compared with wires stripped from Irish 2.5 sq.mm T&E cable.  The bare copper earth wire at top is thus 1.5 sq.mm.

It would appear that the Kenyan green/yellow and black "2.5" is indeed 2.5 sq.mm but the red "2.5" is in fact much less, perhaps 1.5 sq.mm.  And of the two lighting gauge wires at bottom right only the red one is really 1.5, the black being significantly less maybe only 1 sq.mm.

Comparison of wires
Did this matter?  Given the sloppy nature of the wiring generally, our reluctance to go source the correct gauge, and the fact that the two new lights were rated 35W each and that the single double-socket would be used at most only to charge electronic computing equipment, I reckoned not.

According to Irish code an unfused spur from a ring circuit is not allowed, also not allowed is a direct connection from a ring circuit to a reduction in wire gauge for lighting. But I committed both sins, in addition to the wrong wire gauge I had been duped into buying.

But at least all my wiring was in conduit and used the correct colours. Whereas at J&S's house, which had been wired by a "professional" electrician, the conduit stops a few inches short of lighting fixtures so you have single-insulated wire bridging this gap, albeit sometimes wrapped in insulation tape for good measure.

Oh, and when the plumber came to connect a tap to the rainwater tank we had installed, he needed mains power for his electric "welding" machine for PPR water pipe.  An extension cable was not to be had. Indeed his complete tool set consisted only in this rather ancient machine and a couple of plumbing wrenches. We had to supply hack-saw, pipe and fittings, lunch and a drink. So I used some of our recently purchased black lighting wire, connecting into his machine's 13A plug at one end and splicing into the ring main in one of those exposed conduit boxes at the other end, there not being a 13A socket within reach. It did the job, though would hardly have passed health and safety.


20180323

Brunel's Folly

The 1856 railway route from Bray to Greystones was designed by world famous Isambard Kingdom Brunel and to this day the line is known as Brunel's Folly on account of the high cost of maintenance.

The original route crossed Brandy Hole on a wooden trestle bridge but there was a bad accident there so the line had to be moved further inland to its present course, necessitating additional tunnels.


The 1867 accident at Brandy Hole

Google Earth view of Brandy Hole

You can see the original coarse in this aerial view, and also from the train q.v.

We walked from Bray up to the cross then down to the cliff walk to Greystones, then rode back by train.  From the cliff above a tunnel opening we took the following pictures.

I suppose the extra rails are to strengthen

Not sure why they have signals on a single line,
but this one turned red a little before the train emerged

Here cometh said train

At top middle you can see the now unused tunnel for the original track alignment.


We waived to the driver and he tooted back

Ventilation shaft to the longest of the tunnels

This I think is where the original trestle bridge sprung from

Bray station, the third line for through trains seems an overkill

Bray station: train arriving from Dublin

The sea, the sea, at Bray

Detail of the beginning of the strengthening, Bray end



20180321

Out of Africa - Kakamega forest

Kakamega forest is Kenya's only tropical rainforest and, we were told, used to be much larger than it now is. We visited a government run tourist station and paid for a 2 hour guided tour along the Mama Mutere trail.

Whole forest relative to Mudete

detail showing the Forest Station and Rondo Retreat

Our guide Nancy beside tea plantation bordering the forest

R gazing at...

...a monkey - we saw many

H climbing the void in a strangler fig tree

The strangler fig tree grows around its host which eventually gives up the unequal struggle and dies, leaving a chimney within the fig, which our crew climbed up.


Atop the observation tower, strictly unsafe to climb

The tower overlooks a clearing north of the station (see map)

one of many


Having done the forest we checked out nearby Rondo Retreat hoping to have lunch there, but reckoned it was too expensive. A really nice place though, so very well kept and so very colonial in style.


Hot water system at Rondo Retreat