Irish House Oddities

Effects · 22-10-2015 3:58pm

the_barfly1 wrote: »

I'm guessing the urban planners here have never heard of it.

Of course they have heard of it. Isn't that what the towers in Ballymun ran off.

LDN_Irish · 22-10-2015 4:01pm

kylith wrote: »

I've been in European houses with no sink in the WC. Now THAT is rank

I've been to a couple of houses like this on the continent and in England. Wipe your arse and then walk to a room beside the toilet opening and closing all the doors along the way to wash your hands. Lovely.

22-10-2015 4:02pm

Dutch houses are weird. Toilet and sink in a room downstairs smaller than a broom closet, shower and sink in the room above the same size. Washing machine and tumble drier out in the shed.

uch · 22-10-2015 4:02pm

ballsymchugh wrote: »

the house i was living in in England had a hot press, it was built around 2001.
combi boilers have become more common since so the water is heated as you use it. it helps when the country has a widespread gas network though.
hence we have immersion heaters.

Make sure you turn it off before you leave

Nekarsulm · 22-10-2015 4:03pm

Had friends to stay from France, and they were greatly impressed with the way wall sockets have an on/off switch built in.

Regarding the level of building standards here during the boom, the practice of building a single leaf wall using cavity blocks and plastering the outside and sticking cosi-board to the inside, and calling it an "insulated exterior wall" beggars belief. (new apartments in Navan, between the two sets of traffic lights, I'm thinking of you)
No wonder damp and mould is a constant problem in apartments here.

Don't get me started on Architects and their love or flat roofs, Butterfly roofs and strange Mansard window type eruptions on houses.

Eutow · 22-10-2015 4:03pm

whisky_galore wrote: »

In older houses, every single room covered in fcuking wallpaper, usually the floral/paisley pattern variety.

The excuse for that is because the walls are so uneven, badly maintained that covering them with thick wallpaper is better and more practical than trying to paint them.

Buona Fortuna · 22-10-2015 4:25pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Dutch houses are weird. Toilet and sink in a room downstairs smaller than a broom closet, shower and sink in the room above the same size. Washing machine and tumble drier out in the shed.

They're just encouraging people to take a wazz in the shower.

Boom_Bap · 22-10-2015 4:26pm

Buona Fortuna wrote: »

They're just encouraging people to take a wazz in the shower.

or wazz in the sink from the shower.

jester77 · 22-10-2015 4:32pm

LDN_Irish wrote: »

I've been to a couple of houses like this on the continent and in England. Wipe your arse and then walk to a room beside the toilet opening and closing all the doors along the way to wash your hands. Lovely.

This is common in Germany in the older building. These buildings were put up during a time when it was common to have a communal WC. Later when it became standard to have a WC in each apartment, they had to fit them in somewhere. Usually it was in a closet on the other side of the kitchen where they had access to the pipes.

In the old apartment's it is very common to have a very narrow bathroom, just the width of the door, with a wash basin inside (if there is space), a toilet at a 45 degree angle which you have to step over to get into a very small shower.

BattleCorp · 22-10-2015 4:37pm

I'm always amazed at air vents in houses.

We have to insulate the bejaysus out of the house to keep it warm and then leave a big hole in the wall so that freezing cold air can enter to stop the place going mouldy.

gutenberg · 22-10-2015 4:37pm

ballsymchugh wrote: »

the house i was living in in England had a hot press, it was built around 2001.
combi boilers have become more common since so the water is heated as you use it. it helps when the country has a widespread gas network though.
hence we have immersion heaters.

That's good to know about the more modern-build houses. The ones I've lived in have tended to be older.

Fratton Fred · 22-10-2015 4:57pm

gutenberg wrote: »

Have been living in the UK for 5 years, and no English house I've been in has had a hot press. I miss it...

I was going to add that Irish houses don't have airing cupboards!

redbel05 · 22-10-2015 5:05pm

Windows and outside doors in ireland-
I'd say about 90% are PVC at this stage. With the majority of these being that hideous white PVC. Remember a sales rep coming around our neighborhood in the late 90s going on about how PVC lasts for life, best you can get etc etc. Only a couple of years later and many houses already were seeing leaks amd

Whether that was due to our Irish builders masterful work, that's another question

LDN_Irish · 22-10-2015 5:23pm

Fratton Fred wrote: »

I was going to add that Irish houses don't have airing cupboards!

I've never lived in a house in England without one.

I probably shouldn't let this one out of the bag but the only difference between a hot press and an airing cupboard is the name!

m5ex9oqjawdg2i · 22-10-2015 5:42pm

KERSPLAT! wrote: »

It's not OK to have them right next to the kitchen sink, there are regs that give minimum distances with regards to sinks, etc and zones in a bathroom as to where and what electrical devices can be placed in that zone.

Each electrical device is IP rated. An electric shower would have a high IP rating, it would have measures in place to stop steam and water getting inside, a 13a socket doesn't.

Spray water on an electric shower and you'll be fine, spray water on a standard socket and you'll probably get lifted out of it.

Is it possible to step down the power of the sockets in the bathroom to 110V maybe? I'm no electrician, clearly :P

jester77 wrote: »

I have four sockets, a double on each side of the sink in my bathroom. Electric tootbrushes, razor and hair dryer are plugged in. Pretty much standard in every house here. Haven't heard of anyone being electrocuted from it.

Doesn't Ireland also have a funny rule regarding the light switch for the bathroom, that it has to be outside the bathroom and not inside?

Different power outputs in Ireland compared to the majority of EU countries. I prefer to have sockets in the bathroom for various devices, but it's not very safe to do this in Ireland.

Effects · 22-10-2015 5:51pm

Lee Stale Sister wrote: »

Different power outputs in Ireland compared to the majority of EU countries. I prefer to have sockets in the bathroom for various devices, but it's not very safe to do this in Ireland.

Nope. Our voltage levels are harmonised in Europe.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i · 22-10-2015 5:54pm

Effects wrote: »

Nope. Our voltage levels are harmonised in Europe.

For some reason I thought it was 110 elsewhere in the EU. Oops?

Effects · 22-10-2015 6:01pm

You are thinking of the USA.

Del2005 · 22-10-2015 6:05pm

BattleCorp wrote: »

I'm always amazed at air vents in houses.

We have to insulate the bejaysus out of the house to keep it warm and then leave a big hole in the wall so that freezing cold air can enter to stop the place going mouldy.

Even better. My brother recently got cavity wall insulation. A corner beside the front door is solid blocks and they where refusing the grant unless he lined it with insulation, fair enough, they then insisted he drill a 6" hole in the sitting room which has to have an fixed vent!

amdublin · 22-10-2015 6:13pm

You see this in the country rather than Dublin (well I've never seem it in Dublin):

The front door that is NEVER used. Like never. Even if a stranger is calling around the back they go.

I've no clue why culchies bother with a front door at all.

MilesMorales1 · 22-10-2015 6:20pm

This house I live in was built during the boom, and its badly constructed, and has something wrong with it so often its gone beyond a joke.

As for things unique to Irish houses.... piles of washing everywhere. Like washing goes on the tables, on the couches, radiators, on the sides in the kitchen, clothes lines, etc.

jester77 · 22-10-2015 6:28pm

MilesMorales1 wrote: »

This house I live in was built during the boom, and its badly constructed, and has something wrong with it so often its gone beyond a joke.

As for things unique to Irish houses.... piles of washing everywhere. Like washing goes on the tables, on the couches, radiators, on the sides in the kitchen, clothes lines, etc.

The piles of washing is not unique to Ireland, piles all over my house, but nothing wet. We've a laundry room in the basement, where it is washed and tumble dried or put on a clothes horse. The clean washing manages to come back in little bundles that could end up on the couch, counters or table. I've never seen a clothes line here.

Paramite Pie · 22-10-2015 6:45pm

amdublin wrote: »

The front door that is NEVER used. Like never. Even if a stranger is calling around the back they go.

I've no clue why culchies bother with a front door at all.

Old habits die hard I guess. It has to do with the 'good room' mentioned in the last page. Guests would enter through the front door so they never see the state of the actual house. Many of us culchies go in the backdoor of friends houses as some form of familiarity/humility or weirdness like that.

If you knew someone well, going in the front door would be all like "la-di-da look at me getting notions of grandeur coming in the front door as if I'm the local Priest or someone to be waited on"... sure ya know yourself:)

MilesMorales1 wrote: »

As for things unique to Irish houses.... piles of washing everywhere. Like washing goes on the tables, on the couches, radiators, on the sides in the kitchen, clothes lines, etc.

Seen that in some people's houses but never any of my own families. No one I know in Mayo seem to do it but I see it here in Galway/Dublin. Is it a townie thing?

Why not use the clothes line?

Effects · 22-10-2015 6:46pm

amdublin wrote: »

You see this in the country rather than Dublin (well I've never seem it in Dublin):
The front door that is NEVER used. Like never. Even if a stranger is calling around the back they go.

I've no clue why culchies bother with a front door at all.

It's for the priest.

Kovu · 22-10-2015 6:47pm

Matt_Trakker wrote: »

Oh also, using a washbasin in a sink to wash dishes.
The sink is a basin!
WTF is wrong with people?

We use one so we can throw the water out on the lawn. As we have a septic tank, it could get very full if we leave the tap running all the time while doing the washing up. Anyway, won't it save some of ye money when you have to pay for water

Having presses everywhere around the kitchen, instead of cupboards. Very confused foreigners here before when we said X was in that press and Y in the other presses.
I am so glad I live in the country though, no neighbours right beside us to hear yapping away at night. I put up with that in college long enough, nearly went daft.

Magico Gonzalez · 22-10-2015 6:54pm

The worst of Irish boom time apartments is the complete lack of storage.

Oh you didn't want to pile all your belongings up in the corner of the room? Sorry, we designed this place for naturists. No clothes space needed.

Live out foreign now, am definitely missing Irish plumbing. Over here the pipes are about the width of a biro pen..chaos and blockages ahoy.

ps..am a converted bidet user. ....sure my feet have never been cleaner!

KERSPLAT! · 22-10-2015 7:05pm

Lee Stale Sister wrote: »

Is it possible to step down the power of the sockets in the bathroom to 110V maybe? I'm no electrician, clearly :P

Yep, sure the shaving sockets in bathrooms are usually interchangeable from 230v - 110v but the device you use must also be 110v to match

22-10-2015 7:09pm

amdublin wrote: »

You see this in the country rather than Dublin (well I've never seem it in Dublin):

The front door that is NEVER used. Like never. Even if a stranger is calling around the back they go.

I don't know anyone including ourselves who use the front door except when someone calls (rural area). A lot of the reason is people drive around and park their cars behind the house also but it's usually much handier to come in the back too rather than walking through the house.

I think we have only one key left for our front door and as keys can't be cut for it its left up in a safe place incase it's needed. The door can be opened from in inside without the key but only with a key from outside.

username2013 · 22-10-2015 7:09pm

TheNobleKipper wrote: »

But that doesn't explain why other countries have sockets in bathrooms without fatalities being reported on a regular basis?

In north america and europe(i think), appliances use 120 volts where as in in Ireland and the UK, they use 240. So I think that is why you can have sockets in bathrooms there, a shock from 120 won't kill you. Not an electrician though so could be wrong on that one.

Strumms · 22-10-2015 7:10pm

Effects wrote: »

It's for the priest.

I always thought they preferred to come in the back door when nobody was looking.

Irish House Oddities

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