My Father's asked me to replace his fusebox for a slit load CU, he doesn't want to rewire the house which I have suggested as its rubber cable. I havent looked at the job propery yet but my question is, what to do if the cables are too short for the new places in the new CU?
I would prefer to at least fit the CU as it will offer more protection than they have now, which basically is nowt !! If I can I'll pressure them into a rewire.
The message from "Staffbull" contains these words:
Back out now before it all goes wrong.
If it really does have any rubber cable don't even touch it as it will fall apart.
I'd simply fit an RCD before the existing fusebox, etc.
Almost certainly essential. It will be 50 years old at least.
Got to agree fully with this one.
Rubber degrades and crumbles if touched. You could be getting into a very nasty job situation.
It's an all or nothing situation.
this will promptly ensure they have no leccy supply. And may still leave you legally liable. I suspect you might be opening yourself up to a small risk of serious charges for hooking up a 50 yr old installation in who knows what condition.
A split load CU wont offer much more safety anyway, mcbs are no safer than fuses, expect when in the hands of suicidal darwinian morons, and loss of earth at the socket is not an especially high ranking risk with old wiring. RCD will protect against L-E shorts, but not L-N, but this is only so if the RCD is workable in the first place. Even if the wiring is still sound, which is not impossible, the usual bakelite switches with no snap action would quickly take out the rcd.
NT
On 29 Oct 2006 15:13:41 -0800 someone who may be "Staffbull" wrote this:-
To add to what the others have said, if you try this you will probably find that the insulation of the wires coming into the existing consumer unit crumbles as you work on them. You will then end up with bare wires. How long they are will be the least of your troubles.
It is unlikely the existing installation has no protective devices. Trying to do half the job will almost certainly make the installation more dangerous.
Not a chance - you will end up with a pile of crumbling rubber and a load of bare wires!
Full rewire time I am afraid.
The rubber cable should be regarded as somewhere between at risk and immediately dangerous. You certainly should not disturb it. It absolutely MUST be changed as soon as possible. If there are money troubles, there may be a scheme with the local council to loan money for the work at low interest, or in return for a charge on the property.
The only modification I would consider would be to install a new consumer unit and run the entire existing installation from a 32A RCBO using new PVC cable to the old fuse box entry. Doing this I would NOT touch any rubber cable at all (except when totally removing a section). I would also regard this as an emergency fix until an electrician can come to rewire the entire property. I would only do it if the rubber appears to be in good condition and I could trust the residents to be sensible (i.e. they are family, no children live in the house, and they are not members of the public).
You may well find that the RCBO constantly trips. If so, the cable is immediately dangerous, rather than simply at risk. Entirely disconnect the electrical installation and find temporary accommodation for your father.
Christian.
Thanks, I'll get him to go for the rewire, it is well overdue, and if he's bothered about too much mess I'll use conduit on the surface. Each bedroom only has one socket at the moment anyhoo, so by adding another per room wont be much bother. If I can get past "why do you need so many plugs in one room" :-)
A few years ago I bought a flat which had had a Wylex CU installed and as it turned out the sockets changed to 13A. Behind everything as I later discovered with the original 1935 rubber/fabric (VIR ?) wiring in conduits.
Obviously I couldn't let such a flat so I had to rewire it pronto. To speed things up all the power was done in stick on surface trunking and surface sockets (mostly right over the original positions). "Contract" quality accessories, basic pendants etc.etc.
Last year I chased everything in, sunk everything flush and used a consistent volex s/s set of accessories throughout.
If it was in conduit, why not pull out old wire and pull in new?
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It's not as easy as it sounds. And you're then restricted to existing positions for sockets and switches, etc, which are never where you want them.
Legally, you will need to add a lot more than one per room. There are minimum standards for the numbers of sockets in each room. This is to improve safety by reducing the use of trailing leads (trip hazard) and daisy chained adapters (electrical and fire hazard).
Christian.
I was thinking that. There's a table in the On-Site Guide giving recommended numbers of sockets. Four to six (doubles) for a bedroom.
That number seems excessively high. What number do the major (nhbc registered (for what it's worth)) builders install. My house would require about 60, I reckon there's about 25, and half of those are singles.
That's exactly how the lighting was rewired. I wouldn't have got 2.5T+E down the conduits. I needed more sockets for even the most basic rewire. I still would have had to run additional cabling anyway. I didn't have any singles and I would have encountered additional earthing issues wrt the conduits.
I've got eight in my bedroom and IIRC 44 in total in my 2-bed flat. The thing about having lots is that you put your furniture where you want it, not in positions dictated by the need not to cover sockets.
I can't imagine they flagrantly disregard the building regulations, so I suspect they install 4 to 6 doubles.
Christian.
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