House rewire - or not? (long)

[Dave]

We live in a 3-bed semi-detached dormer (chalet) bungalow that was built in

1965. The wiring is grey, flat twin & earth and physically looks to be in good condition, ie, still flexible and not at all brittle anywhere that I can see.

The kitchen was refurbished 2 years ago so all circuits in there (1 RCD protected ring main, 1 non-RCD protected radial for fridge and freezer, 1 cooker circuit and the lights) are all new and fed from a new 12-way consumer unit that we had installed with the idea of carrying on and rewiring the whole house.

The rationale for doing this was that we are now 55 years old and the wiring is 44 years old. We could afford to do it now [1] even though it doesn't really seem to *need* to be done and so we would rather get it done and dusted rather than wait another 20 years when it may well *need* to be done, but we'll be mid-seventies and neither able to afford it, nor put up with all the mess at that age.

[1] Unfortunately, since the kitchen was refurbed and we first thought about the whole-house rewire, I've been retired from work on ill-health grounds and where I used to have a take-home pay of about £20k/year, I'm now on an occupational pension of just under £6k/year so we're now beginning to wonder about the wisdom of getting the house rewired and spending money when it perhaps isn't strictly necessary.

So, what is the expected life-span of the cabling in here? Say we live until we're 80, the cables will then be 69 - is that feasible? Do we really need to rewire now?

The only drawback I can really come up with is that at the moment the wiring is not split into up/downstairs - it's a whole-house ring main and whole-house lights (apart from the kitchen of course), oh, and we don't have enough sockets where we want them so we use a couple of 4-way trailing extension leads where necessary, ie, TV, Sky+ box, AV receiver/amp and CD player in one alcove (plugged into a double socket) and my computer over in the dining room uses anoither 4-way lead.

There's only the two of us, we don't have any high-load items (other than kitchen stuff on new circuits anyway), and really don't see us ever overloading any circuit with anything.

What's your views folks?

TIA,

Dave

[Owain]

Well, it's probably not going to get cheaper, and better to get it done sooner rather than later especially when you are able to cope better.

You do not *need* to rewire as PVC cabling in good condition has an indefinate lifespan.

That's the problem - adequacy and convenience of the installation, and to a slightly lesser extent lack of RCD protection which is now expected.

I would suggest moving all the remaining existing circuits over to the new CU especially if this provides RCD protection where previously there was not. You could probably find locations where the ring and the lighting circuit can be split and new cables run back to the CU, so you can have two rings and 2 lighting circuits. It doesn't have to be an upstairs/downspairs split. That gives you spare capacity in the future as well as maintaining partial power and light in the event of a fault.

Single sockets can be converted to doubles easily, with a little work and localised making good additional sockets can be fitted adjacent to existing ones on the ring.

If you only have a bath, you might want to put in provision for an electric shower, in case bathing becomes difficult, and a dedicated MCB for a stairlift in case it's needed.

Make sure that smoke alarms and emergency lighting over the stairs are adequate and check main services bonding (and equipotential bonding in the bathroom if required)

However there's no pressing need to get anything done if you don't want to.

Owain

[Harry Bloomfield]

Dave used his keyboard to write :

Unless overloaded, or damaged, or subjected to excess heat, it should not deteriorate.

My greatest concern would be the earthing circuits, particularly they were not always certain to be installed on the lighting circuits. Earthing and bonding was also generally not up to modern standards, but at least some of this should have been addressed when your kitchen was done.

Prior to Part P, I would have suggested you could have sorted out the sockets yourself - perhaps split the upstairs circuit from the downstairs. Splitting the upstairs lighting from the downstairs would likely be even easier than splitting up the sockets.

[Dave]

Thanks to both of you, Owain and Harry. You've given us plenty of food for thought there and I think that we'll probably do some of the work you suggest but not bother with the full rewire.

Thanks,

Dave

[Invisible Man]

Going forward try to ensure that all the power sockets are not on one RCD and all the lighting sockets are not on one RCD. We intend to live in our house until we are incapable of independent living and the thought of losing all the power or all the lights in one go is not good. (Been there before).

An RCD will trip on a neutral to earth fault and the MCBs only disconnect the live. Therefore switching off the faulty circuit will not allow the relevant RCD to be reset.

It is a bit expensive at present but circuits can be individually protected by RCBOs which are combined MCBs and RCDs.

[NT]

PVC cable will safely outlast you. Bonding main services and adding RCD protection would be nice, but if youre on 6k pa its not something I'd spend your few sheckles on. There are other risks orders of magnitude higher in any house that you could spend money on with far more effect. 2 of the prime ones are stair falls and fires, both of which would genuinely benefit from above average protection. Smoke detectors are so cheap you can put one in almost every room and much reduce your risk there. Stairs: ensure theyre level and even, have 2 handrails, a nonslip surface and rounded nosings.

NT

[Graham.]

PVC cable will safely outlast you. Bonding main services and adding RCD protection would be nice, but if youre on 6k pa its not something I'd spend your few sheckles on. There are other risks orders of magnitude higher in any house that you could spend money on with far more effect. 2 of the prime ones are stair falls and fires, both of which would genuinely benefit from above average protection. Smoke detectors are so cheap you can put one in almost every room and much reduce your risk there. Stairs: ensure theyre level and even, have 2 handrails, a nonslip surface and rounded nosings.

Handrails? non-slip surfaces? Power point for a Stenna Stair lift? I'm the same age as the OP (55) but after reading this thread I'm suddenly feeling considerably older.

[Owain]

I'd like to see one of those, the new Irish Sea crossing for wrinklies :-)

Well, we were asked to look ahead. And there's a lot to be said for growing old - 10% discount at B&Q and a free bus pass to bring it all home with.

Owain

[Frank Erskine]

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:40:44 +0100, "Graham." had this to say:

Pah - youngsters, the lot of you :-)

More seriously, it would be interesting to have some sort of an idea of the age profile of d-i-y types. The 'general public' consensus seems to be that most are oldish, usually retired types, trying to save a few bob by doing it themselves. Sadly there don't seem to be all that many young d-i-y people, probably because schools rarely teach such subjects as metalwork, woodwork and so on.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Frank Erskine explained :

Age has nothing to do with it - I have always done what ever was needed to be done myself from being a yoof and mostly self taught.

It was always less about money, more about convenience. My car always had a mechanic on board where ever I drove it. My home always had a heating engineer on standy even on Christmas day.

I don't think it has anything to do with modern youth not being taught such subjects, it is more to do with modern youth not even being taught to think and explore.

Given a battery, a bit of wire and a bulb at five years of age I would have been experimenting with them. Give a modern five year old the same and you get blank looks - no interest.

[S Viemeister]

My son, aged 31, does d-i-y stuff because he doesn't believe that anyone else will do as good a job as he can. Some of the first 'toys' we got for him were child-sized _real_ tools and bits of interesting hardware.

[NT]

I'm not sure I really understand the choosing to be a victim mindset, popular as it seems. If I can fix it myself right now, or in half an hour, and get on with my life, why wouldnt I? Why would I choose to try to find someone else to do a crap job, rip me off, and just generally remain a needer of such services, unable to solve my own problems? All I needed do to get many skills was keep my eyes open when I saw someone else do it.

It might be even worse. I dont remember being taught to think or explore as a kid, rather just managing to do it. Today kids are positively prevented from any exploration, then folks wonder why teenagers are so damn angry, because they feel hemmed in and prevented at every turn - and are. Let them build rockets, and build confidence and skills, and maybe less would utterly hate their lives. These things are major components of happiness and successful living.

Yes. Though in fairness before computers became popular we had a whole lot of time with no entertainment laid on. We could either explore or expire of boredom. Kids now have enough computer based entertainment that a bulb and battery must seem incredibly dull by comparison.

NT

[NT]

Stair safety isnt just for the old and infirm, it causes in the region of 1000 injuries a year, including deaths and permanent disabilities. The standard arrangement clearly can be better, to some extent.

NT

[Clive George]

That's not new by any means. Chucking them into factories at age 14 was one way of knackering them sufficiently that they didn't seem so bad, but it's a feature of teenagers forever.

[John Rumm]

Chances are it will stay that way unless overloaded (i.e. heated).

The cables are probably not your problem. Unlike old rubber wiring, PVC does not suffer in the same way with age. However there may be some difficulties to deal with:

The PVC cable you have may have undersized earth wires by today's standard. The only time this really has an effect is when used with rewireable fuses in 30A ring circuits, since they don't react fast enough protect single runs of cable (as feeding spurs) from damage in the event of a fault. Moving circuits of this type to a modern CU will mitigate this problem.

With age, accessories will wear and need replacement. A 50 year old socket is likely to have dirty contacts and will have lost spring tension in them. This can result in local heating and damage when feeding big loads. Batten holders can get brittle and the contacts wear etc. So even if a full rewire is not needed, replacement of accessories at some point will be. Given the age of the install I could see a good case for doing that now, and perhaps adding more sockets where you need them at the same time.

The other problem you may face is simply a lack of facilities where you need them. Houses wired 40 years ago were designed with far fewer sockets since there were not the modern proliferation of devices that need power. This tends to lead to a over dependence on multiway extension leads. While in many cases these are not heavily loaded, they do add to trip risks, and are a good example of how unsuitable wiring can make a house less safe and it be nothing to do with any direct result of electricity.

Regarding power circuits (i.e. sockets), the split of kitchen / rest of house is actually quite a common arrangement and makes a good deal of sense. (given the density of heavy current drawing appliances usually found in kitchens). Having the lighting circuit split would be more worthwhile so as to prevent loss of all lights on a circuit trip etc.

Also adding some emergency lighting can be very well worth doing (depends a bit on how much free light you get from street lights etc). But an emergency light by the consumer unit, and another over the stairs, are sensible precautions and need not cost much.

Leads tucked away behind computer desks and hifi stacks are generally not much of a risk. The ones you need to look out for are ones that drape across places you need to walk, or hot surfaces in the kitchen etc. Lack of socket that force you to carry out tasks in places that you would rather not do them are another consideration.

From you description it sounds as if a package of some sensible upgrading is in order rather than a full rewire. This need not cost much, and you could probably do all or at least most of the work yourself. I would suggest things like:

1) Moving all exiting circuits over to the new CU and introducing RCD protection for most sockets. (I am assuming that the main equipotential bonding was verified / upgraded when the CU was installed. If that is not the case, then doing that it is another cheap and easy fail safe mechanism) 2) Splitting the lights circuit into two and adding some emergency lights 3) Adding some mains powered interlinked smoke alarms on their own circuit. 4) Replacing tired sockets and switches and lamp holders 5) Adding extra sockets where they are going to help. Think also in terms of making them more accessible as well so that you can get to some without bending so much. 6) Think about if extra lighting points are needed - and in some cases more importantly would extra switch positions help. For example, many houses let you switch the landing light from the hall or vice versa - however being able to do both is far more useful and a good improvement to safety on the stairs.

[dennis]

My daughter went on a plumbing and bricklaying course when she was about 10. They local college offered it to all the primary schools in the area.

She plumbed in a sink using solder fittings and built a small wall.

She still recalls some of it 13 years later.

Not every parent allowed their kids to go! 8-(

I blame it on the "progressive" education experiments in the '60s. Many pupils were taught using these odd methods and left school with very poor education as a result. I know people in the 40-55 years age range that still struggle with reading who were taught under these experiments.

The result is their kids never learnt to read before they went to school and those kids children were even worse off.

When my wife was governor at a primary school ten years ago some of the kids arriving there had never held a pen in their life.

What chance do they have of ever being able to think and do stuff for themselves?

The other problem kids have these days is that manufacturing is good. You go into toysrus and there are huge numbers of toys, all with a serious problem.. they are complete and do only one thing. Its so bad that you get dolls houses where all the fittings/furniture are glued in. Just how is a child supposed to use their imagination when everything is fixed in place?

The first toy I buy for toddlers is a bucket of stickle bricks, followed by duplo and then meccano, whatever sex they are. They get far more fun out of playing with them than the other junk sold.

[Dave]

Thanks John, lots of very good suggestions there and I think that that's finally sealed the deal as they way to go forward.

Dave

[The Natural Philosopher]

Thinking about this, there are other reasons to rewire a 1965 house than simple safety.

You might simply want more sockets in more places..

and some computer, alarm., and TV cabling in.

[Clint Sharp]

In message , Harry Bloomfield writes

Grandfather territory, I remember around that age being given a tupperware box that contained half a dozen bulbs, bulb holders, switches, lengths of wire and various other electrical bits n pieces including a 4.5v battery with plastic thumb screw terminals on the top (any ideas as to the type, square cornered box type, smaller than the metal shell lantern battery and larger than the type with 'leaf spring' contacts?).

[Harry Bloomfield]

Clint Sharp pretended :

The battery would I think be intended for the valve heater circuit of a portable radio - of the pre-transistor era.