Introduction of Ring Circuits

... use a hand pump :-)

Reply to
Frank Erskine
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They actually did forward planning in those days. These days they just talk about forward planning. :-)

Reply to
Old Codger

Wiring alterations were done in my parent's house in about 1957. Double pole fusing, TRS cable and not a ring in sight. This was done by the then electricity board, who presumably used what was required.

In 1962 I worked in an educational establishment. Some of the more modern parts had 13A sockets, three different versions of them. Half my time was spent making and repairing adaptors between the various systems. I dooubt if many wold have survived (when new) my pat testing regime of later years!

Reply to
<me9

Practice is slow to change though. I worked on a friends place where the lighting circuits had no earth. Build about 6 years after earthing of them became "standard".

Reply to
John Rumm

The mains supply round here can't cope with filling a bath quickly. And I doubt it can anywhere if fed via the usual 15mm pipe.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I doubt it - just some dinosaur. Double pole fusing dates back to DC days and is positively dangerous where one side of an AC supply is grounded elsewhere.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Yes- I've seen installations where all the cable and fittings had ground and ground terminals, but the ECC just cut off at each termination point.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

That is very common. I guess the electrician could no longer get twin cable and was not going to bother using the earth on the T&E.

Reply to
ARWadsworth

It was definitely done by the North East Electricity Board, and was definitely later than 1956. Two new circuits, one 15A socket with clock point teed off, and one 5A socket both to a new switch fuse..... Arghh ... it was single pole fused .. TWO circuits, two fuses.

The original lighting circuit dating from 1936 was lead covered, double pole fused with junction boxes filled with screwits - and we never had a fire from them.

Reply to
<me9

That's the main reason for fuses. If of the correct rating it will blow before anything catches fire.

I had lead covered cable here when I moved in round about '75. The stripped back ends were in poor condition - but everything still covered by the lead sheathing perfect. If there had been enough cable to re-terminate, it might have been as good as new for another 40 years.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

I have a combi boiler and no tank, and my mains pressure is pretty good.

Neil

Reply to
Neil Williams

Unless you're doing a GCSE. In there (recent year's past papers), the function of a fuse to blow and isolate following a live-to-earth fault.

...and no, RCDs don't get a mention.

Reply to
Andy Dingley

An installation with DP fusing might not have an actual earth anywhere. ;-)

Explains the education of some youngsters.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

In message , Neil Williams writes

Yeah, but it won't help wit filling the bath at a decent rate.

The combi will be the limiting factor here though - the rate at which it can heat the water. Takes ages to fill a bath - good shower though

Reply to
chris French

I've never noticed that baths take a long time to fill in France or Italy.

Reply to
Timothy Murphy

Loft tanks were first used in high class homes without mains water, in order to provide running water from a well or stream with a pump. Homes with piped water did not need or have them.

The next impetus was when we started heating water. The first fireplace driven water heaters tended to blow up for many reasons, but one of them was the mains water pressure inside the cast iron heating tank, particularly when it boiled. This problem was solved with a loft tank to reduce pressure, and to allow boiling steam to escape. This was the origin of loft tanks in most homes.

What you might well ask is why we kept them for so long, and I don't really have an answer for that. We had much more restrictive water bylaws than the rest of Europe before EU harmonisation, and that may have caused us to stick with older designs. Mains pressure hot water cylinders and low pressure hot water storage cylinders fed with a pressure reducing valve were both common in the rest of the EU, whilst being effectively outlawed here. There also seemed to be more instant water heating (geysers) which run at mains pressure, gas and electric powered (particularly Germany), whereas a UK electricity domestic supply is not powerful enough for this.

There are other reasons loft tanks are used. In any commercial premises providing some type of essential service, loft tanks are necessary to provide coverage for loss of mains water supply, without which you end up having to send all staff home if the supply fails. I've worked in the financial sector where this has happened in a large

24x7 datacentre, and the premises were kept open and running by having a tanker lorry come and refill the loft tanks after a couple of days. I don't think this was ever a consideration for homes though.
Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

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