Odd question.

[George]

As you know I was going to scrape paint off the top elevation over the weekend,alas it rained most of it which put the blockers on the work.

This never realy dawned on me before and I noticed the electricity companys external armoured cable was going up one side of my property underneath and along the stone ledge and then halfway down the other side house which then went into the house next door which probably fed her mains cable in ie the

60 amp fuse.

Would you think I had cause to get in touch with the electric supplier to reroute it from the ground up on the neighbours side of the property?

Most odd situation to run an outside mains armoured cable don't ya think?

TIA

[George]

Forgot to say...

Terraced houses circular 1880's? no doubt the electric was put in sometime after this date. ;-)

[mogga]

Ah why not ask. It can't hurt.

We got a letter saying we were having a new meter. Said date, chap turns up, traditional sharp intake of breath and he organises another man to come and do something. (A load of stuff pre-meter that was a bit antique) So a few months later two blokes turn up and remove the old stuff and we think that's all that. But oh no, we're back on for a proper meter man to come and remove the meter now. When will that be? Gawd knows. How many teams it'll take to move your cable I won't try to guess at. :)

[George]

This cable looks bloody awful the way its running up&across the house, even with a lick of paint it'll stand out like a sore thumb. I'm sure its against the regs to have electric armoured cable of this ilk exposed to the elements ie it should be buried underground and enter inside the property?

[The Wanderer]

No, very common to run looped services on the outside of terraced properties.

One or Two questions:- Does the cable look fairly modern, does it look like it's pvc sheathed or does it appear to have a woven fabric outer layer?

If it's pvc sheathed, it shouldn't be a problem to work around it provided you tak eproper care. If it looks like it has the woven fabric outer layer, call the local distribution co and tell them you think you have some very old (like 60+ years) lead in cables where you want to work. Don't be tempted to fiddle around that type of cable, it's prone to cracking on bends, and the rubber insulation hardens, cracks and will fall off. They should replace it FoC.

Is it a problem for you to have the cables routed to next door undereaves?

[Colin Wilson]

Welcome to the new "improved" government idea of introducing "competition" to the electricity industry. The supplier (who you pay your bill to) is seperate to the meter operator (a supplier doesn't have to use the meter operator that used to cover that area) and they're both seperate to the network operator who own the cables (and the cable head / cutout you got changed).

In this wonderful "improved" world, no-one is allowed to talk to anyone else in case it gives an unfair advantage in "competition", and the only official way of "speaking" is to send what is known as a "data flow" which may or may not contain the information the other party needs, or end up at the right department.

In this instance, it's only the cable that needs moving, so contact the local network operator.

Shouldn't be - it's a refurbishment in effect.

Are you sure it's a SWA - perhaps it's a hybrid or taped armour cable. Also bear in mind the supply regs are a seperate beast from the 16th /

17th edition.

Either way, it's hard to visualise the cable / houses as described - a pic might help :-}

If it's your house, and you want to be really awkward about it (note, if this was an ex-council house, the council will have ostensibly granted a wayleave / easement for this cable to be here as the councils used to own the electricity companies) - ask to see the wayleave for the cable.

[Stuart Noble]

Competition always increases efficiency as we know :-)

I'd just tell the buggers you're trying to renovate your home and their bloody cable's in the way. I had to get BT to move a telegraph pole so that I could erect scaffolding, and they came and did it within a couple of days

[mogga]

They wanted to change the meter - it's their meter so their problem. Everything their side of it is theirs to change as often as they want. :)

Bound to be very noticable now you've noticed it :)

[Colin Wilson]

Sure, now you have 10 companies instead of 1, all with their own staff / pensions / finance depts to pay - not counting the seperation of the old RECs into at least three companies each - all desperately trying to offload responsibility and cost for anything they can elsewhere so it doesn't affect their balance sheets.

See if you can work out how that is suddenly more efficient than a single company doing it... I'm fooked if I can !

[Bruce]

Look how well it worked on the railways - one publicly owned company was split into over a hundred separate private companies, and look what a disaster that was!

[Stuart Noble]

You're expecting it to make sense? It's a religion after all.

[The Wanderer]

In the late 80's when privatisation was still to come, I can recollect talking to quite a few members of the public who were always saying 'Just wait till you lot are privatised, that'll bring improvements' or similar. My reply was always 'We'll see. Perhaps we can have this conversation in a few years.'

Surprising just how many far-sighted and long-serving employees at that time were forecasting exactly the sorts of problems that now beset the industry.

Thought for the day: Any industry that publishes standards of customer service is tacitly acknowledging that it will struggle to meet those standards.

[Andy Hall]

Very true.

Those who really do achieve it, don't need to market their customer service. Their customers assume it and get it.

[Andy Wade]

It sounds like a concentric (for PME) or split-concentric (for TN-S) service cable to me. This is the sort of thing

does look superficially like SWA, but doesn't have the steel armouring since it relies on the concentric construction (and fuses!) for protection.

[The Wanderer]

There are several arrangements it could be.

It could be a 3ph armoured cable to a wall box with undereaves in pvc or pbj.

It could be a 3ph concentric which splits out to 1ph concentric using heat shrink fittings.

It could be an aerial service which is looped undereaves using pvc or pbj.

It could be........

As the OP appears not to have revisited this thread to clarify some of the points put to him, we're unlikely to know one way or the other. Which does leave me asking why did he bother asking in the first place?

[The Wanderer]

Please don't email. Reply in group. Others may be following this thread.

That's because you haven't given enough information to be able to advise you properly.

But there is a *possible* safety issue. That's why I asked on 28th April

"Does the cable look fairly modern, does it look like it's pvc sheathed or does it appear to have a woven fabric outer layer?"

"If it's pvc sheathed, it shouldn't be a problem to work around it provided you tak eproper care. If it looks like it has the woven fabric outer layer, call the local distribution co and tell them you think you have some very old (like 60+ years) lead in cables where you want to work."

I quote from my initial reply

"Is it a problem for you to have the cables routed to next door undereaves?"

Doesn't that depend on *your* answer to my question?

The ball's in your court.

If you want help from someone who worked all his life in the industry, you have to give me the information to give you a considered answer.

If you want to make out that you haven't had a proper answer to your enquiry, so be it. It's your loss, not mine.