T&E cable on outside wall damaged by weather

I've never seen T&E degrade in sunlight, and I've had some in sunlight for decades.

You could paint the cable inplace. Best paint for use on PVC is regular volatile solvent gloss paint (not made since 2010), top coat only. Slide a piece of paper behind to avoid getting any on the wall.

Sure it's not just been painted and the paint is cracking? PVC cable doesn't normally craze in sunlight.

NT

No. Least I'd not do so!

Is there no other access?

Brian

PVC does. That's why UPVC exists FFS!

I have seen stuff in rewires that is "unusable" because the grey outer sheath far too brittle to bend or reshape again. If untouched it is fine. The age of the cable was unknown and possibly 40+ years old.

you dont want to KNOW what the original 1953 rubber insulated wire in steel conduit looked like in me late mums home.

Like this?

Bill

Eh? uPVC exists so you cam make rigid things out of PVC, like pipes and window frames.

had pretty well completely converted itself from rubber insulated to air insulated.

SteveW

Yup, that's the only pvc cable I've seen like that, the very early stuff. I suspect the plasticising (or something in the mixing) wasn't quite there yet.

Conversely, a couple of years ago I was rewiring part of a barn that was originally done in the 50s with rubber cable in conduit. The exposed stuff was dangerous as hell, but inside the tubing it looked like new and not a bit crumbly - flexible too, of course.

Nothing wrong with that in itself, given they are both line wires (one switched)...

the thing really missing is the red over sleeve on the black wire.

Can't see uPVC selling well for cables...

I'll never forget looking in some rubber wiring in steel conduit, only to see 2 completely bare wires snaking round each other, but somehow not shorting out. The rubber had all dropped off.

Early FTE used other things than pvc.

NT

Depends on the location and how liable it is to physical damage. In non critical locations (i.e. out of reach etc) then just painting T&E will normally add adequate protection. However a more "proper" answer would be to run it in a length of conduit.

You could also use a cable like Hi-tuff which is designed for exterior use (although it is quite stiff to work with). The thinner sizes of SWA are also often used for some of these applications.

If you cover the whole joint in heatshrink, then you can do pretty much what you would do with a normal bit of cable.

My first house (late Victorian) was built with gas lighting, as I discovered when chasing in cables for the rewire only to hit live 3/8 inch lead gas pipe. The lighting was still cotton/rubber insulated singles in double channel wooden conduit.