My uncle and aunt's house caught them out. He cut through a cable and it went with a bang (as did the edge of his cutters). It turned out that it had both Live and Neutral fuses and he'd only removed the Neutral one. Why a 1930s semi, built at the same time as so many other 1930's semis in the same area and connected to the same supply, had neutral fuses that others didn't, I have no idea.
It had got so sticky it would no longer switch on. ;-)
But I did all of the wiring here myself. And perfectly logical to have the outside loo light on the outside lights circuit. Just why my 'logic' failed and remembered it being on the ground floor circuit, gawd knows.
I did wonder what the shock would be like via a main RCD. I was wearing trainers with thick soles, which would have given a fair degree of insulation.
I've more often cursed the things when doing maintenance. touching the neutral to earth taking it out - and therefore needing clocks etc re-set.
These days, of course, I'd use RCBOs on each circuit.
IIRC the two fuses dates back from DC times. So could be the houses were built during the changeover time?
You may be right, but it seems odd - as the majority of houses in the area were built in the 1930s and this is the only time that I have seen fused neutrals, and I'd expect them all to have been on the same supplies.
Well it was a good idea at the time. My shed is on the downstairs ring, at least it was, but the shed is gone to the great shed cemetery in the sky and there is a plastic bag over the cable and the fuse is removed in the spur. Wired in days of yore, but the armoured cable is still in good nick and will be reused for the new son of Shed when I get it. Brian
Yes many years ago, when I was still in my teens, I worked in a fault repair department for a Rental TV company, and we had test rigs for the pcbs, where the board slid in, was connected by edge connectors then you just plugged the valves in and connected up the plugs and turned on and waited for the magic smoke. Problem was that the pcbs as they aged, warped so to make them go into the edge connectors you needed to push the back edge of the pcb down to stop it bowing. Nine times out of ten you remembered to turn off the mains switch first. However just a moments distraction like the office girl in a miniskirt can spell a very rude awakening through the fingers of the hand doing the pushing coupled with some interesting expletives. Brian
Perhaps because it's not really "outside". An outside light is just that
- a garden light, a PIR flood, a lamp on a gate post, etc. All are truly outside and exposed to the elements, whereas the toilet light is not. It's the toilet which is /outside/, not its light.
My parent's house was built mid 30s. It had fuses line and neutral. But AC. Flat my parents moved from to it was DC. Father used to reminisce about things which had to be replaced.
Given the corrosion on both the fitting and switch, it might as well have been. ;-)
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