What'll need doing?

[Justin Passing]

House is 1950's, never been rewired. Wylex fuse-wire CU , I think. Various bits of pvc added by my father, way back.
(also a sparky added a single small CU & new cable, + 10mm bonding for a new conservatory, recently)

My mother, 190 odd, wants a shower instead of a bath so some changes being done.

She doesn't want the house rewiring "won't be needing it much longer".

The only electrical thing will be a shower pump, sited in the airing cupd, 5m away in another room, with plastic pipes in the loft.
If it were mere me doing it I'd put an RCD plug on the pump, plug it in and drill a hole somewhere for the flex, done.

What will sparky have to do?

 

[ericmark]

Some thing similar with my mother in her case kitchen needed to be altered, and dad at that time stated "I'm not living in a building site, I don't want a rewire." so the get around was to install a mini consumer unit in the kitchen feed with SWA direct from the incoming supply, well actually found supplied from a MCB in old consumer unit, but original plan was a fuse and direct to Henly Block.

So with your situation the old Wilex fuse board will take 6, 16, 32, and 40 amp type B MCB's it just takes removing the lid on fuses and one screw to swap base so MCB's instead of fuses at £10.59 each, should test the loop impedance before changing, but once changed it means no more fuse wire, which means no chance of fitting wrong fuse wire. Not needed, but does mean she can reset if anything causes one to open.

For a shower pump it could be as you say simply plugged in using a RCD plug, or of course a RCD FCU, I would not see any real problems. I am sure you will find an electrician who will do minimum required.

However my mother now suffers from alzheimer's and I found her putting an extension lead with a red neon indicator into a bucket of water as she thought it was on fire. She went into hospital for a short time, and I got the whole house rewired while she was away. I felt RCD protection was required for her condition and although the wiring from 1954 was in good condition, I found on simply swapping a fuse box to a consumer unit we could not keep the RCD in, some thing was causing a random trip and we had needed to have only part of house RCD protected, and this did not include sockets.

The rewire did not include kitchen or wet room they were already done, but it was nearly completed in a week, it ran over by one day, it was duel purpose, it made it safer for her, and should she need to go in a home, it made it so we could rent out the property, so part paying for her care home fees. We were forced to come and live with my mother, and the extra load with three people in the house it was a good move, I have needed to do some extras since, like remote controlled sockets to power the extruder alarm, council fitted alarms upstairs to alert us, which required us to go upstairs to reset, not ideal when some one comes to door when we are down stairs.

In my case money was not a problem, so it was just do what was needed, and to set mother away for week or twos holiday while house is rewired may be a better option. We also thought would not be long, mother now 92 and she says she is going to see 100, and I think I believe her, as to if I will see 74 is another matter.

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

As the house has cable dating back to at least the 1950's (cable could be older). i would recommend for safety reasons that an electrical installation condition report was done.

But to answer your question, you could fit a plug adaptor or a RCD spur, the issue would be that they would need to be tested to confirm they work. The test equipment is not something a normal DIYer would have, but an electrician would.

 

[securespark]

So with your situation the old Wilex fuse board will take.......40 amp type B MCB's

Not the early boards with a 60A main switch though.

 

[DaveHerns]

My mother, 190 odd

That's twice as old as mine... You don't want her end to be brought forward due to a fire caused by defective wiring. She must still have rubber insulated cables?

 

[PrenticeBoyofDerry]

She must still have rubber insulated cables?

Or a rubber insulated oxygen tent.

 

[plugwash]

AIUI it's a judgement call on the part of the Electrician but most electricians won't want to work on circuits wired in old rubber. If the rubber falls apart in their hands or the cuircuit fails to pass tests after they put it back together it puts them in a rather awkward situation. Putting plugs on fixed equipment is also considered a bodge, especially when the plug isn't in the same room as the equipment.

How hard would it be to extend from the modern wiring/CU put in for the conservatory? that would seem the most logical option to me.

 

[sparkwright]

Totally agree with Plugwash.

Is the old wiring definitely rubber/VIR?

The early form of PVC wiring was around in the 1950s, though rubber cable was also still available at the same time.

 

[Justin Passing]

It's got to an AAARGH situation, as far as I can tell.
Brother was involved and it sounded like he was speaking to local sensible people, now he's gone back to his home miles away and the workers have been left to it.

I just spoke to one of them. They put the shower pump in the loft (worst place...)
and put a socket on the upstairs lighting circuit for the pump. There is no earth on the lighting circuits.
I said something like WHAT????
and they said they would have had to chase the wall to run an earth wire.
WHAT???? .... there is an airing cupboard.... I thought those were designed to put missing neutrals and missing earths in...

This sounds utterly unsatisfactory, even on an "it'll do" basis. Am I wrong?
Reminder, the house is 50's, never rewired, so rubber cable. It doesn't seem as bad as (maybe) earlier cable. Seemed flexible enough when ever I touched it, but that was last century sometime.
Pump is probably the cheapest Salamander - 198W I think.

I have't spoken to the sparky - all I got from the intermediary guy I was speaking to was "it's OK it's fused".


I would ABSOLUTELY understand if all they wanted to do was get away from my mother, but that's their problem!!

Short of running a fresh T&E back to the CU, is there any sensible easier move? An RCD on the plug would help..?

 

[flameport]

There is no earth on the lighting circuits.

No earth means they cannot be extended, modified or used for anything else.

the house is 50's, never rewired, so rubber cable.

Any installed rubber cable was life-expired 30 or more years ago. Extending such circuits is not acceptable.

If it were mere me doing it I'd put an RCD plug on the pump, plug it in and drill a hole somewhere for the flex, done.

Probably the easiest option.

Anything involving new cabling, new sockets or new anything else will have to be a new length of cable from the CU.

"it's OK it's fused".

If a fault occurs between line and any metal part of the pump, a fuse will do nothing because there is no earth connection.

An RCD on the plug would help..?

An RCD is not a substitute for installing things properly.

 

[Justin Passing]

That's pretty much what I though regarding the loft wiring. (though the inlaws wiring was 90 years old and outlasted them both )
I'm a bit startled that an "electrician" would have done it.

An RCD is not a substitute for installing things properly.

Sure, but as he's 200 miles away and she's using it...

The pump wasn't supposed to go in the *#*@* loft.
OK a long flex + RCD from the pump down into the house somewhere is probably still the least unacceptable least angst method then..
I don't know why they didn't tun T&E externally. Can that be clipped to the brick or would it have to have a conduit? (There's no impact/ mechanical risk where it happens to be.)