A recent discovery....

SparkoJon · 4 Feb 2011

Untitled

SparkoJon
4 Feb 2011
2

Discovered this whilst removing a cupboard in my own house!

Previous tenants must have had sound elec knowledge

From what's there, looks like they wanted to move the sockets down - decided against getting a pro in - did what is known as a "bodge job"..

"bit of taped up blocks should do it"....

Then theres the junction box - have a guess what that feeds....?

This leaves me wondering about the rest of the house.. time to start testing me thinks....

Taylortwocities · 4 Feb 2011

SparkoJon said:
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Then theres the junction box - have a guess what that feeds....?

.

An old wall light position, maybe?

MrTinker · 5 Feb 2011

Hum, me thinks cooker??

SparkoJon · 5 Feb 2011

MrTinker said:
Hum, me thinks cooker??

You would be right aswell....Some people just dont get it do they!

RMS · 5 Feb 2011

Could have been worse i suppose. May have been hidden under plaster.

ban-all-sheds · 6 Feb 2011

SparkoJon said:
This leaves me wondering about the rest of the house.. time to start testing me thinks....

More than that.

Can you beg/borrow/steal a thermal imaging camera?

If not, hire one?

As long as joints are sound, testing will tell you nothing about their presence, nor will it tell you anything about buried cables.

OTOH, running circuits up to the maximum the cables can handle for long enough for hem to get warm, and photographhing the walls....

Adam_151 · 6 Feb 2011

ban-all-sheds said:
OTOH, running circuits up to the maximum the cables can handle for long enough for hem to get warm, and photographhing the walls....

I'm not convinced that a cable which has a max operating temperature of 70 degress celesis is going to have any effect on a wall constructed of concrete based products and their inherant thermal mass...

conny · 6 Feb 2011

Nice idea Bas, however, with thermal imaging you need to know the basics of what you are looking for first.
Second, suppose you run the circuits up to their maximum current rating but on a long circuit, tucked away in the loft somewhere there is a spur to a hidden loft socket with a device plugged in that you didn't now about. This spur is wired in 1.0mm protected by a foil covered 13A cartridge fuse in a FSU.
It may take some time to get to 'seeing' that particular cable by which time it has melted and set fire to the old newspapers blocking that draught in the eaves?
I agree with your idea though.

bernardgreen · 6 Feb 2011

When a friends painted the walls of their lounge they noticed a line of paint was drying faster than the rest.

Undersized cable to the immersion heater buried in the plaster.

SparkoJon · 6 Feb 2011

From what i can tell, the previous tenants moved the sockets down - where the junction box is now used to be CCU - with a fused socket - they obv decided it wanted to be lowered, so did it themselves...

thermal tester? where would i get one of those from then? Wouldnt a CPC/R1+R2 test show any breaks?

ban-all-sheds · 6 Feb 2011

Adam_151 said:
I'm not convinced that a cable which has a max operating temperature of 70 degress celesis is going to have any effect on a wall constructed of concrete based products and their inherant thermal mass...

It's 40-50° above the temperature of the wall - it'll show up.

ban-all-sheds · 6 Feb 2011

conny said:
suppose you run the circuits up to their maximum current rating but on a long circuit, tucked away in the loft somewhere there is a spur to a hidden loft socket with a device plugged in that you didn't now about. This spur is wired in 1.0mm protected by a foil covered 13A cartridge fuse in a FSU.
It may take some time to get to 'seeing' that particular cable by which time it has melted and set fire to the old newspapers blocking that draught in the eaves?

How could you manage to make that spur carry more current than it usually does?

martinxxxxxx · 6 Feb 2011

ban-all-sheds said:
Can you beg/borrow/steal a thermal imaging camera?

If not, hire one?

..

Oh I would soo love to have one of them.. but it is a couple of grand that I don't see I could make back, unless someone tells me otherwise. Plus it is more kit to worry about.

I saw some hire prices, pretty prohibitive too?

Martin

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A recent discovery....

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