I went round to a friend of my Missus today to have a look at some lights that stopped working. Of course, turned out they had just decorated the bathroom and let the the light fitting hang down, but i was assured " we didnt disconnect anything we just let it hang down!"
Always worries me when the first thing somebody says is "i didnt disconnect anything, honest"
What i saw concerned me greatly. The lighting circuit is wired in double insulated singles. All cores are black with no tape to identify live/switched live etc. There is no earth. The wiring looks to be original for the house - 1963. The consumer unit is a 17th edition dual RCD board which has a sticker on it saying it was last tested a year ago. The cables in the lighting circuit are badly corroded and the insulation has cracked and fell off in numerous places (the places i could see) exposing the copper. There have obviously been repairs done to this age related wear, but with insulation tape and sellotape.
Every light fitting and switch in the house is metal.
The problem was that after decorating the bathroom, the lights in the hallway, and both bedrooms had stopped working. The bathroom light worked ok. After getting the light fitting off the ceiling i found a loop neutral in a choc block on its own. This sorted out the hallway and bedroom lights.
I said to the couple that they urgently need to have the place rewired as i dread to think what condition the socket circuit is in, as well as in the mean time getting the metal switches and fittings changed to plastic! Of course, this is probably good advice but they may decide to ignore it. Im amazed nobody has died yet, or at the very least that the MCB's/RCD's have not been tripping out! Hard to believe that its had a new CU and also been tested! hmmmm
Always worries me when the first thing somebody says is "i didnt disconnect anything, honest"
What i saw concerned me greatly. The lighting circuit is wired in double insulated singles. All cores are black with no tape to identify live/switched live etc. There is no earth. The wiring looks to be original for the house - 1963. The consumer unit is a 17th edition dual RCD board which has a sticker on it saying it was last tested a year ago. The cables in the lighting circuit are badly corroded and the insulation has cracked and fell off in numerous places (the places i could see) exposing the copper. There have obviously been repairs done to this age related wear, but with insulation tape and sellotape.
Every light fitting and switch in the house is metal.
The problem was that after decorating the bathroom, the lights in the hallway, and both bedrooms had stopped working. The bathroom light worked ok. After getting the light fitting off the ceiling i found a loop neutral in a choc block on its own. This sorted out the hallway and bedroom lights.
I said to the couple that they urgently need to have the place rewired as i dread to think what condition the socket circuit is in, as well as in the mean time getting the metal switches and fittings changed to plastic! Of course, this is probably good advice but they may decide to ignore it. Im amazed nobody has died yet, or at the very least that the MCB's/RCD's have not been tripping out! Hard to believe that its had a new CU and also been tested! hmmmm
