Help with a plug socket.

Adam_151 said:

Backed up by pictures of your fuseboard in the other thread.... https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/fuse-board-question-with-pics.567166/

I'd say that very much looks like an old point probably original to the house that was cut off when it was re-wired in the 90s

Click to expand...

Unless you know the full provenance of the instllation, it's dangerous to assume that all the old life-expired wiring has been disconnected (and not reconnected). People do make incremental upgrades/modifications to installations and there are even some people who attempt to deliberately hide dodgy electrics.

The OP said a volt stick indicated the wiring was live, and while volt sticks are not particularly reliable the wiring needs to be treated as live until proven otherwise.

Any old rubber wiring that is still in service should be replaced as soon as possible and unless absolutely unavoidable it should not be touched in the meantime. Old rubber can harden with age and then crack when manipulated.

I didn’t touch any of the wires for the reason you give above, becoming brittle and possibly snapping.

I wasn’t prepared to touch it until I was confident that I can make it safe and still have my electric turned on.

Although I clearly can’t do this job myself, I’m grateful for the advice given because now I know what I’m looking at and would much rather know when I’m out of my depth then risk burning the house down or worse!

I have a few questions though.
Is there any way to know how my house is wired, it’s obviously a ring but what other sockets is this dodgy one connected to? Every other plug in this room has newer wiring, the plug in the next room (on the same wall) has newer wiring. So there must be some dodgy connections somewhere. If I have an idea of where the wires go, I can make sure there is access for the electrician.

Is there a easy way to do this with out pulling all my floor boards up.

You mention a failed inspection report from 2001 and that the sockets are dated 2002. This suggests to me that work was done after the report, the question is what work.

The best case scenario is that the house was rewired, the old wiring disconnected and your volt stick is giving a false positive due to the old cables running in close proximity to the new.

The worst case scenario is a "fake rewire", where someone replaces the most visible parts of the installation with new, but leaves the bulk of the wiring in place with hidden joints.

The middling scenario is that the owner was improving the wiring on a more gradual basis and there were some parts they never got around to rewiring.

I think the next step is indeed to start lifting floorboards in the vicinity of the problem socket and tracing the cables. In an older house you will likely see floorboards that have been lifted before and can relatively easily be lifted again. I don't see any reason you can't do this yourself. Given you say that the other sockets in the vicinity look modern, I suspect relatively quickly you will find either joints or cut off ends.