Search results

Do you maybe have flexible hose connectors with reduced bore connecting these? What's the state of the pipework leading to the bath and shower? Lots of elbows rather than smooth pulled bends would have a detrimental effect on the flow rate, particularly if the pipework is 15mm. Do your...

I've often thought a double shaver socket would be a good idea, but unfortunately no-one as yet seems to make them. The way I've got around it in the past is to install a shaver socket and also incorporate an illuminated mirror or over mirror light that includes an isolated shaver socket into...

I suggested it primarily for future proofing purposes. For all we know the new cable is being plastered in, in which case it would be a right faff later to replace 2.5 with 6 when needed. Belt and braces.

Should be fine. Just make sure you have a deep enough box behind it to accommodate the heavier wiring, i.e. 47mm.

As it's a 32 amp circuit and could be used to connect an electric cooker in the future, I'd be happier with the cable to the double socket being 6mm2 rather than 2.5. I'm assuming the double socket is controlled by the 45 amp switch?

No sleeving on the CPCs. If it was only the badly installed probably later T+Es I'd just put it down to bad workmanship, but the incoming 16mm2 T+E is unsleeved too. Is this an indicator of age - is it actually 7/.064 from the era before sleeving the CPC was commonplace? Which in turn raises a...

I'm wondering if the BS3036 bakelite switch fuse might be a red herring? ;) Possibly a retained part of an older installation that was used to feed the new installation? I'll go for metric too, but around 1982.

Hah, definitely not you John (though I'm sure you know who I'm thinking of - maybe I should have added 'rude' to my description!).

He's over on the Screwfix forums (assuming it's the same ban all sheds), though some say that one particular nit-picking and argumentative current poster on this forum is the new incarnation of BAS. Who knows! ;)

Sounds to me like the fire is faulty if it's blowing the fuse in the plug. It won't be your electrical installation that's at fault.

There's a bit of background to it at this site, where I found the pic. Patent applied for in 1934, granted in 1935. Mind you, I'm pretty sure the likes of MK would have already being doing shuttered sockets by then. Wasn't there one arrangement (not sure of the manufacturer) that had a keyed...

Yep, large circular holes in the skirting to accommodate the gubbins of those sockets (flushed into the skirtings), uniform throughout the house, with the aforementioned VIR connected to them, all taken back to a wooden MEM Kantark sub-fuseboard over the door in the breakfast room. Definitely...

That socket looks late 1940s/ 1950s to me, wouldn't say it's original to the house. The cable, on the other hand, looks very much like what I pulled out of my parents' 1936 house in Cardiff. That was VIR sheathed with black and white insulated cores, the earths being separate VIR with a red...

I've fitted some BG ones recently and found nothing wrong with the build quality or general integrity of them. Indeed, I'll quite happily fit them again: https://www.screwfix.com/p/british-general-ip66-13a-2-gang-dp-weatherproof-outdoor-switched-socket/67928

At first glance I thought they were Crabtree flat plate but looking more closely I think it's something cheaper and nastier, like what you'd have found at Woolworths about 20 years ago.

There are 2 x 2.5 glands to be had: https://www.screwfix.com/p/british-general-plastic-gland-kit-2-x-2-5mm-flat-cable/5775p

To be honest there's no danger with masonry like you have there, the main downside being that it's more awkward to plaster or make good around a box that's too deep in the wall. The risk is there more in the plasterboard situation, particularly if it's not sealed off from draughts that could...

The box provides a firebreak, at least to some extent. The problem with too shallow a box that's below the face of the plasterboard is that the wiring and connections are unshielded between the accessory and the start of the box. If ignition were to happen in the accessory or the wiring, there...

Abstraction? Judging by the jubilee clip connected to what looks like T+E. Plenty of scope for a high resistance, high current connection to generate lots of heat thus precipitating the failure. Where's the neutral? Is that the remains of it on the second, more squashed looking jubilee clip at...

That all sounds fine. Just make sure the boiler/immersion heater or whatever heats the hot water cylinder is turned off before you start work. If your current gate valve is seized, take the opportunity to fit one of these in its place for ease of future maintenance. Also, seeing as you're...