Could anyone advise if these are serious issues?

[Nervous]

Hello I'm a first time buyer who just had an electrical report carried out on a property I'm looking at buying. It is a 1950s purpose built flat. The report has come back with some issues which the electrician has said need doing as they are quite serious.

For various reasons, we're having problems with our vendor reducing the cost of the property to accomodate for the cost of the work, so I have been advised by someone on another forum to get a 2nd opinion on how serious the problems are.

The work that the electrician has said needs doing immediately is:

- Mains electrics on ground floor worn, undersized, original braided construction.
- Mains earthing conductor undersized, adapted from original conduit construction. Boxed in, no access.
- Main lighting circuit does not have earth conductor with metallic light fittings installed in living room & bedrooms.
- Immersion heater does not have built-in cut out that will opperate if stored water temp. reaches 98oc if thermostat fails. Storage tank is plastic.
- Socket circuit 5 feeding sockets to hall, lounge, kitchen is 2.5mm radial fused at 30A (Overcurrent protective device too high to protect installed cables)
- Main socket circuit 4 does not have a dedicated CPC earth.
- Cooker cable runs through wall to isolator.
- No 30mA protection to socket circuits
- No 30mA RCD protection for cables burried in plaster at depth of 50mm or less - all circuits.
- No 30mA RCD protection to lighting circuit and heater in bathroom. Local supplimentary earth not present.

I don't suppose anyone could let me know if they are serious issues or not..? For what it's worth, our electrician was very good. It's just that I don't know anything about electrics and a 2nd opinion would be much appreciated!

 

[Spark123]

Sounds like it needs a full re-wire.
All the stuff he says sounds reasonable, I'm not quite sure on what some of it is without seeing it myself such as the cooker cable isolator and the dedicated CPC earth.

Wether or not you can talk the price of the property down or it was that obvious that it needed rewired that it was just taken as is, is another matter.

 

[EFLImpudence]

Without the exact details -

With the exception of -

lighting circuit does not have earth conductor with metallic light fittings installed in living room & bedrooms.

and

Socket circuit 5 feeding sockets to hall, lounge, kitchen is 2.5mm radial fused at 30A (Overcurrent protective device too high to protect installed cables)

and

Local supplementary (earth x) bonding not present.

which can easily be put right,

the items mentioned are modern improvements (which the electrician must note) but do not mean the installation is unsafe

I am not certain exactly what -

Main socket circuit 4 does not have a dedicated CPC earth.

entails.

 

[Spark123]

Sounds like some of it is still in VIR
I'm pretty sure the electrician will recommend a full rewire as opposed to trying to work with the old system.
Saying that - without seeing it I can't recommend anything much!

 

[Nervous]

Thank you everyone, very helpful replies & have helped to put my mind at rest a bit Although not sure what VIR means..?

 

[Spark123]

Vulcanised Indian Rubber.
It is usually tinned copper wire with a coating of rubber and a waxed braid around the outside. Probably talking around 50 years old.

 

[EFLImpudence]

I took it that the ground floor reference was the supply and not part of the flat.

As you say, not being there ...

 

[333rocky333]

Its a form of braided cable used around the 1930's, most nowadays would be impossible to work with or adapt, so would be removed and modern cable installed

 

[Taylortwocities]

Per the above. The complexity ( and therefore the cost) of doing remedial/rewire work in purpose-built flats can depend on how the flat is constructed and wired.

Of that age, many flats were of concrete construction, with cabling done in single conductors run in steel conduit.

This can be a nightmare as the conduit and the junctions are buried in teh concrete, making any work very difficult indeed. This may not be the case for your flat, but you need to be aware.

 

[Nervous]

Thanks all for the explanations! I think I understand now It would go with what our electrician has said, as he said most of the wiring up to the flat is 'original'. So yeah, I guess 50 or 60 years old now!

Per the above. The complexity ( and therefore the cost) of doing remedial/rewire work in purpose-built flats can depend on how the flat is constructed and wired.

Of that age, many flats were of concrete construction, with cabling done in single conductors run in steel conduit.

This can be a nightmare as the conduit and the junctions are buried in teh concrete, making any work very difficult indeed. This may not be the case for your flat, but you need to be aware.

From what I understand, the electricity to the flat goes from in the lobby on the ground floor and travels into our flat (1st floor) through the floor, via an apprarently very old cable!

Unfortunately I think you are right about it being a nightmare because the flat is actually built of concrete. The electrician did mention it might mean a lot of drilling into walls and such so we're prepared for it being a pain

Out of interest, I also have another question! The flat only has electricity, not gas and the heating system is just wall mounted convector heaters which are plugged into sockets, not wired into the electrics. The electrician has explained that it might be worth replacing these with a 'proper' heating system but my partner and I have no idea what we'd replace it with.
I was thinking underfloor heating as I have seen that in other flats but would that be very expensive to install? And is underfloor heating economic when it comes to monthly heating bills?

If underfloor heating isn't a good idea, are there other options that might be better?

 

[Iggifer]

not underfloor heating, it just warms the floor, not the room.

You could look into storage heaters, which are basically convector heaters filled with bricks, so the breaks store the heat and dissipate it more slowly over the course of x hours.

 

[Taylortwocities]

Storage radiators would need a different supply type called Economy 7.

The electricity company would need to to change the meter to enable this.
Where is the electric meter for the flat, outside the flat, or is it downstairs in the lobby?

 

[Aragorn84]

Electric heating is ridiculously expensive. I simply wouldnt buy any property thats heated by electricity.

Is it the norm in your area?

 

[Nervous]

Thanks for the replies All the electricity meters are in the lobby, rather than the flat. I do know that most people in the building have storage heaters, though?

Electric heating is ridiculously expensive. I simply wouldnt buy any property thats heated by electricity.

Is it the norm in your area?

Whilst I can appreciate the comment, not everyone can afford to make such a choice unfortunately. We can only afford to buy a flat where we live and almost all the flats in our price range have electric heating. We only saw two flats that had gas central heating - one was an overpriced renovation job with a nightmare vendor and the other was above a restaurant so we couldn't get a mortgage for it. Luckily, it is very common in our area (Birmingham) so won't be an issue when selling.

I would prefer gas central heating but we just can't get that in our price range!

 

[333rocky333]

Reading the trade mags theres some quite efficient ways of electric heating nowadays, you must remember not paying a gas standing charge will also help offset the cost a little.