Dodgy Electrics

[Paul_GPvR]

Have a look at this chaps....

The other weekend i was pulling up floor boards in our new (old) house to install alarm cables etc and look what i found...

Some bright "spark" has layed these cables ontop of the hot central heating pipes. The floor boards have been squashing these down onto the hot pipes over the years and as you can see have melted through the sheath and can clearly see the red cable!!

The cable is melted in lots of places along this run, but those pics show the worst part.

Scary!

 

[FredFlintstone]

Wow! Similar to some of the horrors I found in my house.

One for the hall of shame methinks!

 

[Paul_GPvR]

Wow! Similar to some of the horrors I found in my house.

One for the hall of shame methinks!

Yeah pretty scary, i think i've been pretty much everywhere in the house now.

Fingers crossed no more horror's lined up waiting for me.

What do you think could of happened if it was left like that? melted through in a few month? and possibly a fire? At the moment we've got an antique fuseboard, hopefully this is being replaced with a new consumer unit this week.

 

[FredFlintstone]

Well depending on how crap the setup is, your whole heating system could have become live! One would hope a fuse would blow pretty rapidly but I guess that would depend on whether or not the fuse is correct etc - if there was a nail in place of the fuse (which I've seen before!) then you'd get a live heating system for a while before the nail became so hot that it caused a fire.

Having said that, I guess the main incoming fuse would blow fairly quickly.

 

[JohnD]

That's nice, we had someone on here recently claiming that it did no harm to run cables with hot pipes. He wouldn't believe us

 

[masona]

Some bright "spark" has layed these cables ontop of the hot central heating pipes.

Could it be the other way round? eg:the cable already there and the plumber put the pipe in?

 

[Paul_GPvR]

Some bright "spark" has layed these cables ontop of the hot central heating pipes.

Could it be the other way round? eg:the cable already there and the plumber put the pipe in?

i've got a feeling it might have been done at the same time. As i'm sure that cable goes to the emersion heater in bathroom, which actually blew up when i turned it on the first day we bought the house lol. ( it had a metal jam jar lid on top of the connectors!!)

 

[robzc]

Running the cables with hot pipes isn't a concern. I work in the construction industry & it often gets done. As long as the cables are "legal", they will usually withstand up to 160'C or more, this is double the temperature of home heating systems on maximum.

The problem above is the friction between the floorboards & pipes that has worn down the insulation on the cables. Admittedly, the cables could be of questionable quality as well, but I agree with whoever posted elsewhere regarding running cables alongside pipes, it isn't a problem. Just don't put floorboards on top of the cables!!

 

[obmitty]

This is definately friction damage not heat damage.

The damage is on the top side of the wire, and its on both the hot and return pipes, which wprobably wouldn't be much more than 60 degrees (at a guess).

 

[Lantash]

Might add that modern thinking is that joists should be drilled instead of notched. Doesn't weaken the joist as much, and less risk of nailing-through a cable.

Wouldn't matter for alarm cables but for any new power, drill holes well away from surface.

 

[denisthedolphin]

quite right, that is friction burns caused from the movement of the floorboards, if your central heating pipes are hot enough to burn the cables, believe me there,s somthing wrong with your central heating. also there wood be burn marks on the floorboards.
but your first action should now be to insure your main protection is up to maximum standards.
denisthedolphin

 

[HandyHands]

Looks like the cables have been turned over to show the melted sections, so not friction burns. If you take a closer look at the pipes, you'll see a couple of marks to the right (in line with the cut-outs in the joists) where the cables have sat on the pipes.

 

[noseall]

....look.. i..i...needed the money ok...t.times were hard......didn,t have enough cable to go underneath...kids were starving.

 

[Paul_GPvR]

Looks like the cables have been turned over to show the melted sections, so not friction burns. If you take a closer look at the pipes, you'll see a couple of marks to the right (in line with the cut-outs in the joists) where the cables have sat on the pipes.

yep your spot on i turned the cables round so you could see them in the pic. Definatly the heat from the pipes that has melted the cables.

 

[mike++]

at least if it went bang you'd know where it happened by the smoke rising through the gaps in the floorboards!