Firstly, apologies if what I'm asking is tremendously stupid.
I've read through quite a bit of information about "regulation part P", and come to understand that as a normal (not "competent" in the eyes of the regulation), I'm allowed to repair existing wiring.
Some bright spark (probably the previous owner of my house) has run a wire (the normal thick grey covered thing that I believe is normally hidden inside conduits in the walls) under the kitchen cabinets to an outlet in a room between the kitchen and the bathroom. From this outlet, he has drilled another hole through the wall, run a flex through this 2nd hole and placed a 2nd outlet inside the cabinet where a washing machine is meant to go. When I moved in, I plugged my washing machine into this without thinking much about it.
To add to the tale, the long grey wire running under the kitchen cabinets have a spur fed off it going to outlets just above the kitchen counter. The join of this spur to the main grey spur is done using just connector blocks (those semi clear things where you join two wires and hold them in place with a screw).
Now after having browsed this forum quite a bit, I've become nervous about this whole setup. I can follow the main grey cable back into where it disappears into the wall between the kitchen and the living room. I've just put new floors down in the living room and couldn't see anything on that side, so I must assume it's being fed "propperly" through a conduited wire inside the wall. But what happens in the kitchen doesn't look proper to me.
I presume I have two different options
1) get everything rewired which will probably include ripping the plaster off in my newly replastered and decorated living room. Am not keen on that!
2) try to at least improve on a bad situation. And as I said in the beginning, if I have understood "part P" correctly, improving existing wiring is allowed for Joe Public like myself.
So how should I improve it? What are the main things I should be considering doing?
I've read through quite a bit of information about "regulation part P", and come to understand that as a normal (not "competent" in the eyes of the regulation), I'm allowed to repair existing wiring.
Some bright spark (probably the previous owner of my house) has run a wire (the normal thick grey covered thing that I believe is normally hidden inside conduits in the walls) under the kitchen cabinets to an outlet in a room between the kitchen and the bathroom. From this outlet, he has drilled another hole through the wall, run a flex through this 2nd hole and placed a 2nd outlet inside the cabinet where a washing machine is meant to go. When I moved in, I plugged my washing machine into this without thinking much about it.
To add to the tale, the long grey wire running under the kitchen cabinets have a spur fed off it going to outlets just above the kitchen counter. The join of this spur to the main grey spur is done using just connector blocks (those semi clear things where you join two wires and hold them in place with a screw).
Now after having browsed this forum quite a bit, I've become nervous about this whole setup. I can follow the main grey cable back into where it disappears into the wall between the kitchen and the living room. I've just put new floors down in the living room and couldn't see anything on that side, so I must assume it's being fed "propperly" through a conduited wire inside the wall. But what happens in the kitchen doesn't look proper to me.
I presume I have two different options
1) get everything rewired which will probably include ripping the plaster off in my newly replastered and decorated living room. Am not keen on that!
2) try to at least improve on a bad situation. And as I said in the beginning, if I have understood "part P" correctly, improving existing wiring is allowed for Joe Public like myself.
So how should I improve it? What are the main things I should be considering doing?
