keeping old wiring in place against code?

[parsman]

Hi,
We are getting rewiring of the house done shortly which is mainly being funded by our local authority, work being done by appointed company. They are only allowing two points per room (fair enough), what we would like to know is can the electrician insist that he be allowed to removed the exisitng socket cabling in the room and not just disconnect from outside the room (hallway) or at the soon to be extinct old style fusebox. The idea behind leaving the old cabling in the room is to get it rewired in to the new wiring infrustructure by another qualified electrican friend more cost effectively (the cabling are recent and earth bonded etc...)? apart from any practical reasons he may raise is there any code / standard requirements that may be used as justification for removal i.e. won't pass certricate test?


Pars.

 

[oharaf]

Why do you want the old cabling left in place?

 

[Taylortwocities]

Whoever is doing the rewiring will be responsible for 100% of the circuit.
He will test 100% of the circuit and (I assume) he will be changing the consumer unit?

I'm not sure that you understand how wiring is done:
for sockets the cable goes from the consumer unit, to a socket, out if that socket and then to the the next and so on. At the last socket the wiring returns to the consumer unit. This is called a ring final circuit.

As a result, there is no "infrastructure" outside in the hall that the sockets "plug" into. the sockets are the infrastructure.

 

[Click-Sure]

Local authority contractors, be amazed what tea, biscuits and maybe even a macdonalds or such can do!

 

[ericmark]

I have not got an up to date Guide to 17th Edition wiring regulations but the old 16th Edition stipulated how many sockets should be installed in each room as a minimum. It may be worth checking as I am sure it is more than two and armed with that you may be able to get more!

 

[RMS]

two sockets per room is not many.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Hi,
We are getting rewiring of the house done shortly which is mainly being funded by our local authority,....the (existing) cabling are recent and earth bonded etc...

Why are the council paying to rewire a property if the existing installation is recent?

 

[parsman]

An electrical survey was done which recommends that the house is rewired with new consumer unit, no earth bonding on lighting, spurs of spurs, and a fusebox is being used, the new kitchen is not on its own separate ring, a new Combi boiler installed last year but I don't think on a separate ring.

They will only fund 2 points I think they are following some internal cost saving protocol, and 4 points for the Kitchen.

The house was rewired in 1983, the "sections" that are more recent are basically a bedroom turned into a kitchen with sockets above the worktops / hood socket, and wiring in a living room and bedroom for 3 extra sockets done within the last 2 years during refurbishment. To keep costs down they are proposing to use external trucking like across the ceiling, up from the ground to the light switch and to the ceiling, this for a quote of around £4500.

The idea of keeping the "old" wiring in these rooms was to get it reconnected to the new wiring by someone else, i.e. by joining the "exisitng socket wiring" after the last socket of the new ring before it goes back to the new consumer unit , especially the kitchen to avoid them using trucking over the walls and tiling, but I'm not sure if this allowed?

 

[ColJack]

£4500 for 2 sockets per room and surface trunking???

ffs.. where do you live?
bloody rip off merchants..

that's enough to rewire a 6 bed victorian in the middle of london, nevermind a 3 bed council semi...

I'll do it for £2000 plus parts, and you do the patch jobs yourself...

 

[parsman]

They live in North London (large Victorian house), the £4500 figure was actually for rewiring the existing number of sockets which is more then 2 per room on average, I expect they will provide another lower quote pricing at the 2 sockets per rm average. Something on the lines of £75 per socket was mentioned, but I'm not sure this would be or ought to be the same for wiring up an existing socket on a wall compared to installing a new socket on a wall?

 

[ColJack]

if you can get the wires down to it then it should be fairly easy, if you can't then it's almost as much hassle as a new socket.. it just saves 5 minutes with a SDS mox cutter.. you'd still have to chase the wall..

 

[GaryMo]

The idea of keeping the "old" wiring in these rooms was to get it reconnected to the new wiring by someone else, i.e. by joining the "exisitng socket wiring" after the last socket of the new ring before it goes back to the new consumer unit , especially the kitchen to avoid them using trucking over the walls and tiling, but I'm not sure if this allowed?

Of coarse it's allowed - if the existing wiring passes an inspection and test.

Whether the installing electrician would be happy including this segment of wiring into his new circuit would be down to him/her.

If he/she did then it would be clearly documented under the extent of the installation covered by the Electrical Installation Certificate issued.

 

[flameport]

There are several things wrong here.

First of all - House rewired in 1983 - yet no earth on the lighting?
Even at the time, lighting circuits with earths had been a requirement for almost 20 years.
Either the wiring is MUCH older (1960s or before), or whoever did the survey didn't look.

If the wiring is from 1983, it is highly unlikely it needs to be replaced. PVC wiring should last a lot longer than 26 years, unless it has been grossly overloaded for extended periods, damaged by vermin or left hanging outside in the weather.

For surface wiring in trunking, £4500 is far too much, and so is £75 per point. £75 per point is probably too much for recessed wiring as well.

Rewiring and reducing the number of socket outlets - utter madness. There are more electrical appliances in homes today than at any time in the past. The number is still increasing. Cutting the number of outlets will just encourage use of extension leads, adaptors and other mess.

The 'electrical survey' - just what did that entail?
Was it a complete inspection and test taking most of a day, or was it a suited salesman type who just had a quick look at the fusebox and filled in the date on their preprinted 'installation condemmed' form?

Kitchens on a separate circuit - certainly recommended but not essential. Fuseboxes likewise - probably won't comply with current regulations, but that doesn't mean unsafe or must be replaced.

Ultimately, after this 'rewire' you will end up with hideous trunking all over the place, far fewer socket outlets, and someone will have paid a wedge of money to end up with an installation which is totally inadequate.

 

[parsman]

The guy who came around was just a kid, Essentially he went to the fusebox in the cellar removed each fuse and went back upstairs and plugged in the socket tester to check the ring. He never opened up anything or look at the lighting circuit, done in 20 minutes!

The wiring done in 1983 was also funded by the council (still got the paperwork for the grant), no vermin / whether problem, just some unsightly hacks in to the ground floor socket ring to provide power to the kitchen and conservatory extension visible in the celler. Also, I'm not sure about the earth bonding issue with the lighting but have been checking random sockets and have changed a few switches and they have always been earth bonded. I was under the impression the main reason for rewiring was the proposal to upgrade the old fusebox to a consumer unit?
Had a look at the living room sockets, the 1983 installed 2 sockets, one with the cables for the IN and OUT for the ring and cables going to the other socket as a spur, later on a spur from the spur socket was added, and another spur socket from the second spur socket, is this good practice?

 

[GaryMo]

The guy who came around was just a kid, Essentially he went to the fusebox in the cellar removed each fuse and went back upstairs and plugged in the socket tester to check the ring. He never opened up anything or look at the lighting circuit, done in 20 minutes!

He 'checked' the ring without accessing any terminals? Must be a good 'un!