Original 30s Wiring

[Gabriel12311]

Lifted my floorboards to find what I would imagine is the original wiring of my house (Built 1930) however, it has confused me. Can anyone shed any light on what the wiring colours would have been or what standards it would conform to. There appears to be one red and two black cables, which run through a hard painted black pipe. It is quite neat, and I am shocked at how thick these cables are considering they'd only be for lighting. One black one serve as the earth? This wiring isn't in use, just something I found interesting.

Any help is much appreciated,

Thanks

 

[AdrianUK]

A Few comments.....

Those cables, well, actually singles really, look like they are cotton covered VIR. The combination of the cotton covering & rubber insulation can make them look alot thicker than the conductor really is - try stripping a small section.

One of the cores is unlikely to be the 'earth'. If an earth was used back then (unlikely - lighting circuits weren't required to have an earth until the 1960's) it would have used the metallic conduit as the earth.

As to the purpose of the cores - hard to tell, it could have been a switched live & a looped neutral.

 

[333rocky333]

Red was Live and Black was Neutral for many years in fixed wiring but was phased out in appliance flexes many years earlier, so its likely the average person would not have seen Red and Black.
There was No earth run for lighting back then, but if was, would have been solid Green colour

As for the standard maybe,
13th or 14th edition IEE regs, whereas we are now on the 18th edition IET regs.
(They changed there name)

 

[flameport]

If they connected to a light fitting, the two blacks are the neutrals, which started at the fusebox and looped from one fitting to another.
The red is the switched live from the switch, the permanent lives would have been looped at the switch, so 3 reds there.
No earth connection to any of it.

1930 would have been mid way into the 9th edition which was published in 1927 and replaced by the 10th edition in 1934.

 

[Gabriel12311]

Interesting, thanks for the replies. It still sounds quite complex for wiring of that age, although it may have been more advanced than I thought!

 

[plugwash]

On the contary, if you are using single wires it's the simplest way to wire up lights and switches.

We only have "loop at light", "loop at switch", "junction box" etc layouts to accomodate multi-conductor cables.