The house I'm rewiring at the moment is a post-war prefab. It is built around a steel framework, with steel 'I' section joists spaced at three feet intervals with 1" wide timber joists running at ninety degrees to them. That's right, the steel runs in the same direction as the floorboards, so there is no clear run between timber joists. At the ground floor ceiling the steel joists have timber packing screwed to their undersides to which are tacked the fibreboard ceilings (the owner is not replacing them!!). As the timber joists that support the floorboards are slightly deeper than the steel joists there is a space between steel and floorboard of around a quarter-inch. Guess where all the existing cable and pipework runs?. Yup. between the top flange of the steel and the floorboards. In some cases the cables and pipes are actually supporting the boards. Where necessary, boards are chopped out to about a third of their depth to accommodate pipes. Some cables actually run along the top of steel beams for a full room-width run of a single floorboard.
Well, not any more they don't. All the old stuff has gone - about fifteen junction boxes in the lighting circuit - along with all the previous old stuff left in place at the last rewire. The new (brown and blue - wayhey!) cable has been laboriously routed safely out of reach, but what a pain.
When we showed the owner the extent of the bad practice he shrugged and said it must have been okay, because the council had done it... and they always do a proper job, don't they? Even when we showed him cable that had chafed right through sheathing and insulation to bare conductor by the action of walking on the springy board above, he seemed unconcerned that his entire house frame may have become live. (no earthing of steelwork either.)
Just thought I'd like to share the experience.
Well, not any more they don't. All the old stuff has gone - about fifteen junction boxes in the lighting circuit - along with all the previous old stuff left in place at the last rewire. The new (brown and blue - wayhey!) cable has been laboriously routed safely out of reach, but what a pain.
When we showed the owner the extent of the bad practice he shrugged and said it must have been okay, because the council had done it... and they always do a proper job, don't they? Even when we showed him cable that had chafed right through sheathing and insulation to bare conductor by the action of walking on the springy board above, he seemed unconcerned that his entire house frame may have become live. (no earthing of steelwork either.)
Just thought I'd like to share the experience.
) to recharge the flying electric car.
