Were we ripped off?

[ban-all-sheds]

It was the old coloured cabling if that means anything. And the electrician from next door made it clear he wasn't happy that it'd been used/kept.

There is absolutely no reason, per se, why those cables should not have been kept.

I'm starting to wonder if the electrician next door actually knows what he is talking about.

 

[securespark]

I think the inference is that he was not happy that the other "spark" had reinstated a load of existing wiring while charging 2K for a "full rewire".

 

[sparkwright]

Send pictures.

It does sound like a shoddy job.

 

[Johnmelad]

We recently had our 'whole house rewired' (the electricians words).

The house has 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1 living room and 1 kitchen.

We paid £2000 for a 'full rewire' as it was described.
- The electrician separated the kitchen onto it's own ring main.
- Added around 12 Sockets
- Installed a new consumer unit
- Installed an exterior security light
- A couple of fused outlets for appliances in the kitchen.
- He also put in a new cable for a larger electric shower and a new pull cord to go with it.

We had quite a big issue during the installation;
The earth we had was actually a domestic clip that had been illegally installed at some point prior to us buying the house (rather than a proper PME or equivalent). He didn't notice this at all (even though he came to quote for the job and spent around 2 hours doing various tests etc), he also didn't notice it during the job (despite the consumer unit and everything being directly above the main electrical inlet). It was only when he did earth tests on the wiring once he'd finished that he realized. This obviously set things back as we had to get that booked before we could get the electrics signed off.

Since then (this was about 6-8weeks ago) we have had a few issues.
- We found a random live cable under the floorboards that was just left out.
- We have found out that the consumer unit buzzes whenever the electric shower is used (don't know if this is normal?)
- We've found quite a few light sockets weren't very securely wired, ie. they had come un attached and so we had to re-wire them to get them working.
- And the double switch in the kitchen was originally wired incorrectly (only one light worked out of two) but my dad fixed that.
- Then, (as if this isn't enough) we had some real trouble trying to put up the bedroom lights. My dad is pretty competent when it comes to electrics, more than competent enough to wire up a few light fixtures. However when he took down the old fixtures he found the electrician had run all of the lighting off of 1 light (this light had alot of old cabling in it I think we counted roughly 15 cables in total).

We happen to have an electrician living next door who we didn't know well at the time (we'd just bought the house). We've done a couple of favours for him since we've moved in so he told us to ask him if we needed anything. We asked him to come and fit the light fitting for us (cause we couldn't get it working). And pretty much he was disgusted at the amount of old cabling in the house, especially given that we'd paid £2000 for a full rewire.

He has strongly advised us every time we've seen him since (so daily) to get in touch with the NIC because he reckons it's totally ridiculous what we were charged for what we have been given.

Well obviously we aren't electricians, and with the exception of my dad (who had his doubts about the electrician we hired the whole way through the job), we just took the guys word for it and assumed we were fine. Afterall we checked and double checked the 'going rate' for a full rewire and £2000 seemed about right.

Does anyone have an opinion on this? We would really like some additional advice before proceeding with this, we appreciate how important your 'name' is in any trade and we don't want to rush into potentially tarnishing his reputation just on our neighbours word.
[/list]

Bit of a long winded answer, stick with me here.

The answer is:

YES

 

[Gutterball]

What is the old cable made of? just because it's the old colours doesn't mean it's not still ok to use. But if its VIR (rubber) it probably needs to be replaced.

 

[flameport]

But if its VIR (rubber) it probably needs to be replaced.

If it's old rubber cable, it definitely needs to be replaced - no question about it.

This is because
a. When manufactured, rubber cable had a 25 year lifespan.
b. Rubber cable hasn't been used in wiring properties since around 1960. Even assuming someone had a roll or five left over and it was actually installed a few years later in 1963, that's still 50 years ago - double the expected lifespan of the cable.

This is what happens to old rubber cable:

Rubber insulated wiring to light switch

• flameport
• 29 Oct 2010
• 2

Exactly as found, still powered, no earth anywhere.

This part of the cable was clearly visible. 99% of installed cable is not.

Note how some idiot has attempted to repair it with tape - the tape does nothing as the insulation just crumbles in other places.

 

[Gutterball]

I used the word probably because i know of a couple of houses where the circuits have passed an ir test with >299 readings.

 

[sparkwright]

I wonder when the very last piece of old rubber cable like that will be disconnected from service...

Still crops up energised from time to time.

 

[JohnW2]

I wonder when the very last piece of old rubber cable like that will be disconnected from service... Still crops up energised from time to time.

If left totally undisturbed, I suppose that it might theoretically go on 'satisfactorily' (with satisfactory IR) indefinitely - just as would bare conductors if they were a millimetre or two apart and were never disturbed by anything!

Apart from other factors, it's these electricians who come along and 'disturb' in the name of I&T who probably result in a lot of the observed horrors - just pulling the faceplate of a socket or switch forward by an inch or two can cause instant crumbling of VIR that might have remained 'intact' for the next 500 years if never disturbed!

'Seriously, though', we still sometimes see bits of electrical installations which are best part of a century old (particularly on the DNO's side of the meter!), so there's probably a few more decades to go before the very last bit of VIR goes out of service!

Kind Regards, John

 

[Gutterball]

There's a big old house that I've worked on for the last 5 years or so that still has lead cables on some circuits. The place is a nightmare to work in, you name a cable and it,s there somewhere.

 

[JohnW2]

There's a big old house that I've worked on for the last 5 years or so that still has lead cables on some circuits. The place is a nightmare to work in, you name a cable and it,s there somewhere.

My house is just like that, with one exception. Every type of cable which has been used in the last 100 years or so seems to exist somewhere in my house - the 'one exception' is that only the PVC cable now remains in service There was a small amount of lead-sheathed cable still in service when I moved in about 26 years ago. I've done IR tests on some bits of out-of-service VIR (and various other ancient cables) which 'appear out of walls' (goodness knows from where!) and most test fine.

Kind Regards, John

 

[bernardgreen]

Last Thursday I removed the last few feet of the 4 core pyro that had been the original feed from the meter in the adjacent shop. It was weaved into the structure of the cottage through joists, a stone wall and door frames. There is a lot of rubber cable buried in lime plaster, some singles which will ( maybe ) come out when ( if ) I replace the plaster.