What's wrong with this picture?

[martinxxxxxx]

So Martin; were you joking about a man dying?

Or were you seriously attempting to blame someone on this forum for the death you had perceived?

I'm not trying to be clever or trick you in to anything, I just really want to know what you meant by that particular post.

I believe I have covered both the above questions in my last post. I am not a sarcastic person so I won't paste the whole thing here.

Ask yourself the following;-

Could he have only died; or is it possible he had a fall from a shock and therefore his postings were delayed?

If there were a fatality connected with advice from this forum, would it be included in any investigation of what happened or just ignored?

Is it a crime to consider these possibilities or should one just get a grip and ignore/ not discuss them in a forum that provides advice to strangers in the procedures of testing home electrics without knowing at all if the OP has the common sense to double check that the circuit is dead?

Were your comments aggressive or defensive?

Why do you feel it necessary to have a go at anyone who mentions the law of the land in relation to electrics?

Anyway I assume you are actually probably much more reasonable in person than you come across in your postings, after all it is not often I hear a scot using cockney rhyming slang.

Martin

 

[Donkmeister]

it's a shame that cable isnt still available, it always seems to be of a good quality

Well, seeing as this cable must be 30-40 years old, it is surprising that the insulation feels only slightly less pliable than new cable.

If the ~10 metres of various sizes I've seen are representative of the whole installation, I can see why people often say not to worry too much about the 25 year design life of PVC cabling... no idea how it would fare in an insulation test, mind.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Could he have only died; or is it possible he had a fall from a shock and therefore his postings were delayed?

Who?

If there were a fatality connected with advice from this forum, would it be included in any investigation of what happened or just ignored?

What fatality?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

no idea how it would fare in an insulation test, mind.

Perhaps you should find out...

 

[sparkydude]

You may have been hasty in condemning this cable to the skip. They did make NEW stranded 1.5 T+E as i used some around that time for a job it came in direct from the manafacturers. Have you tried looking on the cable for a date stamp/manafacturer or basec approval marks?? this was about the time that the other strange cable beast appeared ie that of the 3core 2.5 with an earth sleeved inside the cable the same as the other cores no extra earth sleeving required.


Nick

 

[ericmark]

There was a point a few years back where we did think it was funny to bond coins.

When super glue first hit the market place bonding coins to surfaces where we knew people would try and pick them up and pocket was thought good fun.

I did see humour watching the attempts at pocketing these coins.

However nothing to do with electrics. Does point out how wording can be confusing.

I have found cable sizing a problem even where right in front of me. And it is so easy to think one is connecting to imperial 2.5mm² equivalent when it is really 4mm² and a radial rather than a ring main. I found this in some offices where someone had extended what they thought was a ring main but was in fact a radial. And because of where it was this must have been done by an electrician as no non electrician would have been allowed to work on electrics on that site.

Cure was to change MCB to 20A.

What ever we do which is not standard is likely at some time in the future to cause problems. And radials to me is asking for problems.
1) Unless you use 90ºC cable 4mm² you can't bury.
2) If you use 6mm² cable you are limited to makes of sockets you can use and often you find strands cut away to make them fit in holes.
3) With 4mm² it is very easy to not realise and think it is 2.5mm² and extend with wrong cable sizes.
Yes I know we should check. But how many do? I still see electricians who don't have the ELI, and RCD tester as part of their tool kit. I know the idea is a tester comes and tests the work after. But get real will a second guy really test the replacing of a socket. We have even seen on here U-tube video were it showed a Martindale tester with three neons being used to test sockets.

Like the stickers for two versions of BS7671 I think where radials over 20A are used stickers need putting on consumer unit to warn when radials over 20A are installed.

The same problems arrive when Ali-tube is used. So because you have not got a RCD at the consumer unit, so you extend in Ali-tube and use a RCD socket which complies with regs. What do you think the next electrician will do? Clipped direct rated at 33A so is this radial or a spur? Just asking for mistakes to be made. Not every electrician tests as they should. I do have a vernier in my bag to test cable sizes. But hands up those who use red, blue and yellow crimps as go, no go gauges. I know I have in past. So if blue will not fit and yellow lose then 4mm² tight then 6mm² so old imperial gets considered as 4mm² not 2.5mm². So easy to test if a ring with nearly any meter, but still find electricians with martindale testers only in tool bag. How they test if ring or radial I don't know?

 

[Paul_C]

They did make NEW stranded 1.5 T+E as i used some around that time for a job it came in direct from the manafacturers.

And looking at the full-size photo again, are those tinned strands, or plain copper? They look as though they might be the latter, but the reflections make it a little hard to tell.

 

[NotHimAgain]

Eric
What others may do at some future time is not your responsibility. It is for them to decide what, if any, modifications can be made to an existing installation - see [131.8].

There are a good reasons for this - you cannot foresee future changes and labelling installations because you think someone might fail to comply with [131.8] is impracticable as, you cannot guarantee the information will be seen and, you may end up with many different labels .

Here is an industrial example - some years ago I designed a supply to a 600 hp car body press. For various reasons the end result was something like 2 * 120 mm² XLPESWA cables mounted on cable tray and separated throughout their length by two cable diameters to remove the need to apply a grouping factor. To ensure these conditions we installed a new run of tray just for these cables.

All worked well until a week or two later when we were called back to site to approve the re-installation of the cables we had installed. A large national contractor had been engaged to install some more equipment in the plant. They took a fancy to our cable tray run and decided to add so many cables to it that it actually collapsed under the weight (probably of them walking on it ). So much for our careful cable separation .

It cost them loads of money .

 

[Paul_C]

For reference, here are the current ratings and voltage drops for Imperial cable from the 14th edition, 1966:

http://www.electrical-contractor.net/PC/IEE1966_T3.JPG

Here is the table showing the earth sizes for those cables:

http://electrical-contractor.net/PC/IEE1966_TableD2.jpg

And below are the metric equivalent sizes for Imperial cable. All figures rounded to two decimal places. First conversion is from the declared nominal CSA of the cable in the 14th edition, second is the figure you get from direct calculation of number of strands x CSA of each strand.

[code:1]
Nominal CSA Equiv. sq. mm
Size Sq. in. Nominal Calculated

1/.044 0.0015 0.97 0.98
3/.029 0.002 1.29 1.28
3/.036 0.003 1.94 1.97

7/.029 0.0045 2.90 2.98
7/.036 0.007 4.52 4.60
7/.044 0.01 6.45 6.87
7/.052 0.0145 9.35 9.59
7/.064 0.0225 14.52 14.53

19/.044 0.03 19.35 18.64
19/.052 0.04 25.81 26.03
19/.064 0.06 38.71 39.43
[/code:1]

 

[martinxxxxxx]

Could he have only died; or is it possible he had a fall from a shock and therefore his postings were delayed?

Who?

If there were a fatality connected with advice from this forum, would it be included in any investigation of what happened or just ignored?

What fatality?

Sorry we seem to be carrying on an argument from another thread in this thread, to understand what the heck is going on - you'd need to read and comment on every thread, hold on... you do don't you?.

If you really interested it was when I said (Searchterm) "It's been a while, hasn't it."Username:martinxxxxxx

I think you commented on it too. i might be wrong

Martin

 

[securespark]

...I think that back in the imperial days, they did not make imperial lighting circuit cables with earths in them

Oh yes they did!!

I have a sample of rubber twin & earth, 1/.044.

So there. Ner ner ne ner ner.

 

[Donkmeister]

no idea how it would fare in an insulation test, mind.

Perhaps you should find out...

I'm going to be ripping it all out, I'm not reusing any cable after the REC2 isolator.

looking at the full-size photo again, are those tinned strands, or plain copper?

Plain copper, if that helps.

I'll try to locate a date stamp once I can start in earnest... Still need to do the bureaucracy bit.

(to be fair, BCO is being quite helpful)