Removing Electrics from Part-Demolition

[btm3055]

Hi,

 

Long story short, I have a timber frame bungalow that was built sometime in the 1930s. The wiring is all round-pin, and I believe pre-1946 when my wife’s grandmother bought it. The bathroom has a lean-to extension on the side where the outside toilet was attached to the main building sometime in the mid-60s. Both the bathroom, and the lean-to extension have mains electric with ceiling lights and plug sockets.

 

I am going to demolish the lean-to, and retain the main building.

 

I will obviously need a qualified electrician to install anything electrical in the bathroom because building regs would apply to any new work. However, can I safely remove the old wiring myself?

 

My plan is to trace the wiring back to where it branches off from the rest of the building, turn the mains off, cut the wiring as close to the source as possible, wrap the connected end in electrical tape, pull the newly disconnected wires out, turn the mains back on.

 

Does this seem safe? Is it the best approach?

 

Would appreciate opinions.

[ProDave]

Rather than just cut the wires, trace them back to where they join either in a junction box or at another switch or socket.

 

Let's be honest here, 1946 wiring NEEDS rewiring.  So personally I would disconnect the whole of the old install,  install a new consumer unit and start with a couple of sockets by the CU for powering tools etc while you rewire the whole thing as part of the renovtion.

[btm3055]

@ProDave thanks for the advice.

 

I hadn’t really thought of that. We’re planning to build an outside machine room connected to a bank of solar panels, and relocate the box and the mains meter out there. But I suppose a cheap meter and a couple of plug sockets wouldn’t cost that much in the meantime.

 

Thanks

[joth]

5 minutes ago, btm3055 said:

@ProDave thanks for the advice.

 

I hadn’t really thought of that. We’re planning to build an outside machine room connected to a bank of solar panels, and relocate the box and the mains meter out there. But I suppose a cheap meter and a couple of plug sockets wouldn’t cost that much in the meantime.

 

Thanks

where are you in the UK? I have our old site board (3 RCBO, 2 double sockets and a working light) sat cluttering up the garage (Herts)

 

We did pretty much exactly what @ProDave suggests, except we had an intermediate step of running the old house fuse board off the new site board for a while, just to give the old wiring RCD protection, until the demo started in earnest.

 

Having earth leak protection for everything during the works is a must have.

 

[Carrerahill]

1 hour ago, btm3055 said:

Hi,

 

Long story short, I have a timber frame bungalow that was built sometime in the 1930s. The wiring is all round-pin, and I believe pre-1946 when my wife’s grandmother bought it. The bathroom has a lean-to extension on the side where the outside toilet was attached to the main building sometime in the mid-60s. Both the bathroom, and the lean-to extension have mains electric with ceiling lights and plug sockets.

 

I am going to demolish the lean-to, and retain the main building.

 

I will obviously need a qualified electrician to install anything electrical in the bathroom because building regs would apply to any new work. However, can I safely remove the old wiring myself?

 

My plan is to trace the wiring back to where it branches off from the rest of the building, turn the mains off, cut the wiring as close to the source as possible, wrap the connected end in electrical tape, pull the newly disconnected wires out, turn the mains back on.

 

Does this seem safe? Is it the best approach?

 

Would appreciate opinions.

Don't wrap anything in tape, that is not really a suitable termination.

 

If it was me and the house is, by the sounds of it, original 30's wiring, I would take it all out and rewire. If that is not on the cards for just now then strip back each circuit to the last accessory on the circuit before the area you want to remove. I must however add some caveats.

 

Depending on what the circuits are and how they were wired you may have ring mains, in which case you might think you are terminating a circuit but it's actually live from both sides, I do not know how much you know about electrics so forgive me if you know this stuff.

 

So say it was lighting circuits, I would want to find the last thing it connected to before it entered the demo-zone. Say it was a lighting radial, then I would want to go back to say the hall light, and disconnect it there so that there are no pieces of random live wire kicking about.

 

It might be worth uncovering it all and asking a spark to come and carry out the isolation and maybe advise the state of the electrics.

 

 

Edited April 29, 2022 by Carrerahill