Remedial work to badly fitted lights

[ProDave]

He certainly did need to do some work before calling the DNO, otherwise they may have refused to reconnect the installation if they thoght it was dangerous.

[Jeremy Harris]

45 minutes ago, ProDave said:

He certainly did need to do some work before calling the DNO, otherwise they may have refused to reconnect the installation if they thoght it was dangerous.

 

Having seen those videos, I wonder if I was a bit harsh to sack the first electrician we used for just leaving the collar off an SWA gland (so there was nothing clamping the armour), using a bit of blue neutral wire as an earth link (because he'd not got any earth sleeving), crossing the neutrals in the external CU (which is a caravan box, with just wired DP RCBOs), and leaving half the wire clamp screws loose, one being so loose that when I took the front off an outdoor socket the line wire just pulled out.

 

Compared with whoever wired the house in those videos, the first electrician we used seems to have been almost a paragon of virtue.  It even makes some of the bodges that @daiking has found look pretty tame.

 

I don't think there's much doubt that the DNO would have refused to reconnect that installation in the first video - just the state of the cable runs alone would probably have been enough to be a dead giveaway that it was bloody dangerous. I'm still amazed that there are people around, calling themselves trades people, who can do work like this.

[SteamyTea]

I find it hard to believe that an electrician would have left it in that state.  Was it a previous home owner 'having a go'.

[jack]

20 hours ago, JSHarris said:

I'm still amazed that there are people around, calling themselves trades people, who can do work like this.

 

I can't believe that even an unqualified person (eg, a homeowner) could/would do this bad a job. 

[Jeremy Harris]

17 minutes ago, jack said:

 

I can't believe that even an unqualified person (eg, a homeowner) could/would do this bad a job. 

 

 

That video is probably the worst wiring job I've ever seen, but I've seen a few that have come pretty close. 

 

The second house we bought was a typical 18th century Cornish stone cottage, that had been partially rebuilt in 1903 after a major fire, then renovated some time in the 1970's, with a single storey kitchen and garage extension added on to one end, and used as a holiday let for years (we bought it from the widow of the landlord).  The wiring in that had to be seen to be believed, with sections of the house with no earth, exposed conductors on the panel in the garage, a mix of earthing and equipotential bonding systems that were totally ineffective in practice, and worst of all, a hot water tank with an immersion heater that was faulty, which I only discovered when I went to replace the very tatty insulation jacket around it and found that the tank itself was live.  The only reason the rest of the plumbing wasn't live was because, for some reason (probably to do with the awkward access to the tank) whoever installed it in the small alcove in a wall, which had once been a bread oven I think, had used lengths of black alkathene farm pipe to connect it up to the rest of the house (saved using a pipe bender I expect, as it was a really tight space it was fitted into).

 

I'd planned on refurbishing the kitchen and bathroom, but spent all the kitchen refurbishment money we'd set aside on rewiring the whole house, top to bottom.  I never did get around to doing the kitchen, either, we lived with the tatty one for four years, until we moved up to Scotland.

[daiking]

Today’s surprise when trying to raise a single switch...

[daiking]

Real electrics now, 13A ()...

 

I thought there was a double socket behind a piece of furniture at normal socket height and I need it higher so I was going to add a spur.

 

Turns out there’s 2 double sockets and it looks like they are separate themselves, not one a spur off the other. Is there any harm in doing what I’ve done with the light switches? Chasing the wall and cutting the wires back where I want them?

 

 

Edited April 12, 2018 by daiking

[daiking]

Except further up the wall where I have dug a hole there are only 2 wires so I’m now guessing it was wired in a fashion like this. Which makes things a little trickier... wife will not be pleased

[Onoff]

28 minutes ago, daiking said:

Real electrics now, 13A ()...

 

I thought there was a double socket behind a piece of furniture at normal socket height and I need it higher so I was going to add a spur.

 

Turns out there’s 2 double sockets and it looks like they are separate themselves, not one a spur off the other. Is there any harm in doing what I’ve done with the light switches? Chasing the wall and cutting the wires back where I want them?

 

No problem doing that whatsoever. Lets hope you don't find any oddity like those two sockets are actually interconnected a little higher up. You could disconnect the wires in those two sockets and start belling out but you'd need a proper electrician to do that...

 

Don't suppose you can get into the loft/floor above and see the cable drops?

[daiking]

2 minutes ago, Onoff said:

 

No problem doing that whatsoever. Lets hope you don't find any oddity like those two sockets are actually interconnected a little higher up. You could disconnect the wires in those two sockets and start belling out but you'd need a proper electrician to do that...

 

Don't suppose you can get into the loft/floor above and see the cable drops?

Have you seen my latest post? 

 

I think I’ll need to climb up the loft to check 

 

and I’m going to need a plasterer as well as an electrician.

Edited April 12, 2018 by daiking

[daiking]

So now I have only 2 cable drops and a lungful of rock wool.

 

most expeditious way out of this hole is to cut the cables half way up the wall to stick a new double socket leaving the existing sockets In the lower position but not connected to anything.

[Onoff]

The cable is POSSIBLY routed how you've sketched. It may be though that those drops just feed one of the double sockets and the other is fed from say another socket on the other side of that wall! Belling it out is the only real way to tell.

 

Assuming it is how you've sketched then why not keep both sockets. Fit the new back box then just chase between that and the lower original one. Renew the lower cables.

 

Tbh I'd have used the knockouts in the boxes to link them together rather than a loop over the top.

[daiking]

Extremely unlikely it is fed from anywhere else. This wiring was part of ‘new build’ and not connected to wiring in room next door. 

 

Not it sure whether to keep making a mess to find out or stop here 

[daiking]

31 minutes ago, Onoff said:

The cable is POSSIBLY routed how you've sketched. It may be though that those drops just feed one of the double sockets and the other is fed from say another socket on the other side of that wall! Belling it out is the only real way to tell.

 

Assuming it is how you've sketched then why not keep both sockets. Fit the new back box then just chase between that and the lower original one. Renew the lower cables.

 

Tbh I'd have used the knockouts in the boxes to link them together rather than a loop over the top.

 

“Renew the lower cables“ ???

 

can I run a cable from the new position down to the lower socket and come off that directly?

[Dee J]

1 hour ago, daiking said:

 

“Renew the lower cables“ ???

 

can I run a cable from the new position down to the lower socket and come off that directly?

Yes. Assuming the wiring format and circuit protection are ok. I.e the two lower sockets are on a ring circuit protected at 32Amps or less or a radial circuit protected at 20 Amps or less. Your new socket becomes a spur to one of the lower sockets.

[daiking]

16 minutes ago, Dee J said:

Yes. Assuming the wiring format and circuit protection are ok. I.e the two lower sockets are on a ring circuit protected at 32Amps or less or a radial circuit protected at 20 Amps or less. Your new socket becomes a spur to one of the lower sockets.

I’d go with yes as it’s a new install with recent CU

[daiking]

Well no one has died or burned down yet

 

#winning