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Red & Black T&E


Onoff

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Talking to a sparks friend from South Africa. I've never really thought about it before but plenty of countries weren't affected by harmonisation and still use red and black:

 

https://www.livecopper.co.za/collections/flat-twin-earth-cable/products/flat-twin-2-5mm-x-2-core-earth

 

About £60 a roll? That'd go for twice that here on eBay! ;)

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3 minutes ago, JSHarris said:

Reminds me, must remember to put my old stock of red and black T&E on ebay when we move...

 

I'd not use any. Got some old stuff here I can't be arsed stripping to weigh in. The missus wanted some copper wire recently to go round pots to try and keep slugs off. Something had happened to the old t&e with the red & black cores sticking to the (white) sheath.  Can't remember but one or the other core (red or black) was worse than the other. Plasticiser leeching I guess.

 

On the other hand I pulled some old black rubber sheathed stuff out of the wall outside the new bathroom and it's like new. 

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When I wasn't so busy building a house, I used to sell stuff on ebay.

 

I found useable lengths (e.g 5 metres or more) of good condition red/ black T&e removed from rewires, sold on ebay for more per M length than new cable.

 

I have even had people emailing me speclatively wanting to buy old coloured cable.

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The stuff I've got was like new last time I looked at it.  No sign at all of any degradation, but I wouldn't really expect to see any, as it's a fair bit newer than the wiring in our old house, that dates back to 1986 and that still seems perfectly OK. I bought these rolls of 2.5mm² and 1.5mm² shortly after we bought our old house in 2000, and used some of it when I added some new sockets and lights to existing ones in the garage/workshop.  I've probably got at least 3/4s of a roll of each left over from then.

 

I did see some white sheathed T&E a good few years ago where something odd had happened to it, though.  The outer layer of the outer sheath had gone black in places, not through the whole thickness of the outer sheath, but not something that would clean off, either.  The cable still looked OK, and as far as I can tell hadn't been touching anything or got hot, it had just been clipped to a garage roof joist (not one of mine).  The white stuff does sometimes feel a bit different to the grey stuff, though, and I wonder if it's more susceptible to damage like this.

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