ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades "Quaint Old English Houses"

sounds like a case of the "TWILIGHT ZONE".never know whats next.

An update on this job:

All the main lighting and receptacle circuits in the main part of the house are done now, except for installing half a dozen or so light fixtures when the owner has decided what types are wanted. (And two I installed have to be changed!)

Pulling new cables from the main distribution panel up to the void between the floors proved an interesting exercise, as the room above is now a bathroom. Guess where the new bath had been installed? Yep, right across the floorboards over the point where all the cables emerge from the wall and turn! Had to remove the tub to get at it all (I'm sure glad the plumber had fitted individual shut-off valves on the hot and cold to the tub faucets).

Still have all the wiring to the rear extension to tackle yet, and that's going to be the new kitchen. That part has a solid concrete floor though, so everything will have to be routed up into the bathroom floor, along a hallway, under a bedroom, and into the roof void of the extension. Not sure whether I'll just use a sub-panel yet.

By the way, apparently the owner had somebody else in a few months ago to add some lighting and receptacles, got fed up with the length of time he was taking to do everything (among other problems) and threw him out. I've uncovered some of his work -- I'm not impressed.

whew!, don't be next Paul.....

Apparently the owner is not at all happy that the previous guy went off with a fair chunk of money with the job unfinished, and now he's sending them bills saying they still owe him more!

I've already pointed out some of his "workmanship," such as cables joined and just lightly taped under the floorboards instead of in proper junction boxes.

Didn't have the camera in time to catch that lot, but I'll see if I can get some pics from the house later this week.

Here's what the place looks like from the outside:


Notice the cobblestone walls:


And here you can see the later addition to the rear:


I tried to get some shots in the attic, but I don't have a flash on the camera and I couldn't get enough light, but here's the mess of straw, rubble, and hacked woodwork under the upstairs floorboards:




More later.

Some more....

Here's an attempt at wiring a junction for two dimmers to feed spots and uplighters in the living room. Nothing wrong with the connectors he used, but they should be in a proper enclosure. This lot was just stuffed loosely under the floorboards with a couple of turns of tape around it:


This work must have been done by the guy the owner threw out a few months ago. Here's his idea of how to wire the downlighters in the kitchen:


Turning to a mess created at some unknown time in the past, here is a "twin socket" hanging loose that was still being used!





Apart from the problems obviously visible, the cable feeding this outlet is also undersized.

Some more pics from this house. (I decided not to take any of the two dead rats found in the attic! Yuk!)

This twin light switch looks innocent enough:


But instead of a proper fixture box, behind it is just a fabricated "box" of wood:


Several other switches were done the same way. This switch is typical 1950s/1960s style, and the cable dates to 1965 or earlier, so it's probably been like that a long time. This technique seems to have been surprisingly popular at one time, possibly because the old round "tumbler" switches were commonly mounted on a wooden surface pattress.

Another interesting piece of work came to light when I traced a cable to a receptacle and found an NM-type cable disappearing into an old length of heavy-gauge steel conduit to drop down the wall to a receptacle. The only problem was that the cable entering the conduit at the top was a different gauge to that emerging at the bottom!

I tried pulling through a new cable, expecting to find a taped splice buried in the conduit, but couldn't get it to budge. Here's what was hidden behind the plaster in the wall:


Closer examination revealed what must have happened. The large-gauge Imperial-sized cable entering from the top must have been the original 1950s/1960s feed to an electric range. The box is typical of those used for the isolation switch (which normally incorporated a receptacle as well). The conduit then continued down the wall to where the outlet plate for connection to the range would have been.

Somebody must have replaced that outlet with a regular duplex receptacle and abandoned the old control switch. The smaller cable run down to the receptacle from this "junction box" was metric, so it must have been after 1970. To cover the old range/receptacle combination they just shoved a small piece of drywall into the box and then plastered over it. From the drywall and the style of recept below, I would guess this was done in the 1980s or later.

an ocean away, yet such similarities. i bet electrician,carpenter,mason,painter,plasterer,etc fits the job 'sript.


that's a new one on me...


p.s.- that blue trim is ..uh...colorful!

Imperial is just normal English units: feet & inches, pounds & ounces etc.

British Imperial measures have a few differences from U.S. customary units, e.g.:

The Imperial pint is 20 fl. oz. versus the U.S. pint of 16 fl. oz. Our quart and gallon are correspondingly larger.

The cwt is 112 lb. instead of 100, and our ton is therefore 2240 lb. The U.S. ton of 2000 lb. is known as a "short ton."

These are said to be the only examples of something being bigger in Britain than in America!

Those Brits who complain that America corrupted the measurements by changing the size of the gallon are wrong, by the way, because the current U.S. gallon was used in Britain long before the Imperial gallon was standardized.

Have a look here for more info:
www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Imperial+units


The old Imperial-sized cables were designated by number of strands and diameter, e.g. 7/.029 was 7 strands of 0.029" diameter each.

There is a British SWG (Standard Wire Gauge) which was commonly used in radio work. It works in a similar way to AWG with larger numbers for smaller wires, but there's no direct correlation.

Since 1970 house wiring cables have been made to metric specifications, just given as the cross-sectional area in square millimeters (or millimetres to be British about it!).

For a given size (or its nearest equivalent) the older cables were generally a little larger, but easier to work with. Apart from the stranding and sheath markings, another easy-to-spot tell-tale is that metric cables are just plain copper wires but the older types had tinned strands.

Oh yes... That blue is kind of, er, noticeable, isn't it?


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 07-16-2002).]

Finally got this job finished today, even though it meant staying until after 8 p.m. to get done.

There's been some kind of family feud going on, which resulted in a son being evicted yesterday. Not a happy place to work.

I'm sure glad to see the back of this place!