last night 15th August, i was called to a property around the corner form my office to repair/replace a failed fluorecent fitting.

now that was the nature of the call, but.

when i got to the residence i was a little shocked, to say the least, the fiiting was an old Cryselco, single arm five foot fluorescent fitting held to the ceiling with two screws and no earth!!!

the cable feding the fitting is the old VIR black rubber cable, no earth available and terminated with old type wirenuts (porceline) i have not got any photos of the fitting but it was approx 40 to 45 years old, and had just failed!!!

now the problem i encountered was this;

the client is 96 years old and so is his wife, how do you explain that the elelctrical installation in the property is a potential fire hazard,?

i spoke to the son, who is in his early 60`s and he said that the ellectrics have never been touched!!!

i have thought about writing a letter but how do you put that sort of thing into words that wont scare the bejesus out of a very old couple??

its a bit a dilema, oh also i replaced the fitting with a standard twin 5 foot fitting and looped an earth back to the nearest socket outlet, but i am not happy with the condition of the installation at all. and due to me being the last person to work on it reners me liable ?

any answers would be helpful.


britspark

PS, this is why i stear away from domestic electrics and just stick to commercial and industrial.

I'd say just explain to them that the electrics are a getting very old and it might be a good idea to replace them as they'd be much safer etc etc..

Explain that the old rubber cables deteoriate and all that stuff. You can't really sugar coat it that much... just tell the son.

There are plenty of absolutely ancient installations like that working away without any faults for decades all over the world.

Some people refuse to believe in the dangers of unsafe installations. One comes to mind where a friend had renovated his laundry/bathroom. The washing machine was supplied by a 4 way power board which was plugged into a socket under the house. However the powerboard lead wasn't long enough anymore once things had been removed around. So, he made up his own extension lead as one would do. Electrically there was nothing wrong with it, but I just couldn't contain myself when I noticed he'd put the socket on the power board cable and made the extension lead with two plugs! I went abslotutley nuts when I saw this and was almost frothing at the mouth. Somehow, a plug with 240v on its pins didn't seem to faze this guy. He just calmly suggested I leave it alone as no one would ever unplug it!! I won't get started on the ceiling fan with green/yellow wiring to the switch just yet...

I wouldn't worry about an unearthed flourescent light fitting provided no one could touch it...actually here it's not legal to run a light fitting's earth connection from a power circuit, though of course it would have to be better than no earth at all.
VIR is still ok as long as the wire hasn't gone brittle. One look at the VIR in my parents last house was enough to make me rewire the whole place. Some was in excellent condition, but some had crumbled to the point where plastic sleeving had been put over the exposed parts...much as I like old wiring, I draw the line at that sort of thing.

Hello Britspark, like Aussie240 said, in NZ and Australia we have a lot of houses with the rubber wiring still.

I think the best way to deal with the problem of discovering the rubber wiring is to work out a plan of replacing the dodgiest circuits first and prioritising the remaining circuits.

If the owners can't afford anything straight away then you could offer to protect the whole house with an RCD main switch. ( this can be a headache also, but may help identify problem circuits early )

Replacing rubber wiring is costly and a three bedroom house could be $2000 or more. While you are fixing the wiring then you may as well upgrade the switchboard and the service main as well. Re-wirable fuses must be replaced with MCBs and the old internal DB mounted meters have to be replaced with an external meter box. This all adds up to a major job.

Nobody likes being forced to tell elderly folk that they have to pay thousands of dollars to fix a problem they may not understand. That would have to be the least desirable part of being an electrician.

Perhaps our Governments could pay up and subsidise this work. After all it was the government that okayed rubber cable in the first place.

There's not much you can do in a situation such as this except explain as diplomatically as possible that the wiring has deteriorated due to age and is in need of replacement.

I can't find a pic of a Cryselco light, but by "single arm" do you mean something like this Mazda fitting?



Ad taken from a 1964 magazine.


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 08-17-2005).]

Aussie,
The socket was where??.
Good God!,
What on earth is this guy up to?.

Trumpy, Mrs B found a live plug-plug in the garden here when we moved in. JHC, the previous owner had wired an extension lead to power a pond pump!, burying ordinary flex in the soil to compound matters! Luckily she realised the danger and I disconnected the bloody lot pronto! - and filled the pond in - mosquito breeding ground too. Do you know this stupid git told a mutual aquaintance my missus had "ruined his garden!"

Alan

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 08-18-2005).]

"Mais Monsieur, il marche, n'est-ce pas?"

Paul, I have to report the previous owner was English, and a complete plonker! If he'd been a local, the idea of having a 'garden pond' full of mosquitos would have been as preposterous as trying to nail Jello to the ceiling. I've spent hundreds of hours putting right his bodge-ups in the last few years. Do you know what that pillock had done in response to our 500ma trip operating in thundery weather? He had gone round the house, opened every receptacle and cut the earth wires!
Alan

Alan:

Sounds like that "plonker" knew just enough to be dangerous!! Does that qualify him to be a "******" too? Or maybe "*********" fits better!

britspark:

I agree with kiwi, working out a plan to gradually upgrade would be a great idea. And if you could carefully and in easy-to-understand terms explain to the couple and/or thier son that the condition of the old wiring is cause for concern, I think you'll find them receptive.

Personally, I would rather deal with a face-to-face discussion to alert them to potential trouble, than read about a tragedy caused by the dodgy wiring that I didn't say anything about.

You sound like a true professional, with concern over the safety of others. A big thumbs up!!

{Message edited to remove profanities.}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 08-19-2005).]

Trumpy and anyone else who saw my post before the edits:

I sincerely apologise if I offended anyone, I had forgotten to take into account that certain words as slang in the US can have rather harsh meanings in other countries!

A hundred lashes with an FPE circuit breaker for me!

I'd better apologise too then, since 'plonker' and 'pillock' are both euphamisms for profanities, ( guess what!), but manufactured ones created by 'Aunty BBC' to avoid offence. Plonker comes from Only Foools and Horses, and Pillock comes from Steptoe and Son.
Reminds me of Winston Churchill, who added "Spherical Objects!!!" on the bottom of a memo he returned to sender. The memo came back with-
"Who is Spherical, and what does he object to?"

Alan

To be honest guys,
You have to be careful what you say and how it is worded on a site like this.
We have a PG Rating here and you don't know who is looking at this site, either.
Aside from that, I find Alan's comments quite humourous(sp?).
But, I think we should get back to the topic at hand here.

Paul,
yest that is the fitting!

or should i say, Was the fitting.

i have written a letter to the clients son to let him know of the condition of the electrical installation and pointed out our reccomendations, lets see what happens now.

i had to do something as, like most of us out here doing this job, i have to ensure that everything i do is safe and secure and will not damage the property or persons within it.
i have to admit that i do sleep very well at night knowing that i have done a good job for a fair days pay. and not ripped anyone off in the process

Britspark

Good call Britspark,
The thing that you have to think about with any old installation is often the lack of Earthing on Light fittings and the like.
Safety is paramount these days and the best way to ensure this is a good, low resistance connection back to the supplying Switchboard.
Cable integrity is another factor, with older cables, with any movement can cause them to crumble leaving bare wires.
I don't subscribe to the idea of sleeving bare wires with PVC sleeving.
I'd sooner tear the whole lot out and start again.
Old wiring systems are nothing short of a fire hazard and in some cases can indemnify your Insurance policy.
However Britspark, I think you did the right thing in sending the letter to the son, something may get done about it, although I wouldn't hold my breath.
Guys, if you are going to write a letter like this, back it up with test results and an explanation of the results.
It's your best defence and also a marketing tool, you guys are professionals, use that to get work.

Trumpy,
You see it was a very strange house. The guy was a pot smoking hippie living out in the Tasmanian bush and he'd built the house himself. There was not a square room in the place and it even had a tree trunk in the middle of the living room which the house had been built around.
Fortunately, the house had been wired by a licenced electrician. A GPO had been installed under the house for a washing machine (you could walk in under part of the house as it was on the side of a hill). Only thing was when my friend decided to wall in his 'laundry' the power point wasn't relocated. The lethal extension lead was so short that I could barely get the wires around the cord grips in the plug (and we know often DIY'ers never use those don't we?)
and still have enough to reach the socket.
Being in the Tassie bush on a weekend holiday there was no where I could get a decent length of 3 core flex so had to at least make what was there safe. It's surprises like this that make electrical work so interesting

Aussie,
You're telling me!.
There are a few (not many) houses like that over here too, I walked into one down in Waimate here a couple of years back and wondered what the h*ll was going on with the tree coming up through the middle of the living room floor, it had been cut just below rafter level and you would never have noticed from outside.
I agree mate, I've seen a lot of Australia, but I've never been to Tasmania, I'm told a lot of hippies live there, the ones that never realised that the 60's ended sometime ago.

I totally agree with Trumpy saying that sleeving and repairing crumbling rubber sheathed cables is inadvisable.

As inadvisable as "Trying to Nail Jello To the Ceiling". ( I,m still laughing at that Alan )

kiwi,
You only have to have an old switch-board blow up in your face as you open it, to realise how good sleeving is.
It burns too well too!.

Trumpy I have had domestic fuse-box blow up in my face as I opened it. It was the crumbling rubber service main cable that shorted and the 63A pole fuse made for a decent bang. I'm still in therapy

Now I wear a welding helmet and a flak-jacket when I open old fuse-boxes. Kinda freaks the Home-owner out though.

One freelance handyman told me of an old lady who had lampcord in some of her wiring. He said he could have reported her, but it looked like she was too old and poor to have it fixed and the result would have been to cut her electricity.

Sorry if I've overlooked anything, but can the local power companies cut the service for code violations?


[This message has been edited by GeneSF (edited 08-28-2005).]

GeneSF,
over the years i have only ever had the power compnay disconnect a supply not for code violations (as our IEE regs are just a recommendation as to install and are not law),
one property was a largish motor garage that i was called to, it was raining and the rain was pouring into the main panel board (300Amp three phase) and onto the service cutouts and merter area, now that was scary.
i called the local POCO and explained what was happening and they actually authorised me to disconnect the supply.

the owner was not very happy!!!

he had called me in because he heard a crackling sound coming from some very old half inch conduit in the corner of the spray booth!!!
when i investigated that, the conduit was rusted out and the cabling was son damaged that the condubtors were arcing between the tube and themselves,

after the supply was disconnected we got to re wire the whole place, it took four of us about three weeks to fully re wire the building (approx 16,000 sq feet.

the other one was another motor garage that only had a single phase supply but the `man` who owned it was a bit of a DIy fanatic who thought that you could run a 5 hourse power direct on line three phase compressor off of a single phase supply!!

we were called in by a shop next door because he could smell burning just outside of his door, in my years as an elelctrical engineer it never ceases to amaze me how stupid people are with electrical energy.

i just wish our country would adopt the IEE rules as law and convict those out there who mess with things that they dont understand.

Britspark

Britspark, The IEE regs or to give it it proper title now BS7671 is now mandatory. Good old Part P has taken care of that one BS 7671 is a requirement of the Building regs on Domestic Work. Its covered by the Electricity at work act on comercial and industrial projects. Comply or be damed!
aland

>in my years as an electrical engineer it never ceases to amaze me how stupid people are with electrical energy.

I guess "it's all about the money" and the illusion that skill in one trade automatically translates to another trade.

But good to know you can blow the whistle on hazardous installs. Might save a few lives.



[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 09-02-2005).]

Alan,

Don't forget that we discussed this at length.

The Building Regs. do not refer to BS7671 at all, so there is no legal requirement to comply as far as residential wiring is concerned.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043210.htm

Paul, Thanks for reminding me.Yes you are absoulutely spot on and right in what you say; but dont you think that the doors are shut not bolted but shut quite tightly. Very nearly all building contracts no matter haow small have a one liner in them saying installation to be to BS 7671:2001. So reverse that into the fact that the building work has to comply with building regs, I think its pretty tight and I dont think I want to challeng it in the courts. After all BS 7671:2001 is only a MINIMUM standard is it not.
Aland

The power company here doesn't really have any juristiction past their meter anymore. They could cut the power if they felt there was a clear and immediate danger to the property or if your installation was causing problems to the network.

They will refuse to energise or reenergise a supply where things are not up to code though. i.e. they normally require compliance certificates and will visually inspect the inside of the distribution panel (consumer unit), check the polarity of a few random circuits etc...

My employer Safety and Health Manual says this about opening older type hinged switch-boards:
There it is in black and white.

{Message edited to fix up UBB code}

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 09-02-2005).]

Sure, BS7671 is going to be followed widely. As you say, almost all building contracts will contain a clause to that effect, just as they have done since before the IEE Regs. became BS7671.

The non-BS7671 question is probably only going to arise in cases such as a private home build project where the owner is carrying out much of the work himself.

I must be missing something here. Why do you need live-gloves, shields etc. to open a panel which has already been isolated from its source of power?

Paul, My causin opened a switch panel once after switching off the isolator. Unknown to him the panel had been subjected to massive overload for a long period when he opened the door the whole panel fell apart shorting out the mains into the panel. From the resultant flash he was hospitalised for quite a while and finished up with skin grafts. (That was some 25 years ago but it still happens).

Ah... We're talking about opening the main switch which is on the panel you're about to open. I'm with you now!

I was thinking in terms of the isolator being elsewhere so that the panel being opened would have no energized conductors within it at all.