This just goes to show you, no matter how far of a geographical seperation there is between us, people (and Hacks) are the same everywhere.

Roger

I don't get it that telco install looks like the standard in NYC.
You guys actually had them come in and clean that up ??
Who do you guys know ??

Same old thing Roger,
Just different connectors.
Any Telecoms tech here would scream at work like that.
Rough as!.
I'm only an Electrician and I know of good wire lay practice.
I'd be interested in what PaulUK has to say about this?.

We paid the telco company to come in and identify the lines, some were standard phone lines, some were killostream and framestream lines and isdn30e lines. They also ran a 40 pair cable from there to the comms room. Then I had to move the lines over from the old stuff to the new cables which then used the cat5 cabling for the phone lines. I have some photos of what it looks like now somewhere.

The lighting has been sorted but we thought the other ceilings were probably in a similar state so we had someone check them and they were, so they are all being sorted. we found some .75mm flex twisted onto the 1.5mm solid cables. it is amazing what a suspended ceiling can hide!

I wouldn't want my name put on that tele wiring, that's for sure. Even the mess of jumpers on the MDF of a telephone exchange can look neater than that.

As for the lighting wiring, it looks about typical. What was the extra wire tapped from the neutral on pic #3 for?

Virtually every telco street cabinet around here looks like that inside... no, usually they're worse!

that neutral was a single insulated piece of 2.5mm cable which linked over to another light in what is one of the many extensions, you can see the rsj it passes under. Unbelieveably it was to replace a lost neutral but not only were the other lights on another circuit but it was on a totally different fusebox! They are all fuseboxes, wylex wooden ones to be exact. They are in an ok condition and we arent in a position to replace them at present. Things are improving though, slowly.

The phone wiring was made worse by Smart Boxes for least cost routing. you can see the bits of paper labelling things for them and there are pegs to remove to disable the Smartboxes. All of this is now obsolete as we use CPS instead

I had a horrible feeling that extra wire was being used for something it really shouldn't have been!

By the way, for non U.K. readers, RSJ = Rolled Steel Joist.

Those Wylex standard range panels are still everywhere. The only thing to watch with the older wood-frame types is that they were open-backed, and you sometimes see them installed with no backing plate on an unsuitable surface.

Those Wylex boards seem to have the usual assortment of MCBs, rewireable and cartridge fuses.

The MEM isolator handles used as a cable support is different. I guess it works until somebody decides to turn them all off at the same time.

That last picture in the series says it all.
What sort of an idiot would be so slack as to run a cable like that?!!.
Them units have to be opened occasionally, having some plonker run a wire across the front of the lot of them, is just not on!!.
That guy must have been smoking something pretty strong when he had that idea.

That cable was installed by the plumber wot did 'lectric. We were just glad to have some heating on at last. There are some more qylex boards that someone has 'modernised' by painting them peach so that all the electrical switchgear and boards match where they can be seen. they could have chosen a better colour.

I think the BT DP is quite good now, most BT people comment on how tidy it is!

Those Klik things are great, easy to replace faulty fittings without turning all the power off. That means cheaper maintenance as we dont have to pay for out of hours and the wiring can be done off site, then the fitting is just dropped into the ceiling and plugged in. I just wonder if they would ned PATesting now they are on a plug and socket arrangement?