Hi All,I've just worked in a large, very old, house where the intake is in the garage, from the meter, tails go to a henley block then go through a 60A 30mA obsolete ELCB to a DP isolation switch that then feeds a twin & earth cable (looks like 16mm) which then runs 21m through the house to the laundry room, connects via another henley to another piece of T&E (unearthed!), which runs to the pantry to another henley that then feeds 3 distribution boards, and 1 sub-main off of one of those.
Apparently the intake used to be in the laundry but was moved to the garage about a year ago and an earth rod was installed by the garage (it's a TT system)
There are young children in the house, and golf clubs and tennis rackets are swung around a lot. A lot of the T&E run is within 6 ft from the floor and accessible.
My view is that if the intake was moved to the garage about a year ago, then the obsolete elcb should not have been reused, that the cable should have been run using swa (when I was there the plumber almost drilled into the cable from the other side of the wall, if I hadn't been in the room and shouted, he would have); that the cable is undersized (it is just OK for volt drop etc at 60A but given that it supplies 4 DBs supplying the large house, 21m away, I can see the elcb being replaced in the future.
It may be that as the original intake was in the laundry, that there is an earth rod going to the pantry where the DBs are, but shouldn't the earth still come from the earth rod at the garage (which is the installations earth point)?
And of course that last run of T&E should be earthed.
About 8m of the run goes outside and T&E is made to BS 6004 which states "cables for lighting and internal use". I know we've all seen security lights wired using a couple of feet of T&E but it does degrade considerably due to the UV from the sun and this is a bit different from just supplying a light.
I've raised my concerns with the customer who is trying to get hold of the electrician who did the work to get him to talk to me. I'd be grateful therefore of your views and whether I'm right or not. Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.
Apparently the intake used to be in the laundry but was moved to the garage about a year ago and an earth rod was installed by the garage (it's a TT system)
There are young children in the house, and golf clubs and tennis rackets are swung around a lot. A lot of the T&E run is within 6 ft from the floor and accessible.
My view is that if the intake was moved to the garage about a year ago, then the obsolete elcb should not have been reused, that the cable should have been run using swa (when I was there the plumber almost drilled into the cable from the other side of the wall, if I hadn't been in the room and shouted, he would have); that the cable is undersized (it is just OK for volt drop etc at 60A but given that it supplies 4 DBs supplying the large house, 21m away, I can see the elcb being replaced in the future.
It may be that as the original intake was in the laundry, that there is an earth rod going to the pantry where the DBs are, but shouldn't the earth still come from the earth rod at the garage (which is the installations earth point)?
And of course that last run of T&E should be earthed.
About 8m of the run goes outside and T&E is made to BS 6004 which states "cables for lighting and internal use". I know we've all seen security lights wired using a couple of feet of T&E but it does degrade considerably due to the UV from the sun and this is a bit different from just supplying a light.
I've raised my concerns with the customer who is trying to get hold of the electrician who did the work to get him to talk to me. I'd be grateful therefore of your views and whether I'm right or not. Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.
