Dating wiring.

somersetsparks · Jul 29, 2012

Doing a bit of work for a family member, fuseboard change etc..

Having a look around I found that the DB is a bakelite, wooden backed wylex 10mm tails 4mm earth.
All earthing is in black cable.
No bonding
Lighting circuits have no earths
Many switches are round on wooden pattresses
Oval-ish shaped bakelite MK sockets on wooden pattresses
PVC twin, 3cores have white has L2

Anyone guess a date just out of interest? they seem to think it is from 1961.

Problem I have is the lighting circuits, I can rewire the feeds but not the switchwires, as they are clipped, painted, caulked, painted and painted onto the door frames of recently decorated rooms and are extremely awkward to remove!
Is this worth doing?
Or should I just convince them to change the odd metal fitting back to pendants/class 2 fittings?

EDIT:- Forgot to mention IR is fine, well over 100 mOHms

trev · Jul 31, 2012

An uncle and aunt of my wife got someone out to get their upstairs lights working again a few years back. I went up a few days later on an unrelated thing and took a little look at what they had, it was an old memora CU with rewireable porvelain fuse carriers, VIR cable which was well past it's sell by date and the CU was showing signs of water ingress. I told them that the CU needed to be moved and they should seriously think about rewiring, her uncle (who was tighter than a duck's backside)told me that I didn't know what the hell I was talking about because everything was working and that I was trying to screw him for money.
What can you do? When he died he left just over 250k in cash

somersetsparks · Jul 31, 2012

trev said:
An uncle and aunt of my wife got someone out to get their upstairs lights working again a few years back. I went up a few days later on an unrelated thing and took a little look at what they had, it was an old memora CU with rewireable porvelain fuse carriers, VIR cable which was well past it's sell by date and the CU was showing signs of water ingress. I told them that the CU needed to be moved and they should seriously think about rewiring, her uncle (who was tighter than a duck's backside)told me that I didn't know what the hell I was talking about because everything was working and that I was trying to screw him for money.
What can you do? When he died he left just over 250k in cash

Well we can only advise mate, this place seems a tad better then that, well at least no VIR in sight! I have suggested rewire but I won't go as far as saying its dangerous - as IMO it isnt.
A rewire would be to much for me to do anyway, I don't have much experience of doing them and no chasing machine etc., and more importantly - not enough time!