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I always thought orange was for fire alarms
The orange was mostly for external. Flood and security lighting for local council work. Aesthetics for the brickwork, as a rule.
We used to do fire alarms in bare stuff, it's all internal, although later in red.
They used to specify white for boiler house panel control....optimiser heating units.
I have a part coil of black, can't remember what that was for.
I've still loads of terms and copper P clips of different colours.
 
Back in the 80's all our local authority work was in Pyro, they would specify 4.0mm HG for an additional single socket in a school....I remember thinking we could run the whole school on that!
 
Back in the 80's all our local authority work was in Pyro, they would specify 4.0mm HG for an additional single socket in a school....I remember thinking we could run the whole school on that!
Local authorities used to be really important for providing local work for local contractors...….that's gone down the pan with todays budgets and those in charge of them.
However, they did tend to overdo things a bit. Decades back, 'clerks of work' involved with different departments did tend to know the job having been through the wringer themselves (on the tools). Then things changed so we had people of one trade being in charge of all, many of them college graduates....on many occasions seeking help from the contractors they were contracting.
 
I think you are looking at the job the wrong way and we’ve all been there trying to keep costs down for a tight wad customer and / or win the job. Best thing you can do is to design the job the way you know it should be done for the best installation method/suitable for the conditions ( in other words to BS7671 and good workmanship standards) give the quote and sleep easy. If it’s too much for the customer/mate to pay then explain the cost/reason and walk away if not willing to pay. I know it’s tough out there and we all need to be paid/make money but trust me it’s not worth you taking the stress for what you know to be substandard work when the customer is penny wise pound foolish.
 
I think you are looking at the job the wrong way and we’ve all been there trying to keep costs down for a tight wad customer and / or win the job. Best thing you can do is to design the job the way you know it should be done for the best installation method/suitable for the conditions ( in other words to BS7671 and good workmanship standards) give the quote and sleep easy. If it’s too much for the customer/mate to pay then explain the cost/reason and walk away if not willing to pay. I know it’s tough out there and we all need to be paid/make money but trust me it’s not worth you taking the stress for what you know to be substandard work when the customer is penny wise pound foolish.

i have priced the job now with either hi tuff or flexshield cable and wiska boxes.
didht come out too expensive as I can buy both cables by the metre From my local suppliers.

the main reason for this thread was to get an idea how others run surface wiring on houses and what cables they use...
 
As a general rule of thumb in a building where all three colours are used orange is general purpose wiring, red is fire alarms and white is emergency lighting (central battery type)
Rule of thumb are not requirements. BS5266 cites no colour for a cable sheath for emergency lighting. BS5839:1 recommends red sheath for fire alarm systems. Orange is suggested to differentiate between electrical and gas/water services generally for conduits/tubes and this was probably adopted for MICC due to its pipework appearance.
 
Rule of thumb are not requirements. BS5266 cites no colour for a cable sheath for emergency lighting. BS5839:1 recommends red sheath for fire alarm systems. Orange is suggested to differentiate between electrical and gas/water services generally for conduits/tubes and this was probably adopted for MICC due to its pipework appearance.

No rule of thumb is not a requirement, and I never said it was!
 
Job done , combination of hi tuff , wiska boxes and flex to the lights...

didnt look too bad as surface wiring goes
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Only thing that made it look slightly odd was I used black cables and wiska boxes , customer supplied white lights...
but they were happy with that and black clipped cable looks much better than white imo...
 
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How was the hi tuff? I've had some really easy to strip and some rock solid.
It wasn’t great to be honest , used a knife to score the outer sheath but was a pig to wiggle / pull the bit off...I’m glad I only had to make off 4 ends.
FP is much easier to strip imo
 
Older Hi-tuf, if you come across it, was a real pig, it was possible to waste 5 minutes trying to strip the outer sheath which was made of re-constituted granite superglued to the inner sheath.
Never had an issue with new stuff though. Just score round with a Stanley, flex it back and forth a few times and the outer sheath will usually pull of easily. If you need a longer conductor length then after scoring run the Stanley down the length to open it up before pulling off the sheath.
 
Older Hi-tuf, if you come across it, was a real pig, it was possible to waste 5 minutes trying to strip the outer sheath which was made of re-constituted granite superglued to the inner sheath.
Never had an issue with new stuff though. Just score round with a Stanley, flex it back and forth a few times and the outer sheath will usually pull of easily. If you need a longer conductor length then after scoring run the Stanley down the length to open it up before pulling off the sheath.

Some Flex can equally be a pig to Strip the outer sheath if they don’t put the white chalk powder in.
I had some white flex recently which you literal had to pull as hard as you could Just to remove 6 inches of Outer sheathing...
 
Older Hi-tuf, if you come across it, was a real pig, it was possible to waste 5 minutes trying to strip the outer sheath which was made of re-constituted granite superglued to the inner sheath.
Never had an issue with new stuff though. Just score round with a Stanley, flex it back and forth a few times and the outer sheath will usually pull of easily. If you need a longer conductor length then after scoring run the Stanley down the length to open it up before pulling off the sheath.
I had some about 12 months ago which was an absolute doddle to strip...then some last month as 'tuff' as owd boots. Both only 1.5 3 core but the second batch was slightly smaller, overall. Different suppliers , so different manufacturers and specs....they still do both.
 

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