More nastiness found !

[Soulsurfer]

I must really be getting the rough jobs at the moment !
Friend & client just bought another house to rework slightly and sell off again within a few weeks max, & for some reason is another character that doesn't think to get electrics looked at before buying.

So I start doing a few checks & tests & straight away cooker cable way out if any zone, Ring final x 1 for entire 3 bed house, no r1, rn or r2 at all so after finding 6 ! Old 30A jb's find most sockets in property are fed as spurs from each of these jb's which were under cut floorboards but under carpet & underlay so not accessible !

Coming off same 30A plug in two prong breaker (3871) replacement for 3036 was also a 2.5 3" long into a 15A term block where 3 more 2.5's fed off to sockets and boiler in garage !

One of the sockets then spurred from a spur to another twin socket which fed a wash machine. Obviously couldn't get all 5 x 2.5mm cables into the old 3036 carrier way.

Cannot understand why anyone would ever do works like this but local polish spark says they do their radials like that out to a jb and spread one cable to each socket like a spider.
Surely not ?

Anyways collected a new shiny Hager Cu today & switchfuse so going to bring it all up to date as works I'm doing need to be up to standard so may as well sleep easy.

 

[Richard Burns]

Sounds a bit non compliant!
From the description of the junction boxes it sounds like it may have been a spider ring to start with, if the house is old, and then that ring has been broken and modified (badly).
If you were to run a radial as a single cable out to a spider box then this would mean the shortest cable run possible for every socket (on average). As a radial no real problems like that just not our convention.
Good luck with the electrical renovation hope it all goes well.

 

[Soulsurfer]

Sounds a bit non compliant!
From the description of the junction boxes it sounds like it may have been a spider ring to start with, if the house is old, and then that ring has been broken and modified (badly).
If you were to run a radial as a single cable out to a spider box then this would mean the shortest cable run possible for every socket (on average). As a radial no real problems like that just not our convention.
Good luck with the electrical renovation hope it all goes well.

Thanks Richard, does very well seem non compliant certainly these days. Mix of old grey twin & earth looks more like the thickness of 4mm ! Tinned copper stranded cables but newer spurs to sockets are white twin ( red & black ) from when I was an apprentice or earlier circa 1991 or before. House would've been 1960's in the area. Even main earth is a bunch of strands. Although Ze on the TNS was at a respectable 0.19 ohms & PFC of 1.3kA so not all lost yet.

 

[dmxtothemax]

Doesn't sound like a cheap exercise
How did he react when you told him about the scope of the repairs needed ?
Whats it going to end up costing him ?
Lesson learnt ?

 

[Soulsurfer]

Not that bothered DMX he just wants it sorted, he's doing the chasing out too ! Says he was expecting £1,000 - £2,000 to get things ready anyway, he has bought downlights himself but no idea yet which ones. He's told me just carry on and get it done on dayworks rate, didn't even ask for a fixed quote as he knows there is hidden stuff so needs replaced mostly. House price was cheap around £200,000 and with where it is and views of the south coast sea etc.. will sell for over £450,000 up there ! He'll do fine.