Terrible Test

nicsin02 · Aug 24, 2012

Hi guts 1am and im just in from work, the worst house (nursery) ive ever tested

the building is around 130 years old and got rewired 19 years ago, every 2nd socket i take off theres and extra 2.5 or 1.5 cable dipped into the socket or sometimes both lol, 16amp breaker with a 2.5 cable coming from it marked up stairs lights- turns out its feeding 64 lights (30% lv downlights) but every light fitting and switch is wired in 1mm and i cant find where it is fused down anywhere, was doing continuity on one of the ring circuits and i got L- .32 N- .30 CPC-.49, do my figure of 8 and start to go round the sockets most are around the .20 ohms mark with mabye a few jumping up to 0.3 then i get to a socket which is 1.36 ohms- open it up and it has 2x 2.5 (ring) an extra 2.5 and 2x 1mm cables coming for it... its an absaloute shambles. another socket circuit has 3 cables in breaker (2.5mm 32a) marked staff room sockets, all 3 cables have continuity to each other, turns out it fed staff room skts, utility room sockets,lights boiler & it supplies a light and socket to a small room outside. measured my Zs in the staff room was round about .4 to .5 but then when i test Zs in utility room i get a mammoth 58.2 ohms, there are literally joints and cables evrywhere in this room, same high readings for outside room????????????

last problem was when i was doing my IR testing, dont know if i been an idiot right now but i cant think straight on it, i have four lighting circuits including the 16a protected one and all 4 are failing my L-E 500v test @ 0.01 megaohms, the power is off, even diconnected earth from PME to see if that worked, fought it might be the circuits with lv downlights, cant physically access the transformer as i think its a large transformer doing multiple lights and we couldnt find it, so anyways disconncted the lv circuits but still FAULT, lamps are still in but that only effects L-N correct? any ideas am i missing something obvious just cant think of anything at the moment perhaps because i am shattered lol,,, off to bed will read comments in morning, thanks in advance

Brightspark2 · Aug 24, 2012

Good day at the office then lol...

Definitely a load giving a false reading...disconnect the circuit from the DB and try split the circuit up and test at various points to narrow it down...I know thats easy in theory but probably not on site...

Are the switches open?...

In my experience sometimes taking the lamps out works sometimes it doesnt lol it's a gamble...

Sent from my Xperia S using next doors WIFI.

kingeri · Aug 24, 2012

Last one like this I had took me so long to figure out they might as well have paid me to rewire it.

the pict · Aug 24, 2012

Is this an EICR or a faults call out, if a inspection all you can do is get it on the form with advisories, if a call out by the time you phaff around looking for a solution you'd be better off recommending a re-wire, either way get it down on a cert and let the owners decide, not being on site hard to come up with anything positive, by the sounds of it you'll be there some time, and as you clear one issue another will raise its ugly, best of luck, been there.
Pict

Landril · Aug 24, 2012

If this is a EICR i hope you are charging by the hour to try and rectify these sort of test result issues, i would just tell them there is too much added onto circuits which is frickin unsafe, get a rewire its been 19 years anyway and if this is a nursery even more a reason to have a rewire which will ensure the electrics are safe.