Whats the oldest type of wiring sytem you have had to work on/repair/replace

[Pete999]

Carrying on from the types of cables etc got me wondering, what are the oldest types of wiring you have worked on?
Myself I can recall working with Lead covered cables, cleated singles, capping and casing (no not PVC trunking) TRS, VIR Bare MICC apart from us old timers, the list wont mean much to many of you.

 

[Cadgey123]

Carrying on from the types of cables etc got me wondering, what are the oldest types of wiring you have worked on?
Myself I can recall working with Lead covered cables, cleated singles, capping and casing (no not PVC trunking) TRS, VIR Bare MICC apart from us old timers, the list wont mean much to many of you.

I am quite young (ish) 28, and I had the pleasure of ripping out VIR cables on a farm which were still live and in use at the time.
All enclosed in metal conduits.

They are the ones with a material type insulation? How old would you estimate that to be?

Ps I still reckon existing methods although dated are definitely better engineered.

 

[The Ghost]

I can remember working on houses with neutral fuses as well as live. Rewireable fuses all wood casing etc.

 

[LewisM]

Ps I still reckon existing methods although dated are definitely better engineered.

Agreed, I recently installed emergency lighting in the communal areas of a block of low rise flats built in the 1920s we rewired the circuits using existing conduit system which meant the whole job was done without any damage to the building and the conduits can probably still be used again for many years to come.

 

[Dave OCD]

I've ripped out a fair bit of lead, liked the tin JB,s with sheath clamps to maintain earth continuity, and they often have porcelain 'screwit' connectors within - to think you can get a modern version of them again !
Also as a young lad came across cloth/rubber covered singles in wood casing with individual grooves for each conductor, under floorboards.

 

[Dave OCD]

Agreed, I recently installed emergency lighting in the communal areas of a block of low rise flats built in the 1920s we rewired the circuits using existing conduit system which meant the whole job was done without any damage to the building and the conduits can probably still be used again for many years to come.

I guess the conduit would have been a bit rusty in places and you had to run internal CPCs ?

 

[LewisM]

I guess the conduit would have been a bit rusty in places and you had to run internal CPCs ?

Not as much rust as I thought there would be, not much was stuck to the cable lube.

 

[davesparks]

I think the oldest cables I've worked on have been a couple of jobs where I've re-routed and re-terminated imperial micc.

 

[7029 dave]

Worked on an old cu, when I started in 1979, early 1900's wooden fuse box glass front, the fuse wire on the outgoing fuse's were exposed across the carrier, no DP switch. Obviously VIR cables.

 

[westward10]

I rewired some heating circuits last year in a school. Existing was VRI singles in underfloor conduits, the longest pull was about 30 metres and we pulled a tape through using an existing conductor and the new went through easy. Funny thing the existing was pretty deteriorated in the boards but once it was fully out the tubes it was mostly like new.

 

[Dave OCD]

Exposure to air is the key.

 

[westward10]

Exposure to air is the key.

Yes you are correct as the conductors showed no sign of corrosion transfer from the conduits either.

 

[Dave OCD]

I replaced a CU around5-6 years ago which had all rubber cabling - all good as new with very high IR readings and still operational now, couldn't make sense of it !

 

[Pete999]

I rewired some heating circuits last year in a school. Existing was VRI singles in underfloor conduits, the longest pull was about 30 metres and we pulled a tape through using an existing conductor and the new went through easy. Funny thing the existing was pretty deteriorated in the boards but once it was fully out the tubes it was mostly like new.

Yes saw that same thing from time to time

 

[LankyWill]

I made the mistake of touching some VIR in an old council manor house(national trust), when the sheathing turned to dust i immediately regretted it.

Got called to a church where the old Imperial MICC had got damp, and was causing an intermittent fault. Luckily i just pulled in a new Metric MICC, it was a switch leg so fairly straight forward.

 

[PEG]

...I put a new string,on Edison's kite...

 

[Bob Geldoff1234]

I helped my father rewire Blackpool town hall in the 80's and it was one of the first buildings in Blackpool to have electricity.circa 1850.It was lead cable with waxed paper as the insulators.They terminated in metal joint boxes and then had bitumen poured in to seal it.It was still in use when we ripped it out in mid 1984.I bet they never had any loose joints on that installation!.Blackpool also had its own generating station feeding the area including the town hall.

 

[Vitesse]

I removed this from a house last year. It wasn't in use but I needed to remove it to put a new CU in, to replace the existing one from the 60's and the owner let me keep it.

Not in bad condition considering it's 80 odd years old!

The company that installed it was formed in 1931 and ceased trading in 2008. So not a bad run.

The house was built in the 30's and I think domestic properties started getting electricity installed in the 1930's? So it could be one of the original domestic boards.

Fused neutrals as mentioned earlier.

 

[ruston]

...I put a new string,on Edison's kite...

I saw you.

 

[sparkdog]

Used to do lead sheathed cable when I was an apprentice. If the existing wiring was lead any new circuits were done in the same.

 

[Delboybully]

A couple of years ago I had the joy of trying to get lights back on in a place wired in VIR cable, wired in singles with no conduit.. The fault was a loose connection at a switch but the owner had taken a light fitting down. I fixed the switch ok (the insulation was quite good - no cracking) but the neutral at the light kept cracking as I bent it to terminate it. I ended up putting a lengh of heat shrink over it and then bending it. It worked a treat and got the lights back

I have since rewired the place

 

[Delboybully]

A couple of years ago I had the joy of trying to get lights back on in a place wired in VIR cable, wired in singles with no conduit.. The fault was a loose connection at a switch but the owner had taken a light fitting down. I fixed the switch ok (the insulation was quite good - no cracking) but the neutral at the light kept cracking as I bent it to terminate it. I ended up putting a lengh of heat shrink over it and then bending it. It worked a treat and got the lights back

I have since rewired the place

 

[Lucien Nunes]

I've worked on all the above, not least because we get asked specifically to look at older installations. Sweated lead joints and refilled the sealing chambers with compound. About the only two things I haven't done from scratch are install wooden casing, which is an art in itself, and vulcanised rubber joints in-situ. Working imperial MI is interesting because the cable is potentially good for another lifetime, if only one can maintain the terminations in a practical fashion. I do still have a few NOS seals and tooling but often one has to improvise. One of our last mainly original VIR-in-conduit systems from 1928 has recently come out of service although some of the original fittings are being re-used. It is a pity that most of the genuinely interesting stuff has gone now, if I had started collecting sooner it would have been so much easier.

 

[davesparks]

I've got a pdf somewhere which lists all of the imperial micc sizes with the metric equivalent sized glands and pots which will fit (sometimes with a little soldering)

 

[freddo]

There used to be quite a lot of lead sheathed, rubber, RBJ, singles in casing or slip conduit around, don't see very much of it now. There is a farm house with 1930s wiring, wooden Kantark fuse boards, porcelain ceiling roses etc. The cables are in very poor condition, sections of insulation have fallen off of some of the surface cables. Every time I got there to fault find, all I can do is disconnect the faulty circuit. We priced to rewire the place 10 years ago, and keep telling him but he still won't spend the money, what's worse is he's minted, typical farmer. He turns the main switchfuses off before he goes to bed or leaves the house...

It's probably a good thing a lot of older stuff has gone as I seem to hoard it, I even have a load of old Crabtree switch and pendant cartons. Some of the stuff is quite old, but all of it still functions. A friend has a lot of much older light switches and a few light fittings, late 1800s stuff, decorative but robust with no tools required to access the tingly parts, he has them installed in his house. One of his light fittings has ES lamps, the threaded cap connected directly to the metalwork of the fitting, and a single core connected to each of the centre lamp contacts.

 

[dmxtothemax]

knob and tube wiring.
from the 40's
at a masonic lodge in Brisbane

 

[UNG]

I've got a pdf somewhere which lists all of the imperial micc sizes with the metric equivalent sized glands and pots which will fit (sometimes with a little soldering)

Before BICC stopped manufacturing Pyro in Prescot if we needed seals and glands for imperial cable and no metric equivalent was available we called the factory and they would drill out pots and glands to suit the imperial cable. Turn round was quite quick and if we needed them in a hurry the factory was only 10 minutes away

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Not part of the electrical supply, but we maintain some old wiring installations that are part of large pipe organs that have their original electric action. As an example, the Southampton Guildhall Compton still has all its original cotton-covered wiring from 1937, all in excellent condition. Top of head there is some 100 miles (yes, miles) of single-core DCC 26SWG wire, loomed up with cotton tape or lacing cord into bundles typically of 61, 73, 85 or more cores. The largest bundle is about 2,000 cores, while the console cables of maybe 600 & 800 cores respectively actually unplug with giant multipole connectors. All of this works at 18.5V DC, for which the total supply is about 100A continuous, 300A peak, from a belt-driven dynamo. The mains and submains are still in VIR, in good condition, of which the largest is something like 19/.064 (about 40 mm²).

Some of the workmanship is quite spectacular, hundreds of connections all fanned out with not a single wire 1/16" out of place. I'll dig some pics out later.

 

[Midwest]

Me & the Mrs used be members of the National Trust. One of the last places we visited, was Tyntesfield in North Somerset. It was acquired by the Gibbs family in the late 1800's. They made they money by making fertiliser out of bird ----.

It was bought by the NT, when the last of the Gibb's family, Richard, past away in 2001. He used only three rooms in this mansion. Public were granted access, during its restoration. The whole place was covered in dust, and the musky smell was quite strong. It had a games room, which had (at the time) the latest 'billiard' or games table with automatic mechanical scoring. The Grand Staircase carpets had been trashed, by contractors. It contents were catalogued and included, an unexploded Second World War bomb. By 2013 the inventory had risen to 47,154 items.

The restoration of these places, use some trades that have fallen into obscurity, which requires the acquisition of new trades & apprentices.

Ohhh, and it had some really old wiring in it, which was replaced with some nice shiny new MI (I never worked on any of it).

A plug for the NT, its about £65 a year pp. Worth it for entry, to some of the most fabulous & fascinating places to see (big & small) in England, Wales & NI.

 

[Pete999]

knob and tube wiring.
from the 40's
at a masonic lodge in Brisbane

Can't talk about that it's a secret.

 

[Sparkgap]

Stripped out a load of stuff from an explosives factory 20 years ago. The nitro mixing tubs (lead lined wood) still had the original 1920s cast iron switchgear and oil bath switch still in use until the place closed.
When we rewired the local scout hall (first place in town to have electric) there was tons of old wiring still in the original wooden trunking, plus pipework for gas lights, concrete bases for the generators which we had to break out and found the exhaust pipe and silencer still buried in the ground. Some wiring was still in use as it had been a photo studio since the 1930s and a cinema before that.
On the subject of old stuff, anyone come across ballast lamps in use with old fluorescent fittings? Grandparents house had some in the attic, looked like silvered bulbs in a bayonet fitting except they had 3 locating pins not 2. Never sure how they worked unless they were similar to a modern starter.

 

[littlespark]

As an apprentice, same as others.. old farmhouses, VIR in imperial conduit.
Metal rocker switches. Our job one day was to remove the switches, solder a trailing earth wire on the back of the plate, drill a hole in the back box, M4 thread, and screw in an earth stud.
We had rewired in singles back to an existing joint box.. with cpc's.
The biggest gripe of the homeowner was us lifting a frayed of carpet off the landing. 100 year old and then some. Frayed, threadbare and faded.

I've never seen those wooden fuseboards.

Got to work on an old 1930's (i think) servants bell system recently. 24v dc on bellwire. Pushbutton in each of the main rooms to a bell-and-flag board in the kitchen. All but one original pushbuttons worked perfectly.. last one got damp, and is all rusted inside.
Reminded me of the other things you find in old farmhouses;- Original mechanical wire and pulley systems for calling the servants. The wires just got in the way trying to crawl through the cobwebbed attics.

 

[Pete999]

Wooden capping and casing, a surface method slotted wooden base with o wooden lid with VIR singles

 

[Midwest]

Got to work on an old 1930's (i think) servants bell system recently. 24v dc on bellwire. Pushbutton in each of the main rooms to a bell-and-flag board in the kitchen. All but one original pushbuttons worked perfectly.. last one got damp, and is all rusted inside.
Reminded me of the other things you find in old farmhouses;- Original mechanical wire and pulley systems for calling the servants. The wires just got in the way trying to crawl through the cobwebbed attics.

I recall bell & flag system in my parents house, a four bed semi built early 1900's. It was ripped out, when they had the place rewired in the 1960's. Wasn't a place you would of thought, that would be having servants, but I expect it was the latest much have gadget at the time. The old wiring was a mixture of rubber insulated & sheathed and singles drawn in slip conduit, not sure or the correct terminology. I've attached a picture of a switch drop in the kitchen.

The property had a 210' rear garden, which my Dad used mainly to grow his own veg. Sadly, the two semi's are due to be knocked down, and flats built for student accommodation. He'd be turning in his grave.

 

[Pete999]

I recall bell & flag system in my parents house, a four bed semi built early 1900's. It was ripped out, when they had the place rewired in the 1960's. Wasn't a place you would of thought, that would be having servants, but I expect it was the latest much have gadget at the time. The old wiring was a mixture of rubber insulated & sheathed and singles drawn in slip conduit, not sure or the correct terminology. I've attached a picture of a switch drop in the kitchen.

The property had a 210' rear garden, which my Dad used mainly to grow his own veg. Sadly, the two semi's are due to be knocked down, and flats built for student accommodation. He'd be turning in his grave.

View attachment 38130

I can just about remember being taught how to prepare those wooden blocks the switch is fixed to, drill the holes where you want the single cores to come through from the back then the fixing holes, a right ball ache it was.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

anyone come across ballast lamps in use with old fluorescent fittings?

They took the place of the choke for ballasting on DC mains, negating part of the efficiency benefit of fluorescent but at the time there was no alternative to a resistive ballast. Obviously they would work on AC too. There was also the 'Starterlamp' which was a 4-pin starter with a GLS ballast lamp mounted on it.

 

[Pete999]

Anyone remember twin rubber cable, we used to use it at Christmas time to string temporary decorations on shop fronts, also the lamp holders that you screwed down on to the cable, they had two spikes which perforated the sheath of the cable and made contact with the conductors, think they were called something like B&T lampholders, anyone know the correct name for them?

 

[ruston]

Yes I remember that , was it called festoon cable? It was used on market stalls too.

Ps. @Strima will remember that too lol.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

'Beeantee' is the trade mark, they are still available. They have to be used with the correct 6192P festoon cable to ensure correct contact and sealing.

 

[Pete999]

'Beeantee' is the trade mark, they are still available. They have to be used with the correct 6192P festoon cable to ensure correct contact and sealing.

Good Man Lucien thanks, that's been bugging me for years.

 

[Midwest]

The lamps were called 'Rough Service', I think?

 

[ruston]

Yes, we used those in the hand held inspection lamps on the plant.

 

[telectrix]

used to see that festoon cable and spike lamp holders on 110V site lighting.

 

[David M]

About 10 years ago I went out to a lighting fault on a rental property. When I got there I found an old wooden re-wireable fuse board, VIR cable..., The lighting fuse had blown. The cable looked in very poor condition so I decided to do a quick visual inspection throughout the property. There was no floor covering down on the landing area and I could see exposed cables in the gaps of some floor boards. So I decided to pull up a long board which had evidence of being up before. As a I pulled up the board I could smell and hear the flow of gas.

Some idiot had nailed the floor board down through the main lead gas pipe along its length - around half a dozen nail holes. In addition the VIR cables had perished, conductors exposed and were draped over the lead pipe, trapped between the floor board, pipe and joists.

I have never seen anything like it before or since. This was a rental property and the tenant was a young woman with 2 toddlers!

It gave me nightmares, to think what could have happened.

Hasten to say, we got it re-wired pretty sharpish!

 

[littlespark]

David M, That's a hell of a way to get a job - nailing the gas pipe like that.
Is your mate a gas fitter too? Both got work out of it?

I jest

 

[David M]

David M, That's a hell of a way to get a job - nailing the gas pipe like that.
Is your mate a gas fitter too? Both got work out of it?

I jest

I know, though I did use at least a dozen nails and missed with half of them

 

[drzsta]

Found this unusual cable in an old council house. I think it was used in pre-fab steel framed houses after the war. I was going to send some to Lucien but unfortunately couldn't gain access after the work.

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