When was cable that cheap?

[imago]

I'm doing some work on my own house at the moment, part of which involved delving under the floor of the understairs cupboard and kitchen. The usual rat's nest presented itself, so I figured "while I'm here".

To cut a long and tedious story short, I found some disconnected cables lying in the void. I pulled out eight metres of 10mm T&E, ten metres of 2.5mm T&E, and double that in 4mm green bonding. This from an area of about 4 square metres. I think I'm going to have the floors up everywhere and see what else was left lying around after work done twenty or thrity years ago!

 

[Knobhead]

Aaahh, the days when it wasn’t worth the time and effort to mess with 10M off cuts. Well paid electricians didn’t need to scratt about with bits.

Working for a multi-national I dread to think what I’ve thrown away. Brand new gear scrapped just because we had one more on stock than the bean counters said we should.
We had a disused substation that I commandeered, chuck it away? Not likely, it got squirreled away. “You want 20’ of 1½ x ½“ copper?” “Hang on a bit I’ll get you some.” The local management knew about my squirrel store, but denied all knowledge of it to the bean counters.

 

[Welchyboy]

I rewired my house back in August 2005 found a receipt for 100m 2.5 from wickes £24.99!

 

[smu_diddly]

Yeah in about 2006 prices shot through the roof due to china, plus a large increase in scrap dealers!

 

[Dcf]

When I started on my own in 2002 a drum of 2.5 was the princely sum of 12.50 plus vat.bought 100m of 2.5 today at Ross 44quid plus vat.some difference.

 

[Knobhead]

I'm trying to remember how much I paid to rewire my first house (my own) in 72. Seemed a lot to a poor apprentice! I remember Dad playing holly f*** at me for paying £12 for an expelair! (It lasted 3 rebuilds of the kitchen).

 

[smu_diddly]

They wouldn't last that long now lol!

 

[Darkwood]

I remember when copper was that cheap even the gypo's wouldn't take it off your hands