Electrical advice needed on house renovation

reddle28

Hi,
i bought a 1960's house and have been renovating it for the last 8 months. In the bedrooms there are the old round 2 pin sockets, my question is, can i remove these sockets and install a modern 3 pin socket?

Regards.

DublinDilbert

reddle28 wrote: »

Hi,
i bought a 1960's house and have been renovating it for the last 8 months. In the bedrooms there are the old round 2 pin sockets, my question is, can i remove these sockets and install a modern 3 pin socket?

Regards.

If it's 1960 build it would be due a re-wire if it already hasn't be done. If there's still some 2 pin sockets around, i would guess it hasn't been re-wired. I would be surprised if there was an earth connection at each of the sockets. What sort of fuse board is in the house?

It would probably be best to get the wiring looked at, it would be much easier to install new cables now than when you've the place all fixed up. If you have floor boards up etc, it might be quite quick to run new cable.

If you are getting a re-wire done, make sure you spec in lots of twin sockets.

eoghan.geraghty

As DD says, it's very likely there is no earth at these sockets.
Get someone in to price a rewire, if the place is stripped bare at the moment it should help the price.

DublinDilbert

If your pulling the place apart, you could do lots of the leg work,opening up chases, chasing in new socket points.

If you've any electrical knowledge at all you might even be able to pull in the new cables for sockets/lights.

M cebee

it never seems to work out ime

guys doing some of the wiring for the sparkie-there's usually problems with everything

Solair

The 2-pin sockets could be earthed, if they are modern continental style "schuko"

The earth is the two metal clips one at the top and one at the bottom of the recessed socket.

The question is whether someone actually connected their earth to anything.

I know that continental-type 16A side-earthed sockets were used in Ireland in the 1960s and possibly even into the 1970s.

You can still buy the plugs in some hardware stores.

They might not be *that* old.

Standards for sockets before the 1970s in Ireland seem to have been a bit chaotic. There were some people installing 16A Schuko (German type) sockets, others installing the old British BS546 round pin sockets and at the same time the rectangular pin fused 13A plugs and sockets were also beginning to appear too.

The UK was equally disastrously messy with umpteen different versions of BS546 (British round pin) plugs and sockets used in the same house!

Arguably, Ireland might have been better off sticking with the German system as we'd have at least been harmonised with the rest of Europe!

I'd suggest carefully examining the sockets wiring and seeing if there are earth connections.

It's quite possible that they're just European style Schuko sockets on 16A radials, in which case, if they are earthed, you could probably fit 3-pin 13A sockets in their place.

One other thing to remember, is that Schuko sockets are not polarised i.e. they do not distinguish live and netural as the plugs can be inserted in either direction. While this in reality makes very little different to anything, it is important that the fuse in a 13A plug should be on the live, not the neutral. You might need to actually test to see which wire's live and which is neutral before fitting anything.

M cebee

you're usually looking at a rewire anyhow

can't imagine many sparkies upgrading these -it's only 'window dressing' really

Solair

Yeah I'd agree with that. You should get an installation dating from the 1960s checked out fully.

There are bigger problems than incompatible sockets, which are just a minor inconvenience really.

1960s installations can contain rubber cables which degrade over time. It could also have issues with earthing and it's unlikely to have an RCD unless one was retrofitted.

It's also likely that it will have plenty of bad DIY hack work done to it too.

Also, 1960s installations are unlikely to provide enough sockets or enough power to deal with modern living i.e. it wasn't unusual to have only one socket in each bedroom.

So, even if the installation was perfectly in order, it is likely that you'd want more sockets anyway.

Bruthal

M cebee wrote: »

it never seems to work out ime

guys doing some of the wiring for the sparkie-there's usually problems with everything

Yes it would be more problematic than assisting. I would prefer wiring not started if it was me anyway.

Bruthal

Solair wrote: »

Yeah I'd agree with that. You should get an installation dating from the 1960s checked out fully.

There are bigger problems than incompatible sockets, which are just a minor inconvenience really.

1960s installations can contain rubber cables which degrade over time. It could also have issues with earthing and it's unlikely to have an RCD unless one was retrofitted.

It's also likely that it will have plenty of bad DIY hack work done to it too.

Also, 1960s installations are unlikely to provide enough sockets or enough power to deal with modern living i.e. it wasn't unusual to have only one socket in each bedroom.

So, even if the installation was perfectly in order, it is likely that you'd want more sockets anyway.

It would seem pointless renovating the whole house without rewiring it completely.