Electrical

cranston

Hi. I have just moved into a 1970's house and am being told that I should do a complete
re-wire. The socket cables are 2.5 twin & earth with black and red wires in a grey plastic coating. I would have thought that these cables would be ok. I have had the fuse board replaced and the electrician who done that never mentioned the cables although he moved some sockets from the skirting board to the walls. I would appreciate any information I can get on this

TheChizler

Who told you to do the rewire?

cranston

An electrician who was working with the heating guy

Risteard81

Without seeing it the only real observation we can make is that the wiring sounds old and may be time-expired.

2011

cranston wrote: »

The socket cables are 2.5 twin & earth with black and red wires in a grey plastic coating. I would have thought that these cables would be ok.

The good news is that the cables are the correct size and PVC cables (these fit the description of PVC cables) can last for many more years. So that means that these cables may be acceptable from an electrical perspective. The integrity of the cables can be assessed by carrying out some electrical tests. However there are a few things you should consider:

1) To align with current regulations the cables should be brown and blue.

2) The original electrical installation may have aligned with regulations at the time, but thee have been many changes since. Sometimes there is more work in reusing existing cables / circuits than replacing them. This applies in particular to kitchen socket circuits. Obviously it is not possible to assess your situation without seeing it.

3) Back in the 1970s people had far less to plug in so there is an increased chance that your circuits are more heavily loaded than they were designed for.

4) Ideally the only joins on socket circuits are at sockets or in the distribution board (fuse board). This is to minimise the number of joins and to make the joins accessible as every join is a potential point of failure.

5) Current regulations often necessitate mounting sockets at different heights, different wiring for bathrooms, additional circuits, larger cables for some circuits, lots more earthing, extra protective devices in distribution boards (such as MCBs, RCDs). It can be difficult at times to make existing wiring suit.

If I owned a home that had not been rewired since the 1970s I would want to rewire it. It is not cheap to do it properly, but it is money well spent on what for many people is the largest investment of their life.