Welcome to another episode of “my house was wired by a clown”

Soldato
Joined
13 Jun 2011
Posts
6,012
Honestly never seen anything this bad.

Am up in the loft to replace the downlighters and fix the ceiling in the on suite and this is what i find buried under the insulation.

LpW7bGv.jpg
cMj5EGk.jpg

And yes they were all the same.
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,805
It is amazing what you find in some houses.

The one that has got me in our new house is the telephone wiring - seemingly no master socket, cable criss-crosses the entire length of the loft 3x for no apparent reason, then goes into the house where there are multiple places where terminal strips have been used to join them badly with some taped splices, atleast 4 different types and gauges of cable - some of them not really suited to telephone wiring, and random extensions chained off random extensions.
 
Soldato
Joined
18 May 2004
Posts
2,858
Location
Lincoln, Uk
My cutters are fine. Im a working electrician so my tools get dirty.

Might just be the picture, but they look old/worn/dull rather than just dirty :p

Not supprised by poorly conencted downlights.... they are one of the easiest points to get on EICR Bingo :p


Just a few from the EICR archives, all were found in commericial / industrial sites: https://imgur.com/a/vpkWRHW
 
Soldato
Joined
5 Aug 2013
Posts
6,597
Location
Shropshire
The best I have seen was at a collage - the handyman showed me a box of things he had replaced and to me the neatest one was a 13a plug - The student had stripped all three wires down to the clamp - then twisted the wires as tight as he could then carefully bent then round the plug to the terminals making sure none touched- it was a work of art to be honest.
 
Associate
Joined
8 Mar 2006
Posts
1,402
Location
York
The cables loop and twist all over and they have used quite a bit of tape, some time and effort has gone into that! Very impressive.

I'm no electrician, but I know roughly what I expect wiring to be when I remove switches, sockets and lights. It's disappointingly rare to find what you expect to see when doing anything in my house!

Dave
 
Man of Honour
Joined
13 Oct 2006
Posts
90,805
Just a few from the EICR archives, all were found in commericial / industrial sites: https://imgur.com/a/vpkWRHW

I went to school with the owner of a local electrician (ABM 4 Electrical Limited) some of the pictures he has shared of what they found before they rectified it after turning up to customer's premises are quite horrifying - worse even than a lot of that stuff.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Jun 2011
Posts
6,012
To add further insult to injury, whilst continuing to tidy all the wiring and junction boxes found under the insulation in my loft ive worked my way back to the extractor fan located above the shower cubicle (zone 1) and found that the guy has fitted a 240v extractor fan directly above the shower.

Dread to think what im going to find when i get to the other bathroom. The kitchens also been done recently and its quite worrying what is hidden under the floor boards with regards just to the lighting! Im not sure if its worth a “fix it when it breaks approach” or to make a huge mess checking stuff.
 
Soldato
Joined
13 Apr 2013
Posts
12,371
Location
La France
Even when you think everything’s switched off, use one of those current probes to check.

Having power distributed across 3 buildings with 6 fuse/breaker boxes which were installed as the outbuilding were converted over a 20 year period is fun as you’re never quite sure if the circuit you’re looking at is isolated locally or in another building.
 
Associate
Joined
15 Jul 2006
Posts
1,030
YOFvnW7.jpg
Here's one from a hospital. There should only be eight radials of alarm cable using two cores each, instead we've got some horror show of cat5 spliced into choccy block. See also the melted cables from a corrosive spill further up the riser, random cable coiled up behind the PSU, hand-written instructions on a sticker for how to reset it when it dies, and a nearly empty packet of fuses for when they inevitably blow!
 
Associate
Joined
15 Jul 2006
Posts
1,030
There are four outputs on both of those cream boxes at the bottom, cables from those should just run off up the riser. The adaptable box in the middle is a result of some Grade A bodging.

Not to mention, wiring in solid core instead of stranded means that as soon as you tighten the screw down terminals used on ALL the devices on the system you break the core. :rolleyes:
 

Jez

Jez

Caporegime
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
33,073
To add further insult to injury, whilst continuing to tidy all the wiring and junction boxes found under the insulation in my loft ive worked my way back to the extractor fan located above the shower cubicle (zone 1) and found that the guy has fitted a 240v extractor fan directly above the shower.

Dread to think what im going to find when i get to the other bathroom. The kitchens also been done recently and its quite worrying what is hidden under the floor boards with regards just to the lighting! Im not sure if its worth a “fix it when it breaks approach” or to make a huge mess checking stuff.

bRf4QNx.png
bRf4QNx

How is an extractor above a shower an issue? It sounds to me as though you are just looking for things to criticize to be honest!
 
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