Morning - just a photo for info to show what's out there (as if most don't already know!!!) & to reiterate the ignorance of some householders.
A 30 year old Bungalow. Original Board with an additional RCD unit put in for a shower & garage. Woman looking to maybe sell so wanted a New Board & Report done. Fine, done a few in this stretch of 80's bungalows, usually decent initial installations so confident it was a nice Friday job.
Went to change a board - took a nice new 5/5 split Wylex (btw bit of a pain, the new NHXL range does not take the NHB breakers). Took the cover off and found what was in the photo. 5 cables in one 30amp, 4 of them 1.5, 4 in another. the 1.5s were brittle, years of overheating I guess.
Turns out that the deceased husband had wired some of the house.
So we went up into the attic to have a look around. First thing, a 6mm, bared ends & still live, coiled up above the kitchen. Into kitchen for a look. No cooker switch. Or gas hob switch. Then we find that 2 of the 1.5s feed the 3 x twin sockets in the kitchen. One of these twins has 4 cables - another 1.5 to feed the hob, and a 2,5 heading off to another twin socket. Take it off. 2 x cables at that, the other one going direct into a Double oven.
So, 2 x 1.5's feed 3 kitchen sockets and Double oven. 30 amp fuse so of course it holds. Cables not in good nick tho. Surprisingly the ins res tests were reasonable, probably down to a single woman not using a huge amount of power in the kitchen.
Obviously can't leave it like that, so ran a 6mm for the cooker via a switch. Short term fix was to run in a 2.5 radial for the 3 twins on a 20 amp trip. Fused outlet (3 amp) for Hob.
The Lights, immersor, shower all ok. But (as it was late Friday by now) only had 6 amp MCB's left, CEF had no XL 16's til Tuesday, so bedroom sockets and TV sockets (turns out apart from a couple of 2.5 radials the house is mainly wired in 1.5) had to be covered by 2 x 6 amp trips, explained that she may have short term overload issues until we changed the MCB's, and that even with 16 amp's she may BUT that is what the cable can take so that's what we have to do. We cannot leave it as it is.
Also told her that the sockets need rewiring but that was for another day and that she should get other quotes for that. Get's round the "inventing work" accusation, have other spark's go in for a look also. IMO rewiring the cooker & kitchen radial wasn't inventing work, was necessary.
Woke up to an email this morning saying that she is very unhappy & is not expecting a bill. Discussed it with friends yesterday and they (they!!) have decided that the work we have done was unneccessary as "there were never any problems with the electrics before". Hoover trips if she has the TV on etc.
What can you say? I'll go back and upgrade the MCB's, I'm about to write to her, nice and calmly, explaining all as I've done above and why we did what we did. Have to say we did try to explain all of this to her at the time but she was "oh that all means nothing to me, just do what you have to do".
Oh well. Not too fussed really, I'm too old to be so, annoyed obviously that I might not get paid for this but happy that I can defend what we did, and that her installation is better than it was before we went.
cheers, Ze
![[ElectriciansForums.net] A simple Board change....](https://www.electriciansforums.net/attachments/board-jpg.42939/ "[ElectriciansForums.net] A simple Board change....")
A 30 year old Bungalow. Original Board with an additional RCD unit put in for a shower & garage. Woman looking to maybe sell so wanted a New Board & Report done. Fine, done a few in this stretch of 80's bungalows, usually decent initial installations so confident it was a nice Friday job.
Went to change a board - took a nice new 5/5 split Wylex (btw bit of a pain, the new NHXL range does not take the NHB breakers). Took the cover off and found what was in the photo. 5 cables in one 30amp, 4 of them 1.5, 4 in another. the 1.5s were brittle, years of overheating I guess.
Turns out that the deceased husband had wired some of the house.
So we went up into the attic to have a look around. First thing, a 6mm, bared ends & still live, coiled up above the kitchen. Into kitchen for a look. No cooker switch. Or gas hob switch. Then we find that 2 of the 1.5s feed the 3 x twin sockets in the kitchen. One of these twins has 4 cables - another 1.5 to feed the hob, and a 2,5 heading off to another twin socket. Take it off. 2 x cables at that, the other one going direct into a Double oven.
So, 2 x 1.5's feed 3 kitchen sockets and Double oven. 30 amp fuse so of course it holds. Cables not in good nick tho. Surprisingly the ins res tests were reasonable, probably down to a single woman not using a huge amount of power in the kitchen.
Obviously can't leave it like that, so ran a 6mm for the cooker via a switch. Short term fix was to run in a 2.5 radial for the 3 twins on a 20 amp trip. Fused outlet (3 amp) for Hob.
The Lights, immersor, shower all ok. But (as it was late Friday by now) only had 6 amp MCB's left, CEF had no XL 16's til Tuesday, so bedroom sockets and TV sockets (turns out apart from a couple of 2.5 radials the house is mainly wired in 1.5) had to be covered by 2 x 6 amp trips, explained that she may have short term overload issues until we changed the MCB's, and that even with 16 amp's she may BUT that is what the cable can take so that's what we have to do. We cannot leave it as it is.
Also told her that the sockets need rewiring but that was for another day and that she should get other quotes for that. Get's round the "inventing work" accusation, have other spark's go in for a look also. IMO rewiring the cooker & kitchen radial wasn't inventing work, was necessary.
Woke up to an email this morning saying that she is very unhappy & is not expecting a bill. Discussed it with friends yesterday and they (they!!) have decided that the work we have done was unneccessary as "there were never any problems with the electrics before". Hoover trips if she has the TV on etc.
What can you say? I'll go back and upgrade the MCB's, I'm about to write to her, nice and calmly, explaining all as I've done above and why we did what we did. Have to say we did try to explain all of this to her at the time but she was "oh that all means nothing to me, just do what you have to do".
Oh well. Not too fussed really, I'm too old to be so, annoyed obviously that I might not get paid for this but happy that I can defend what we did, and that her installation is better than it was before we went.
cheers, Ze
