Lighting Junction box in loft with 9 cables in??

It was common years ago to have a RB4 / J701 in the middle of the roof space with all the cables in, nowadays more common to have cables in switches

bill01803 said:

It was common years ago to have a RB4 / J701 in the middle of the roof space with all the cables in, nowadays more common to have cables in switches

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Cheers bill, would this be cause for concern if you was to see this or would you deem it acceptable as long as all connections are secure?

What would concern you about it?

I sometimes do similar today if it’s a Quinetic setup with no switch wires.

Surewire do something similar, I used one once when re-wiring several atic rooms and it was impractical to get multiple cables to either the rose or the switch, it was ideal for the situation but the build quality was a bit flimsy I thought.

timhoward said:

What would concern you about it?

I sometimes do similar today if it’s a Quinetic setup with no switch wires.

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To be fair it does seem like a non issue really by the response from you and Bill, actually seems useful in certain cases such as yours.

I work primarily in social housing so I haven’t come across wiring like this before (not to say it doesn’t occur), but it made me wonder whether it would be worth suggesting to a customer that the wiring should be updated.

A central junction box up in the loft was pretty common in the old council houses in my area. the only thing you need to watch out for is sometimes I have found the cpcs all snipped off ( as all the switches were plastic )

How about these, in the lofts of a row of local bungalows, from the 1960's. Connections for each light and each switch drop, plus feed from CU. Generally all in perfect condition, and good for continued service.

ManchesterKirchoff said:

To be fair it does seem like a non issue really by the response from you and Bill, actually seems useful in certain cases such as yours.

I work primarily in social housing so I haven’t come across wiring like this before (not to say it doesn’t occur), but it made me wonder whether it would be worth suggesting to a customer that the wiring should be updated.

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Always good to question things.

This is just the way it was sometimes done however many years ago. Just because something looks different to the more common or modern way of doing things it does not mean it is wrong or dangerous. As DustyDazler said, on occasion you will see some or many of the CPC's chopped off in the large junction box or perhaps all left bare and wrapped around the back of it. Both of these issues would need rectifying.

Some of these old, large junction boxes look well terminated, sometimes far better than a spiders web of wago's all crushed in.

Keep asking questions

SJD said:

How about these, in the lofts of a row of local bungalows, from the 1960's. Connections for each light and each switch drop, plus feed from CU. Generally all in perfect condition, and good for continued service.

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My uncle recently brought a 1960s detached bungalow and it has a pyro box like that in the loft ( the only one I have seen in person ) and the irony is when he brought the bungalow the seller said the house had been fully rewired. I pointed out to him unless they had a time machine that pyro box was original to the build.

SJD said:

How about these, in the lofts of a row of local bungalows, from the 1960's. Connections for each light and each switch drop, plus feed from CU. Generally all in perfect condition, and good for continued service.

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Imagine asking a 5 week wonder to fit something like that.

We refurbished a block of flats (2 storey, 8 flats) a couple of years ago, probably built in the 60's or early 70's. everything was in steel conduit, miles and miles of it and it was a work of art, must have taken ages to do. funnily enough the original spec must have been one big consumer unit in the electrical room and all the flats must have has the fuses for each circuit in this panel and not the flats. all the wiring for the 4 flats upstairs came up in one big piece of conduit 1 inch or so wide into a big metal box and then a piece of smaller conduit branched off this to feed each flat.

At some stage the landlord decided that each flat needed its own meter so they pay their fair share of electric so someone had come in, run a couple of submains up which were spliced to each flat with an exposed tail bunching block just hanging into mid air, fitted a fuse box and meter in each flat, ran the new PVC's back to this central box and then hacked into every circuit for each flat disconnecting it at the original panel.

How they managed to identify each correct wire for each flat I'll never know, there was just a mass of red and black singles and a million connector blocks, must have just chopped the lot and belled everything out in one go. We just started again completely, cost them about £20k in the end just for the electrics I think.

Alot of 1960s build council flats were all enamel black conduit with red and black single cables with the conduit used as the earth.
As above I have come across flats which share a common ring main and common lighting circuit across 2 or more flats with a shared fuse box in a cupboard in the communal hall. IIRC council flats back then you paid a flat rate to live in it and the electric was included in your rent/ there are still council flats I go to with no washing machine they have1 or 2 coin operated washing machines and dryers in the basement for all the flats to use.

Socket and bushed that how I glanded them.

My parents house from the 70’s had joint boxes, and when I started as an apprentice in 1990, I had never seen a loop in system “in the flesh” just in my trainee book.


Still come across them on jobs. Either J701’s or the black square ones with the earths inside, or the earths coming out, twisted together and jointed outside the box… meaning you couldn’t get the lid off without dismantling the joint.
Seldom find a joint box nowadays that clamped the old lead cables…. Got a rescued one in the shed though.

Wiring the jointboxes needed to be as tidy as the fuse boards in some respects….. usually in a cramped, stuffy attic

LOL