Reusing old cables for a new purpose

[kingeri]

Guys, just your thoughts on this please. I did an EICR for a family and found no major issues, just spent a couple of hours this morning putting a couple of bits right. The guy wants lighting put in his loft. The layout of the house means there is no wiring nearby to tap into, however there is a bunch of disconnected 2.5mm cables which I am told used to supply storage heaters. I have traced these back to the cellar and they come out near the CU. IR tested them and they are fine. Would you see any issue with using one of these to supply the loft lighting? I think it's slightly on the rough side myself. And would you use 2.5 for the whole circuit or step down to 1mm for the new wiring in the loft? There is no way I can run a new cable as the guy says he'd rather not bother than do that. Cheers!

 

[truckster]

I can't see why not. I would go down to 1.5 for loft cabling and put the whole lot on a 6A MCB. You need to sleeve the old colours with brown/blue.

Or, put a socket (might come in handy) on the 2.5 and feed a fused spur off that.

 

[telectrix]

Or, put a socket (might come in handy) on the 2.5 and feed a fused spur off that.


​that's the way to go. 16A MCB, socket in loft ( useful for aerial amp etc.) the a FCU @ 3 or 5A for light/s.

 

[kingeri]

Duh yeah that's pretty much a good idea. Thanks very much guys.