Rewiring Attic in Edinburgh

[Dutch Sparky]

I'm from The Netherlands and currently visiting family in the UK. I used to run an electrical contracting company in the Netherlands a few years back, we did a lot of big houses and industrial stuff. But in he UK materials are different and I'm looking for some advice on selection of materials.

The appartment is about 100 m2 and has a DB with 16 circuits. Few 6 Amp for lights, 20 and 32 Amp for sockets and 40 Amp for showers.

The main issue is that currently the old wire Black-Red has been mixed with the new wire. I was asked to hang a light fixture and I found this old cotton braided wiring. When I checked the attic it all a big mess with cables everywere.

My game plan is to get 2.5mm2 Twin Earth cable and rewire everything. Where we reuse the metal conduit I'll make sure to earth it. But there are also some additions for the showers which cables now run losely over the attic. I would like to run this wire in PVC conduit 20 mm.

Any suggestions?

 

[littlespark]

1.5 or even 1mm for lighting on a 6A lighting circuit will suffice.

2.5 can be used for power sockets, and in UK, we commonly use ring circuits for general sockets.

Have you had much experience with UK wiring systems?

If the cables are old (you say cotton braided? I wonder if it’s VIR? Very brittle insulation?) is the distribution board still old rewirable fuses, or much newer RCD/ RCBO?