1970's house with very old and stitched together wiring

NickNickleby

Greetings,

I'm not an electrician, but I understand most of the terminology. Here's a hypothetical situation for your consideration. If this was my house, how would I proceed?

Imagine we're looking at a 1970's house:

single ring main serves ground and upper floor
two lighting circuits - upstairs and downstairs
Radial to kitchen.
cooker circuit in kitchen (6 sq cable)
Electric shower with a ceiling pull switch - its not anything fancy, just on off with neon.

Over the years, such house may have had a couple of spurs added to the ring main.

Over the years, the fuse board was replaced with one of those 'Consumer Units' - i think that's what they're called. At that time the qualified electrician noted that there was no earth rod installed, and a quick look at neighbouring houses showed they were the same. Apparently it was once practice to connect all the earths to the neutral bar (or WAS it???)

Finally, during a complete reinstallation of heating, strip and refurbish bathroom, strip and refurbish kitchen which astonishingly meant that the bonding wires were removed and never replaced. The pipework is a combination of copper and plastic. There's an immersion in the airing cupboard.

The owner of such house might decide its time to completely rewire this house to rectify the glaring safety issues and to bring the whole place up to regulation.

Now, if such homeowner invited a properly qualified electrician in to give a quote, would said electrician be compelled to disconnect the supply (much like the gas company does) for safety reasons?
Or would the intention to proceed (ie give the go ahead and pay a deposit) with overhaul be sufficient to ensure continuity of supply?

If summary disconnection was likely, it would be wise for the hypothetical homeowner to plan this properly - eg go on holiday while its being done.

Thanks for reading this far , and I welcome comments. As usual, I know I'll get very good advice here and I always appreciate it.

Cheers!

EHP

Unlike RGI guys RECs have no authority to disconnect a house from the supply all a REC can do is issue a notice of potential hazard. This notice is basically a document that tells the homeowner of the hazard, a copy is given to the homeowner and another is sent to safe Electric who are supposed to send it back via registered post to the homeowner. Basically it's to remove liability from everyone other than the homeowner. If you're getting quotes for a rewire it's unlikely anyone will issue this notice unless something is glaringly obvious as a hazard.

NickNickleby

EHP wrote: »

Unlike RGI guys RECs have no authority to disconnect a house from the supply all a REC can do is issue a notice of potential hazard. This notice is basically a document that tells the homeowner of the hazard, a copy is given to the homeowner and another is sent to safe Electric who are supposed to send it back via registered post to the homeowner. Basically it's to remove liability from everyone other than the homeowner. If you're getting quotes for a rewire it's unlikely anyone will issue this notice unless something is glaringly obvious as a hazard.

Thanks EHP for taking the time to respond.

Would you say the absence of bonding would be classed as a notifiable hazard? Or the absence of an earth rod?

I'm really only asking these last two out of curiosity.

I think we all know about this hypothetical house:D. Quite recently I was removing old cheap bedroom carpet to allow laminate to be laid. This involved removing and re-laying buckled floorboards. At this time I saw an end of a green wire, but it couldn't be pulled back. I thought it was probably an old fish wire or something and -just in case - taped the end of it and left it there. From time to time it played on my mind, until one day I thought, 'hey, that was quite close to the airing cupboard, wonder if its something to do with the immersion'. That's when I discovered the total absence of bonding in the airing cupboard. So, I checked the bathroom and kitchen and found none there either. Its at least 10 years since these refurbishments took place, so we've had this invisible peril for quite some time. With the boss looking for a new kitchen and electric appliances to replace the gas cooker, I'm pretty sure a kitchen wiring job will lead to a complete rewire. But THIS time I'll get an electrician myself, rather than rely on the kitchen or bathroom people to use 'their own electrician':eek:

meercat

No supplementary bonding would require a nph as would no earth rod

If a rec is not doing any work in the house and just quoting then it’s unlikely they would issue a nph however

NickNickleby

meercat wrote: »

No supplementary bonding would require a nph as would no earth rod

If a rec is not doing any work in the house and just quoting then it’s unlikely they would issue a nph however

Thanks for responding , meercat.

A friend of mine is an electrician, and his house is older than mine, and he's astonished that there's no earth rod in mine. He reckons its hidden under the floorboards somewhere. However, there's no sign of a connection for it anywhere, ie there's no earthwire coming out of the fuseboard and heading into the depths, and this scenario is repeated amongst any houses I've looked at in the vicinity. In fact, more than a few have had earth rods installed, as evidenced by the obviously recent green covers appearing on the ground at the side of the house.

meercat

An earth loop impedance test is recommended so and also check the neutralising link

If an rec does this and issues are detected then a nph must be issued

Bruthal

In a neutralized house, an earth loop test probably wont show much difference if there is no earth rod compared to there being one, assuming the neutralizing link is good.