Why do we recommend wiring inspections?

[Rich-Ando]

i went to a house a while ago to find out why the lady's RCD kept tripping off. as usual, i asked if any work had been done anywhere in the house recently, honest answers to this usually give us a chance to cut down the time we are there. she said no and so i started to test at the fusebox. i kept getting weird intermittent readings and again, high then low. i had no choice but to go round socket by socket removing the fronts to see if i could find a loose wire.

this is what i found in ONE socket and was definitely the cause of the fault. there should be only 2 wires into a socket and on the occasion some lazy sod has spurred off a socket you find 3 but this was ridiculous. all of the wires were loose and when i undid the front, they fell out of the terminals.

when i showed her, she said " oh yes i forgot to tell you, it always trips when i plug the hair dryer/hoover in that socket. my husband had a struggle getting the wires in it he said"

[Colour Republic]

I've seen less wires at a consumer unit!

[thescruff]

Did you manage to get them all back in Rich

[royaloakcarpentry]

You are a fine one to talk............................you would appear to have forgotten to put the sleeving on the earths before wiring them back in lol.

The last time I saw 2.5 which was stranded was in one of my old houses and that had the original wiring in it. Victorian gaff. The lighting circuit was sheaved in lead. probably would have got a few quid when I re-done it, but just lobbed it all.

[Rich-Ando]

yup the old "tinned copper" stranded wire. the wiring must be around 40 years old but she wasn't having any of it when i mentioned rewiring. the idiot that changed the fusebox for her told her that the wiring would be fine now she had an RCD fusebox.

i took the floor up and altered the wiring. there were 4 spurs off a single socket. somebody had changed the fuse from a 15A to a 32 amp which made the radial circuit originally installed wrong. i had to take 3 wires back to the fusebox and alter the lot to make it at least half decent which was a 1000 x better than it was.

[Razor]

i took the floor up and altered the wiring.

Probably changed it all to 1mm cable so he could get it in easier

[Rich-Ando]

i took the floor up and altered the wiring.

Probably changed it all to 1mm cable so he could get it in easier

sussed

[DaveGotYou]

i took the floor up and altered the wiring.

Probably changed it all to 1mm cable so he could get it in easier

classic

[Hitch]

Id swap it for a double socket.... then pull a couple of wires around the side of the socket and wire them into a plug

[OhmMyDog]

Id swap it for a double socket.... then pull a couple of wires around the side of the socket and wire them into a plug

You may mock, but the radial circuit to the other side of my living room is done exactly like that! A cable poking through the floorboards and then plugging into a socket on the CU side of the house!

I guess the two double sockets it feeds can't draw more than 13A thanks to the fuse in the plug!