Discuss Bare mains cable - No sheath in the Electrical Wiring, Theories and Regulations area at ElectriciansForums.net

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Davida1992

Hi all, this post is more for my own clarification, we have a council house in the UK and several years ago the cabling was essentially found to be dangerous and it was decided that they would rewire the entire house, all fittings, sockets, breaker boxes etc. They managed to achieve this in only 1 day (about 6 electricians though).

Before the re-wire I have purchased some Crabtree chrome finish sockets and switches for the hall and landing, these had already been fitted prior to the rewire so we asked the council to fit the same ones again on the hall and landing which they did after the re-wire.

Moving forward to last week, we had an electrician come out as a council contractor as the shower (electric shower) was overheating on the box attached to the pull string, the casing had actually turned dark brown where it was burning. So this was all replaced no problem and seems to be working again now.

This afternoon I went to use the socket on the landing upstairs, I plugged in the hoover and it went with a loud pop and the RCD went off at the main box. I thought maybe it was a blip, turned it back on under the stairs and the same thing happened again and it immediately went off.

I was concerned so I call the repair line at the council and they said that as the power was off upstairs they would send someone out this afternoon to take a look.

An hour or so ago, the same electrician turned up that came last week to look at the shower issue... He did not seem happy... He went to take a look and told me that the council would never fit chrome finish sockets like we had, he informed me that last week when he came they were definitely the white sockets that the council usually fit. I explained that the sockets were purchased several years ago and cost about £20 per socket so they are not cheap crap. He was not happy and was swearing dropping F bombs, so I didn't want to argue with him to be honest....The point is that the sockets and switches were always chrome finished since years before and the council fitted them again during the re-wire...

Anyway, he took and look at the wiring behind and he said that one of the wires (blue wire) had been knocked when screwed in, it was down to the bare copper wire underneath on the cable, he said it has likely short circuited. He basically moved the wires a bit to stop it shorting and screwed it back on.... He did not use any electrical tape or any sheath cover - I don't know much about electric but I would imagine in this scenario that he should have covered it?

He told me it would be fine and then off he went....

Is this quite safe, or do I have anything to worry about here?

I would like other peoples opinion on if this is actually safe?

Thanks, sorry for the big back story, but I though it would be important in this case.

Thanks very much.
 
Two things.
Re him challenging you about the chrome sockets. See if you can find any family pics you may have taken years ago, there might be the chrome socket showing in the background which should show him they have been in years.
2. As the property is not yours, all you can do is ring the council and ask them to send a different engineer as you were not happy with his attitude and swearing.
If the property was yours, I would of suggested you undo the two holding screws and gently pull the socket forward and take a pic to post it on here. Make sure you switch the circuit off at the main consumer unit ( fuse box) first.
 
Thanks for the reply :) I did see it myself, it was just a small section of the blue wire that was through to the copper inside, it looked like when it was screwed in, the screw may have cut away at the sheath causing it to be exposed, and today after years of use and slight movement it has shorted on something.

Like I said he has just moved the cable.

I will call the council after the bank holiday I think as you suggested, but would you say this was dangerous, I am concerned that it may moved and end up touching the metal backplate in the future and cause the same issue, or what it the brown cable was exposed somewhere and the blue and brow copper areas met each other, I am hoping that in any of these scinarios the power would trip, but I just want to be certain there is not any real risk of danger/fire.

Thanks again.
 
By the RCD tripping it indicates that it did what it was designed to do ie. protect you and yours. As the fallout electrician has moved, perhaps reterminated and refitted the socket face it will be back to safe now.
I certainly don't like his attitude towards you and that needs to be addressed. Perhaps a well worded email over the weekend then re read it on Tuesday prior to sending.
Sleep soundly - you are protected.
 
Typical council workers really, think they do the hardest job on the planet and wont work unless its a perfect conditions. Im down my local council office weekly moving lights because poor Mary feels the 20w led panel is too bright. I had to install 4 panel heaters in a site container because it was 'THE ARTIC' inside bunch of soft tw***.

As for the chrome switches its a poor excuse to blame them for the issue and to insinuate you had fitted them. I would have wrapped a bit of amalgamating tape around the exposed copper for good measure.

Time to write a strongly worded email i think.
 
This is a really long thread about nothing. Is the job sorted? Yes. The problem is the electrician had probably been to 100 houses before where they say no that brand new light fitting has been there 20 years take it down all the reds together all the blacks together. Unfortunately you was one of the few who was genuine. No harm done job sorted.
 
From reading the above posts it seems to me that the socket screw has caught the neutral conductor and has tripped the RCD it is odd though that this did not come to light on a insulation resistance test. The council electrician has rectified the problem, I would leave it as that as the council might insist that the chrome sockets get changed to their standard white ones after all it's their property.
 
Thanks for the comments all, I do feel a little better now. We are planning to hopefully buy the house in the next year, and my concern is that there are just shoddy jobs like this everywhere.... We actually look after our house, we are on a road where only 2 council houses remain, the rest have been purchased, and we look after it. We have spent £6k on a new bathroom and we try to maintain everything as best we can. So it is just upsetting when they come out and do nothing expect move an exposed cable slightly so that it is no longer shorting....

But as long as everyone here thinks it is OK then that will do. Thanks very much all :)

But I think I will write an email to the council over the weekend, I have calmed down now anyway, I am not as frustrated as I was at all...
 
Thanks for the comments all, I do feel a little better now. We are planning to hopefully buy the house in the next year, and my concern is that there are just shoddy jobs like this everywhere.... We actually look after our house, we are on a road where only 2 council houses remain, the rest have been purchased, and we look after it. We have spent £6k on a new bathroom and we try to maintain everything as best we can. So it is just upsetting when they come out and do nothing expect move an exposed cable slightly so that it is no longer shorting....

But as long as everyone here thinks it is OK then that will do. Thanks very much all :)

But I think I will write an email to the council over the weekend, I have calmed down now anyway, I am not as frustrated as I was at all...
Well if I was the Electrician that found the nicked cable I certainly would have put some correctly coloured sleeving on, just to be safe.
 
hanks for the comments all, I do feel a little better now. We are planning to hopefully buy the house in the next year, and my concern is that there are just shoddy jobs like this everywhere..


Councils have limited funds to maintain their stock,it has not been helped by the best of the stock being sold off to the sitting tenants which leaves them with the sometimes lower end of their stock

I would think after sending out an electrician to assess the complaint,they have decided there are other and more important priorities on their to do list
If there are what you consider to be shoddy jobs everywhere then buy a different property
It also seems to be a sensible decision on their part not to spend scarce resources on a property they may be compelled to sell if indeed that is the case
 
i take it des, that you're not a fan of the right to buy, introduced by our fair lady margaret. bear in mind though, that although selling the housing stock might appear to some to reduce available rented accommodation, for every council house that is slod to the tenant, that's 1 house less of course, but it's also 1 family less on the rental marlet. so swings and roundabouts. 1 less house = 1 less renting family. balance maintained.
 
From your description of events it looks to me as though the electrician has come out and sorted the shower issue. Then he has been called back to sort out a completely different issue.

This second issue has nothing to do with the first issue.

I'm not sure why you would mention it unless you thought they where connected in some way.

You say the rewire occurred several years ago and the chrome sockets where fitted then. I cannot understand why it's taken this long for the electrics to trip if the neutral has been in contact with the screw all this time.

Have the sockets been removed or undone at any time since the rewire?
 
From your description of events it looks to me as though the electrician has come out and sorted the shower issue. Then he has been called back to sort out a completely different issue.

This second issue has nothing to do with the first issue.

I'm not sure why you would mention it unless you thought they where connected in some way.

You say the rewire occurred several years ago and the chrome sockets where fitted then. I cannot understand why it's taken this long for the electrics to trip if the neutral has been in contact with the screw all this time.

Have the sockets been removed or undone at any time since the rewire?

I talked about the shower to explain that it was the same guy that insinuated that the previous week he came, all the sockets were not the chrome sockets and that they were the standard fitted white sockets, I was having more of a rant at the time, just because the fact is that the sockets have always been the chrome finish fitted sockets.

The sockets have never been unscrewed since the rewire, but the socket has always been very very slightly wobbly when unplugging/plugging something in, all I can think of is that the wobbly socket has caused the wire to move ever so slightly over time and eventually it has come into contact with the screw or backbox again...

I am not expert so I would not know, all I know is that I plugged the hoover in, and it went pop, big spark and the power went off... Electrician comes out, removes the face place, pushes the wire, puts it back on and off he goes.... The back boxes are metal....so my concern is that over time again with slight movements, it may short again...

I have an private electrician coming next week, not to do with the council to do some maintenance on our alarm system, I am going to get a second opinion from him on this one I think.

Ta :)
 
It is quite common, for such a fault not to trip the RCD, but will trip when a load is applied (by plugging in an appliance).

The original electrician, could of done a very professional job of installing your chrome sockets, it is all too easy 'pinch' a cable behind a faceplate (especially a single socket), and only presents as a fault, after several years plugging & in-plugging an appliance.

Some metal accessories (slimline fronts), require a deeper back box, i.e. 35mm instead of 25mm. 25mm back boxes were pretty standard fare a few years ago, less effort to recess.

You could ask a new electrician to unscrew all these chrome sockets, to check them. Unfortunately, when screwing them back, he/she might create a fault that previously wasn't there, and replacing the chrome sockets to white plastic one's, is going to prevent that.

As others have said, fault's been fixed.
 

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