New guy - going to rewire house in Bulgaria

[The Oaf]

Hi, I'm not an electrician but I did panel wiring for 10 years or more (Schneider, Square D, Merlin Gerin etc) and now I've moved to Bulgaria. The wiring in our house is ancient, a real mess, everything piggy-backed off something else & no earth circuit. There are virtually no rules here so I can do what I want but I want to make a decent job of it.

So I'll just start with one question, if I may. Houses here aren't earthed. If I want to add an earth circuit when I rewire the house, can I just bury a big chunk of metal in the yard with a cable attached and bring that in to the CU?

 

[Octopus]

How sure are you that there is no earth? Sounds odd to me

 

[Pete999]

Earth rods might be a better option

 

[Wilko]

Hello TO and Welcome to the Forum.
If you would like to make a "good" job of it, I'd use something designed for that purpose. Typically we use a couple of 14mm rods, copper plated on the outside, steel on the inside. This gives the strength to be able to bash them into the ground. So you need 2 rods, 2 joiners, a driving bolt and a cable clamp, like the ones on this link - Earth Rods - https://www.tlc-direct.co.uk/Main_Index/Earthing_Index/Earthing/index.html
Or
You could use a couple of metres of some metal pipe driven into the ground and a hose clip, but it won't be to UK standard.

 

[Andy-1960]

It does depend on how the distribution transformer feeding your property is earthed. If they have not bothered earthing it, you could bury a chieftain tank and you still won't have an effective earth as there is no earth path back to the point of supply.
If no houses are earthed there must be a reason, I think it would be wise to do a bit of investigating into how the distribution system is set up before you start.

 

[Pete999]

Hi, I'm not an electrician but I did panel wiring for 10 years or more (Schneider, Square D, Merlin Gerin etc) and now I've moved to Bulgaria. The wiring in our house is ancient, a real mess, everything piggy-backed off something else & no earth circuit. There are virtually no rules here so I can do what I want but I want to make a decent job of it.

So I'll just start with one question, if I may. Houses here aren't earthed. If I want to add an earth circuit when I rewire the house, can I just bury a big chunk of metal in the yard with a cable attached and bring that in to the CU?

Is it a TT system ie do the supply lines come into your property via overhead lines?

 

[The Oaf]

Wow - impressed at the response rate on here. Those earth rods look just the job, maybe there's something similar available out here. There's one British guy in the village who earthed his house. These are communist-built houses. People weren't expected to own much in the way of electrical items.
The way they 'earth' things here is to link the neutral to the earth tag on a plug. Initially I followed this when knocking up a few extension cables and soon cut it out when I was barefoot in the kitchen & touched the toaster.
Yes, there are just two main 10mm cables coming into the house from overhead. From two connectors on the wall it's then reduced to 2.5mm aluminium wire into an archaic panel of 5 fuses with a bizarre rat's nest of wiring behind it.
In the house, there are only 2 or so sockets per room and they're at chest height, lighting is piggy-backed off the sockets, the kitchen light constantly flickers while turned off, we can't use the cooker and toaster at the same time because all the adding on of wiring has been done so randomly that almost all power goes through just one of the fuses.

 

[westward10]

Wouldn't mind seeing a picture of your board. Have you consulted an English speaking electrician over there to get an opinion for the way forward.

 

[The Oaf]

There might well be English speaking electricians here but you can end up with some ridiculous ways of doing things. The house had no bathroom and I'd never done any such work but wouldn't trust a Bulgarian 'meister' so I did the whole thing - learned from the school of youtube.
I think the whole lot needs ripping out, even the conduit. Some wires had channels dug for them in walls & ceilings and then got plastered over (no conduit/tube). Not too worried about messing up the walls, there's no way round it and we want loads of extra sockets putting in and the chest height ones lowering.
I don't know how many breakers to use/what size box to get or what size breaker is the norm for each type of circuit. The biggest power users are the electric oven (hob is gas) and the water heater, so I guess they're to be separate.
The initial job is replacing the cable from the street to where the CU will be (6mm?) and working out a system for being able to keep power available while I do the work - which I accept could be months.

 

[radar elec ltd]

Hi
I could come and do it for you ? I would drive over with all the gear etc do the job and have a holiday at the same time for a very reasonable price of course .
Joking aside I would be interested .
Paul

 

[The Oaf]

Here are some pics, if anyone can help. Outside the house is a meter box with the main breaker in. Ours is the two-pole, the 3-pole is for the house over the road. Is this a 63A breaker?
The current fuses are in a box embedded in the outside of the house. They make no sense at all, pulling out any one of them turns off the living room and other things around the place. Two of them turn off the kitchen, three of them turn off the bathroom, for example. And a picture of the current wiring in one of the junction boxes.
That breaker, is it 63A? At the moment we don't risk anything bigger than 16A fuses in case the wire can't take it. The meter in the fuse box turns but is defunct now.