Horrors behind the panelling (240v electrics)

[Keeping Up]

I visited a friend's boat yesterday to investigate why the RCD on the 240v electrics kept tripping out.

 

The main 240v wiring was neatly installed using blue 2.5mm arctic cable, but my suspicions were raised on seeing that the socket in the kitchen was fed with white flex. The kitchen and bathroom had been refitted a couple of years ago, so I started removing the panelling to get to the "new" wiring.

 

Behind one of the panels I found the answer. The fitter had cut into the existing wiring at a place that was fairly easy to get to (OK so far) but instead of using a junction box to join them back together he had used the 2-way socket end of an extension lead. Into this he had plugged the white flex that had (presumably) been the rest of the extension lead, and fed that without supports through a couple of plywood panels and up to the kitchen socket (which of course had no back box but did have some nice sharp screws holding it in place right through the plywood and out of the other side to where the cable was).

 

And where was this place that was "fairly easy to get at" you may ask? The answer is, it was lying loose on the floor underneath the bath where any drips from the water pipes or the plug would drip straight onto it. In fact it wasn't the taps or plug-hole that had been dripping, it was the inadequate sealing around the bath, but anyway the whole affair was soaking wet which explained why the RCD had been tripping out.

 

So lying on my back underneath the bath I replaced the sockets with a proper junction box and fixed it to the wall, where it wouldn't get wet. It was then while I was replacing the feed to the kitchen socket with some arctic cable I realised that this also fed to another socket in the kitchen for the cooker ignition, but using 5 amp flex. Presumably the fitter reckoned it didn't need to be thicker as there wouldn't be much current flowing in it, but of course under fault conditions it wouldn't have been very well protected by the 15 amp breaker in the consumer unit. So I replaced that cable too, except that it was impossible to reach the cooker socket because he'd fitted the kitchen cupboards in front of it, so I had to provide a new socket too.

 

Also plugged into the extension socket was another 13A plug with some orange-sheathed cable - which intriguingly had a length of blue inner flex (ie some that had been removed from inside a multi-core cable) taped to it along its whole length. This unusual cable disappeared behind some other bathroom panels and was almost something to do with the underfloor heating which had been installed at the time of the refit but had apparently never worked properly. Inspection revealed that he'd actually used twin-core flex for this feed, and had ingeniously converted it to 3-core flex by using the blue wire to convey the earth to the heater controls. At this point I declined to reconnect the underfloor heating until it had been re-wired properly which would have meant removing more of the panelling and tiling in the bathroom; as it had never worked properly it wouldn't be missed and anyway it was time to go to the pub for refreshment.

 

I'm not sure I ever want to look behind a bit of panelling again! What unexpected horrors have YOU found behind the panels?

Edited June 10, 2016 by Keeping Up

[Odana]

We used to have a flat in Egypt that often gave very 'invigorating' showers and an exciting washing-up experience due to the proximity of well-hidden Egyptian plumbing and Egyptian electrics....

[Laurie Booth]

I removed the paneling in my house bathroom and walked into my next doors cupboard.

[pearley]

For those of you old enough to remember GPO party lines, they relied on a large steel spike driven into the ground. One very dry summer when we lost the line I was advised to pour a bucket of water over the ground spike and so I did several times over the summer. A year or so later we lost our mains power supply. When they investigated the GPO spike had gone through the mains cable.

Edited June 10, 2016 by pearley

[Boat&Bikes]

A large spider.

 

Ian.

[Richard T]

When we had shares in a boat Trackman and I were doing a pre BSC check on it. I removed a twin 240v socket to check that all the connections were tight and discovered that the earth had been cut short and then extended by simply loosely winding a short lenth of copper wire round it and connected to the earth terminal of the socket. There was no hope of circuit continuity!! So we abandoned this wiring and started again with proper 3 core cable and installed a new ring main with breakers etc. The old wiring remains buried behind the lining of the boat.

Another good one was on a boat that came into the yard at Sileby for temporay moorings - the previous owners had wired up the landline link such that the connecting cable had two male ends!! Thats fine until the new owner connects one end into the 240v supply and then wanders across the yard holding the other end with live pins exposed!! I declined a request to help do a few jobs on the boat.

[New to this]

I visited a friend's boat yesterday to investigate why the RCD on the 240v electrics kept tripping out.

 

The main 240v wiring was neatly installed using blue 2.5mm arctic cable, but my suspicions were raised on seeing that the socket in the kitchen was fed with white flex. The kitchen and bathroom had been refitted a couple of years ago, so I started removing the panelling to get to the "new" wiring.

 

Behind one of the panels I found the answer. The fitter had cut into the existing wiring at a place that was fairly easy to get to (OK so far) but instead of using a junction box to join them back together he had used the 2-way socket end of an extension lead. Into this he had plugged the white flex that had (presumably) been the rest of the extension lead, and fed that without supports through a couple of plywood panels and up to the kitchen socket (which of course had no back box but did have some nice sharp screws holding it in place right through the plywood and out of the other side to where the cable was).

 

And where was this place that was "fairly easy to get at" you may ask? The answer is, it was lying loose on the floor underneath the bath where any drips from the water pipes or the plug would drip straight onto it. In fact it wasn't the taps or plug-hole that had been dripping, it was the inadequate sealing around the bath, but anyway the whole affair was soaking wet which explained why the RCD had been tripping out.

 

So lying on my back underneath the bath I replaced the sockets with a proper junction box and fixed it to the wall, where it wouldn't get wet. It was then while I was replacing the feed to the kitchen socket with some arctic cable I realised that this also fed to another socket in the kitchen for the cooker ignition, but using 5 amp flex. Presumably the fitter reckoned it didn't need to be thicker as there wouldn't be much current flowing in it, but of course under fault conditions it wouldn't have been very well protected by the 15 amp breaker in the consumer unit. So I replaced that cable too, except that it was impossible to reach the cooker socket because he'd fitted the kitchen cupboards in front of it, so I had to provide a new socket too.

 

Also plugged into the extension socket was another 13A plug with some orange-sheathed cable - which intriguingly had a length of blue inner flex (ie some that had been removed from inside a multi-core cable) taped to it along its whole length. This unusual cable disappeared behind some other bathroom panels and was almost something to do with the underfloor heating which had been installed at the time of the refit but had apparently never worked properly. Inspection revealed that he'd actually used twin-core flex for this feed, and had ingeniously converted it to 3-core flex by using the blue wire to convey the earth to the heater controls. At this point I declined to reconnect the underfloor heating until it had been re-wired properly which would have meant removing more of the panelling and tiling in the bathroom; as it had never worked properly it wouldn't be missed and anyway it was time to go to the pub for refreshment.

 

I'm not sure I ever want to look behind a bit of panelling again! What unexpected horrors have YOU found behind the panels?

Sounds a nightmare, can I ask what is Arctic Cable?

[matty40s]

boat came to us last week, we cant seem to get any power from our bank(Trojans) even after a long cruise.

Tested, knackered,,then removed,tipped up, nothing came out. no water.

The boats charging system was Ctek chargers, fine for car charging, not fine for long time on a landline connection.

we think a single cell developed a fault and then the charger tried to continue charging the bank, boiling the batteries to oblivion.

[saltysplash]

Sounds a nightmare, can I ask what is Arctic Cable?

Copied oft t'internet for you

 

Cable Specification: Arctic Grade Flexible Cable manufactured to BS6004. The arctic grade cable features plain annealed flexible copper conductors, a PVC insulation, low temperature PVC outer sheath and is available in blue or yellow.

[mark99]

I removed the paneling in my house bathroom and walked into my next doors cupboard.

 

 

In our old cottage it used to have a common roof space. Go into loft and walk across to the next doors loft space. Soon blocked off following survey.

[Chewbacka]

Copied oft t'internet for you

 

Cable Specification: Arctic Grade Flexible Cable manufactured to BS6004. The arctic grade cable features plain annealed flexible copper conductors, a PVC insulation, low temperature PVC outer sheath and is available in blue or yellow.

Toolstation and Screwfix both sell it

About £60 for 50m

[1st ade]

 

 

In our old cottage it used to have a common roof space. Go into loft and walk across to the next doors loft space. Soon blocked off following survey.

 

Our (1906) terrace house was built in an era when the use of attic space for storage was decades in the future. Loft hatches (and insulation!) were not installed and there was a brick divider about every 10-12 houses.

 

One of our neighbours heard what he thought was rats or squirrels in his loft space. One weekend he knocked through from the landing ceiling and was surprised to find an enterprising neighbour (I won't mention his country of origin for fear of incurring the Mod's wrath) had boarded out at least four adjacent lofts and fitted the space out with mattress's, bedding and lighting. At a rough guess his three bed mid-terrace had sleeping space for forty!

 

Needless to say, full height brick partition's followed pretty quickly for everyone.