1984 House Wiring

[Clitheroe]

My grandmothers house was rewired in 1984, and sold to the housing association in 2001, the wiring been 17 years old.

All accessories including consumer unit with no rcd but mcbs were made by MEM.

There was 1 ring circuit for whole house with very small kitchen.
I dont know what size cable lighting was (1 or 1.5mm).

There were five circuits altogether - upstairs lighting, downstairs lighting, immersion, cooker and ring circuit.

I was just interested to know if this would have/should have been upgraded/rewired(again) etc by the housing association. (depending on how responsible they are of course)

Thanks.

 

[securespark]

I'd have two rings to comply with regs.

 

[RF Lighting]

I would have thought a bit of upgrading would suffice, and that a full rewire would be unlikely to be required, providing it was installed right to begin with, and hasn't been tinkered with.

 

[plugwash]

as others have said full rewire unlikely to be needed if it was done properly to start with.

kitchen may need to be split off if its near one end of the ring and has lots of big appliances or it may leave the ring badly unbalanced but if its a tiny kitchen i doubt there are lots of big appliances anyway so not an issue.

RCD protection should ideally be added, i don't know how much responsibility the housing association has for bringing stuff up to current requirements though (i doubt such protection was a requirement when it was installed)

 

[sparky40]

Hello,

I personally have lived in my housing association flat for 14yrs and it has not been inspected at all.
(Although I did play with my 'new' test meter some yrs ago and all was fine )

The recommended interval is ten years or change, of tennant I believe.

The associations here use the maintenance contractors to do any testing, heavy tea drinkers !

 

[Booyaka]

on the back of this subject.........

is it in the regs now that the downstairs/upstairs ring MUST be RCD protected? plus what other circuits MUST be RCD protected

 

[dingbat]

An RCD of 30mA or lower required for any socket outlet which may 'reasonably be expected' to supply portable equipment for use outdoors. In practice this is at least all accessible ground floor sockets.

In locations with increased risk RCDs are required, depending on the position and type of equipment and risk involved.

TT installations must be RCD protected in their entirety

It's all in the big brown book.

 

[Booyaka]

many thanks

 

[securespark]

Just to throw a spanner in the works: technically you can have dedicated RCD sockets for outside use and the rest not RCD protected, but the unprotected ones must be labelled as unsuitable for supplying equipment used outdoors....in practice this is not desirable, of course!

Most guys I know say G/F sockets protected by RCD is sufficient.

 

[ebee]

Most guys I know say G/F sockets protected by RCD is sufficient

Because sockets on other floors NEVER get used for powering outdoors as we all know

 

[Clitheroe]

Sorry for the delay in replying. It was a well known local electrical firm who were given the contract to rewire as at that time the house was still owned by the council prior to my grandmother buying it.

The kitchen, been small, only had two double sockets on the ring circuit. My grandmother only had a toaster, kettle and fridge basically and not a washing machine, dishwasher etc, although many people in the same street have extended their kitchens. The Installation was tested when installed and had not been altered with or tampered except for a couple of socket plates which got damaged and therefore replaced.

The supply was TNS.

Regarding RCD protection, If the housing association are actually responsible, then for all I know an electric shower could have been installed and although not requiring an Rcd, perhaps mains smoke alarms. This could perhaps require a new CU? The one installed was eight way, five spaces been used.

Many thanks.