What has this (or this thread) got to do with me?
Electrician Uncovers Dangerous Botched Wiring – Hidden for Years! (Wife Blames Me!) *PICS*
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Is there a rule against inviting a comment or observation from a regular poster?
given your internet fame I thought maybe you've seen a fair few dangerous situations. Unless I'm mistaken and you arent actually John Ward.
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With the switch to harmonized colours in 2004-2006, you could no longer get white PVC T&E. T&E manufacturers adopted the convention that PVC sheathed T&E would be grey and LSF T&E would be white. It's not clear to me if this was pushed on them by standards bodies or if the cable manufacturers did it on their own initative, I'm pretty confident it didn't come from BS7671.
I don't recall white meter tails ever bring a thing though, perhaps they were and I just didn't notice.
I recall the "single colour" sheaths showing up a few years later and gradually becoming more common. Particularly as the old practice of leaving a bit of the inner insulation on show to identify the conductor was becoming increasingly frowned upon.
Ah, that explains it - as has now been pointed out to you, it was a case of 'mistaken identity'
Not at all ... but in all the years I've been here, and best part of 60,000 post from me, I don't recall any previous occasion on which anyone 'invited a comment' from me in a thread in which I had not been involved - so it was a bit of a surprise
Why? The grey outer is not made to be insulation, rather it was mechanical protection, so the grey needed to be stripped back clear of the insulation/voltage carrying conductor.
I'm not a regular but knew that JW was on here somewhere CC @flameport !!
Current guidelines say that unsheathed conductors exposed outside an enclosure are a C2.
On something like a meter or a henly block, there often isn't really enough room to strip the sheath back "clear of the conductor" while still making sure it is definitively "inside" the enclosure. Also I can see the DNOs and suppliers finding it desirable to be able to visually inspect without having to remove covers.
...particularly if there is some incorrectly-coloured insulation to 'inspect', as in this neutral block at the origin of my installation (the 'sin' now obscured with grey silicone by a subsequent mater-changer)
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Harmonised colour cable was available from 31 March 2004.
You could choose one or the other on new installations after that date, but not mix colours on a new installation and could not use the old colours at all after 31 March 2006.
You could choose one or the other on new installations after that date, but not mix colours on a new installation and could not use the old colours at all after 31 March 2006.
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