Hello
so, we long term rent via social housing, and have been here for 25+ years now.
I was 9 when moved in, and my mum raised issues regarding the electric here.
first main issue we have faced since day one, our electricity main rcd fuse board is right on top of the main gas pipe coming into the house.
our house isn’t the best in electrical wiring, and it is a nightmare to get the house people to send out an electrician.
we have problems no electrician can work out, example, we had a door bell, installed wireless some 24 years ago by the housing, except when you flush any toilet in the house the door bell would chime, after a while, we went with a brand new wired door bell, but this made the issue worse, if you flushed, turned a tap on, close the back door or window, in the end we didn’t have a door bell. Now days we have gone back to a wire doorbell, it still rings randomly.
8 years ago, this is a complete guess, we had our bathroom converted into a wet room/shower as I was wheelchair bound and the people were cowboys, but they changed our bathroom lights, however randomly when you turned the bathroom lights off, my room and what was then a study room lights would flash. The housing were not fused about this issue, so 6-7 years ago maybe longer, my mum installed ceiling fans throughout the house, but the lights would still flicker.
I am useless at turning things on and off, so I got a smart light switch not requiring the 3rd cable, so no neutral required, lights still flicker, but I think it was last year, maybe 2 years ago, a guy came around and did an electrical inspection, first we have had since we moved in, the guy didn’t really know what he was doing to be honest, but we passed, I ask him regarding my lights flickering, he had a look at my smart switch, but he broke the back metal box the switch goes in, then as he tried to get the box into my wall, he broke my light.
we had a new guy come out weeks later, who said that it was my switch and it had to be binned, but as he got out the switch from the wall, the first guy broke the wires slicing the completely as if they were snipped off. He said due to this, we need to rewire my light and booked for some else to do it has he wouldn’t get into the loft, but he pulled on what wire was left, but pulled the wire about 6 inches above the switch resulting in the wall and the plaster to blow. I have to make a finger plate around 4 inches wide to hide the damage.
so, weeks later a new guy comes out, and goes up into the loft and says there is 1 clip up here, holding back some 1ft of extra cable, if the guy just popped his head into the loft he would be able to see and fix it, it took the guy 5 minutes max. He asked why all of this happened, and asked if could fix the flickering, so he sees the problem, my niece room next to mine flashes maybe 1 in 300 times the bathroom light is turned off, but my room (only room in the house) has a smart switch, they put a regular switch up, the problem still exists, my mum put the lights up with a Royal Navy engineer, so we knew this wasn’t the problem but they checked it all out. After about 2 hours of him being here at 8:30am, so called his friend who was also an electrician about 10;30 and both these guys were contractors, but by about 2pm, they called a couple more people out, my and my mum’s wiring was perfect, but they tested every possible solution or cause. I think there were 5 guys trying to fix the problem, then one asked how long has these problems been happening, and we worked out it was the same time as they installed the shower and bathroom lights.
By 6-7pm, they think they found the issue they had to put in new wire from the rcd fuse board, and run the shower using the new wire. This still didn’t fix this problem but they did fix a fire hazard that should have never happened if the bathroom installers were qualified electricians which was a very obvious problem. They then went to wire the new cable into the bathroom lights, and found the lights they installed were not suitable for bathrooms, the installers incorrectly wired up, broke bits on it, so, they replaced the lights in the bathroom and bingo, my bedroom lights have not flickered once.
this housing people are awful, when I sleep, I have to be hooked up to equipments that require electricity, anyway, a plug socket for our hob broke, it wouldn’t switch off physically, and it blew the fuse, we called the housing people who we explained that I need electricity at night, let alone food waste, we asked for a emergency call out, but they refused, and was told that we should get a extension lead, connect that to the rcd/fuse board and that way I could have power to my room so I can sleep.
my amazing mum had to take the socket off the wall, disconnect it, wire some thing else to it, so we could have power but that power had live wires which we blocked off, as we can’t go changing anything in the rcd fuse board.
so, please remember all of this,
I am installing some wire to go to my little work shop, but I didn’t realise the power from the kitchen is a plug with a switch which I was going to hard wire into, but now thinking of using a standard 3 pin uk plug to connect and disconnect, otherwise it would mean having the electrician to install a new wire, sockets etc. if I can use armoured cable in a regular plug then it would save a lot of hassle, is this a no no thing to do? Isn’t the armoured cable just a normal cable inside with protective sleeving?
for my shed I plan on installing 2 double metal clad sockets hopefully with usb-c power too, or 2 regular metal clad sockets with a single usb-c only ports single plug? Where would the best place to order these sockets?
is there some sort of law regarding how close the main gas supply to the rcd fuse board can be? They are almost onto of each other, in a closed cupboard.
sorry for some backstory here, just wanting to get across how bad the electricians are working with this organisation, as the good electricians left as they were getting a wage cut, with more work. So if this is something I can do, or my mum who knows about this sort of thing as she was a school site manager/caretaker/janitor/maintenance manage.
so, we long term rent via social housing, and have been here for 25+ years now.
I was 9 when moved in, and my mum raised issues regarding the electric here.
first main issue we have faced since day one, our electricity main rcd fuse board is right on top of the main gas pipe coming into the house.
our house isn’t the best in electrical wiring, and it is a nightmare to get the house people to send out an electrician.
we have problems no electrician can work out, example, we had a door bell, installed wireless some 24 years ago by the housing, except when you flush any toilet in the house the door bell would chime, after a while, we went with a brand new wired door bell, but this made the issue worse, if you flushed, turned a tap on, close the back door or window, in the end we didn’t have a door bell. Now days we have gone back to a wire doorbell, it still rings randomly.
8 years ago, this is a complete guess, we had our bathroom converted into a wet room/shower as I was wheelchair bound and the people were cowboys, but they changed our bathroom lights, however randomly when you turned the bathroom lights off, my room and what was then a study room lights would flash. The housing were not fused about this issue, so 6-7 years ago maybe longer, my mum installed ceiling fans throughout the house, but the lights would still flicker.
I am useless at turning things on and off, so I got a smart light switch not requiring the 3rd cable, so no neutral required, lights still flicker, but I think it was last year, maybe 2 years ago, a guy came around and did an electrical inspection, first we have had since we moved in, the guy didn’t really know what he was doing to be honest, but we passed, I ask him regarding my lights flickering, he had a look at my smart switch, but he broke the back metal box the switch goes in, then as he tried to get the box into my wall, he broke my light.
we had a new guy come out weeks later, who said that it was my switch and it had to be binned, but as he got out the switch from the wall, the first guy broke the wires slicing the completely as if they were snipped off. He said due to this, we need to rewire my light and booked for some else to do it has he wouldn’t get into the loft, but he pulled on what wire was left, but pulled the wire about 6 inches above the switch resulting in the wall and the plaster to blow. I have to make a finger plate around 4 inches wide to hide the damage.
so, weeks later a new guy comes out, and goes up into the loft and says there is 1 clip up here, holding back some 1ft of extra cable, if the guy just popped his head into the loft he would be able to see and fix it, it took the guy 5 minutes max. He asked why all of this happened, and asked if could fix the flickering, so he sees the problem, my niece room next to mine flashes maybe 1 in 300 times the bathroom light is turned off, but my room (only room in the house) has a smart switch, they put a regular switch up, the problem still exists, my mum put the lights up with a Royal Navy engineer, so we knew this wasn’t the problem but they checked it all out. After about 2 hours of him being here at 8:30am, so called his friend who was also an electrician about 10;30 and both these guys were contractors, but by about 2pm, they called a couple more people out, my and my mum’s wiring was perfect, but they tested every possible solution or cause. I think there were 5 guys trying to fix the problem, then one asked how long has these problems been happening, and we worked out it was the same time as they installed the shower and bathroom lights.
By 6-7pm, they think they found the issue they had to put in new wire from the rcd fuse board, and run the shower using the new wire. This still didn’t fix this problem but they did fix a fire hazard that should have never happened if the bathroom installers were qualified electricians which was a very obvious problem. They then went to wire the new cable into the bathroom lights, and found the lights they installed were not suitable for bathrooms, the installers incorrectly wired up, broke bits on it, so, they replaced the lights in the bathroom and bingo, my bedroom lights have not flickered once.
this housing people are awful, when I sleep, I have to be hooked up to equipments that require electricity, anyway, a plug socket for our hob broke, it wouldn’t switch off physically, and it blew the fuse, we called the housing people who we explained that I need electricity at night, let alone food waste, we asked for a emergency call out, but they refused, and was told that we should get a extension lead, connect that to the rcd/fuse board and that way I could have power to my room so I can sleep.
my amazing mum had to take the socket off the wall, disconnect it, wire some thing else to it, so we could have power but that power had live wires which we blocked off, as we can’t go changing anything in the rcd fuse board.
so, please remember all of this,
I am installing some wire to go to my little work shop, but I didn’t realise the power from the kitchen is a plug with a switch which I was going to hard wire into, but now thinking of using a standard 3 pin uk plug to connect and disconnect, otherwise it would mean having the electrician to install a new wire, sockets etc. if I can use armoured cable in a regular plug then it would save a lot of hassle, is this a no no thing to do? Isn’t the armoured cable just a normal cable inside with protective sleeving?
for my shed I plan on installing 2 double metal clad sockets hopefully with usb-c power too, or 2 regular metal clad sockets with a single usb-c only ports single plug? Where would the best place to order these sockets?
is there some sort of law regarding how close the main gas supply to the rcd fuse board can be? They are almost onto of each other, in a closed cupboard.
sorry for some backstory here, just wanting to get across how bad the electricians are working with this organisation, as the good electricians left as they were getting a wage cut, with more work. So if this is something I can do, or my mum who knows about this sort of thing as she was a school site manager/caretaker/janitor/maintenance manage.