New House, Electrical Query

[Aragorn]

Ok its a little OT, but it relates to the garage where i'll be working on the landy

So we've just moved to cleveleys, near blackpool, from just outside edinburgh, and the new place (rented) has a garage. I've been looking forward to getting a garage so i was out there today tidying it up and checking out the facilities for moving the 90 built down here.

This post is related to the electrical setup, and i'm hoping someone on here in the trade might be able to give me some pointers.

The setup thats in there just now, looks rather shonky to say the least.

Theres what looks like a copper clad cable coming up thru the concrete floor to a wall box, which is missing its face. Inside here theres a "choc-block" connecting the copper wire to a piece of 4 (or maybe 6mm) T+E, which goes into another wall box immediately above the first one which contains a unfused switch unit.

Poking out the side of this is a bit of flex, with a domestic extension cord end on it, and then theres a plug in there with some far-too-thin flex coming off it and going across the ceiling to two standard light fittings and a double socket.

At the other end i think i can spy the cable entering the house near the electrical cupboard, and having a play with the fuses suggests that its simply been tied into the ground floor ring main.

Clearly theres room for improvement, but i'd like some pointers on the best approach. I realise that i'm probably not supposed to touch any of it with out some spangly certificate, but i'd like an idea of what i should be aiming for, instead of calling some electrician round and getting the teeth sucking.

At the garage end i'd like to either bin the shonky bit of extension cord and replace it with a number of proper sockets, with a sensible lighting system perhaps using fluro tubes, or go the whole way and fit a small consumer unit. A bigger concern though is the apparent lack of any fusing in the circuit at all (ie its connected to the 30A ring main at the house end, and no fuses in the garage either), and the unknown current carrying capacity of the copper clad cable.

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Cheers

[errol209]

So we've just moved to cleveleys, near blackpool, from just outside edinburgh, and the new place (rented) has a garage.

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Cheers

Cleveleys? Welcome to Lancashire!

Anyway, back to the on-topic-by-the-skin-of-its-teeth:

What a lovely layout you have, non-compliant with any version of the regs I've come across (I helped out wiring houses, festivals and theatres in my youth). I am not a qualified sparky, but suggest that you want a seperate switchfuse inside the house (so you can isolate everything outside) and then a 30A spur to the garage, a consumer unit in there with a breaker for the lights and a seperate RCD or ELCB for a mini ring main. That way the lights stay on if you overload the sockets. Go for SWA wiring and metalclad socketry, that's pretty much bomb proof. A pull cord on the lights means you stand less chance of zapping yourself with wet hands (not that it rains much in Lancs ...)

[nick w]

Ok its a little OT, but it relates to the garage where i'll be working on the landy

So we've just moved to cleveleys, near blackpool, from just outside edinburgh, and the new place (rented) has a garage. I've been looking forward to getting a garage so i was out there today tidying it up and checking out the facilities for moving the 90 built down here.

This post is related to the electrical setup, and i'm hoping someone on here in the trade might be able to give me some pointers.

The setup thats in there just now, looks rather shonky to say the least.

Theres what looks like a copper clad cable coming up thru the concrete floor to a wall box, which is missing its face. Inside here theres a "choc-block" connecting the copper wire to a piece of 4 (or maybe 6mm) T+E, which goes into another wall box immediately above the first one which contains a unfused switch unit.

Poking out the side of this is a bit of flex, with a domestic extension cord end on it, and then theres a plug in there with some far-too-thin flex coming off it and going across the ceiling to two standard light fittings and a double socket.

At the other end i think i can spy the cable entering the house near the electrical cupboard, and having a play with the fuses suggests that its simply been tied into the ground floor ring main.

Clearly theres room for improvement, but i'd like some pointers on the best approach. I realise that i'm probably not supposed to touch any of it with out some spangly certificate, but i'd like an idea of what i should be aiming for, instead of calling some electrician round and getting the teeth sucking.

At the garage end i'd like to either bin the shonky bit of extension cord and replace it with a number of proper sockets, with a sensible lighting system perhaps using fluro tubes, or go the whole way and fit a small consumer unit. A bigger concern though is the apparent lack of any fusing in the circuit at all (ie its connected to the 30A ring main at the house end, and no fuses in the garage either), and the unknown current carrying capacity of the copper clad cable.

Any pointers would be much appreciated.

Cheers

hello mate i am a qualified sparky with my own company absolutly miles from you so i aint lookin for your work explaining what to do by computer will be hard but as it seams you have a basic grip on how it works give me a call on 07889 031 851 and i can give you some pointers just incase i would guess a electrician would cost you around £500 to do the installation at least then you know your safe yours nick weeden

[Andy A]

Hi,another qualified electrician here

if the house is rented you should be doing no work to it as it is your land lords resposibility

also as it is rented and you have just moved in your land lord is required to have the property inspected and tested for his new certificate as he is required to do every 5 years and also every time a new tenent moves into the property

so get him to sort it out,if it was tested by a proper firm i'm sure some one like the nic/eic would be very interested to hear about this

[Les Henson]

When I built my inventing shed, I ran armoured cable from it's own circuit breaker in the house to a twin fuse box on the shed wall. Ring main for 10 sockets, then another ring main for 6 flourescent lights. No fires or explosions in the 20-odd years it's been up.

It all has to be inspected and a certificate issued now.

Les.

[errol209]

Sorry, I missed the "(rented)" bit the first time round. I agree with Andy A!

[nick w]

Sorry, I missed the "(rented)" bit the first time round. I agree with Andy A!

ow me too get the land lord involved as previously stated it should have been tested to rent it out and by the explanation you gave it aint unless it was stevie wonder who done it

[Aragorn]

Thanks for the tips guys, i'll try and get onto the letting agents tomorrow and see what they say, i do agree it looks unsafe, and i think anyone with a pair of eyes could see that for themselves.

A little pic of the incoming line and switch:

http://www.lr90.org/gallery2/main.php?g2_view=core.DownloadItem&g2_itemId=307&g2_serialNumber=2

[Chris Rogers]

The incomming line looks ok, its called MICC cable and lasts forever if installed properly.

Hopefully you should be able to have a consumer unit installed on the end of the micc cable, but all depends on how its fed. You might have difficulty finding a spark whos good enough/old enough to deal with MICC.

Chris

[Turbocharger]

Picture looks fine to me. Try not to touch the live metal bits...

I'd suggest you offer to help your landlord out. Spec up what you want - number of sockets, strip lights and cable. Acknowledge to him that your requirements are over the top for a domestic garage, point out that the install isn't safe at the moment and that you'd like to share the cost of improving it.

Get a tame electrician to suck his teeth and spec the new install, do the work yourself and then have him certify it before you wire it in.

[Aragorn]

its more the other end that i'm worried about.

I'd happily enough stick a consumer unit on the end of that MICC myself and throw a couple of rings in for the lights and plugs, but the fact that once inside the house, the MICC is presumably terminated under the floor somewhere and connected to what looks like 2.5mm cable and just joined onto the ring main that concerns me.

It basically means that i could put a 30A load on out in the garage, due to a short or otherwise, and instead of the fuse protecting the cable, there would be a nice fire.

If the MICC, and the 2.5mm cable its connected to inside the house, are only capable of handling 20A, then i would much prefer (and i'm sure the regulations would require) that they are protected by a 20A fuse/breaker at the source in the house.

The problem is that the fusebox itself looks like its from 19canteen, it still has wire fuses and looks like its made from bakelite. As such it has no spare fuseways. They have recently installed an electric shower, and fitted a new RCD protected consumer unit for this, however in their wisdom they've used a 1 way consumer unit, so theres no spare fuseways in there either

[Night Train]

Another qualified electrician here.

I would say do nothing, touch nothing. It is the landlord's responsibility to make that safe and to provide a safety certificate to cover it.

Also the landlord may only want to do the minimum and so won't want to be fitting sockets etc to the garage. He might if you were paying for it but a responsible landlord would want their own contractor to do it or if you got your own then they would have to be able to certify that the work was safe.

I guess how much effort and money you put into it depends on how long you intend to stay there renting.

MICC isn't always bullet proof either.

I remember having to repair and replace the MICC wiring to a load of fluorescent and discharge lights ouside a block of flats. The MICC had acted like a long thin capacitor and exploded during lighting up. Granted it was still working but it was in bits with bare conductors along its length arcing in the rain.

[leeds]

As a landlord and not a qualified sparky I would not allow any tenant to do or have done any electrical work on one of my properties. If the garage wiring is that bad the chances are that the whole house will need rewiring. As a landlord the maximum I would provide in a single garage would be a couple of lights and sockets

Whereas a complete rewire should be properly signed off by a part P sparky there is absolutely no legal need to have the house wiring checked on a change of tenants. As a landlord of a student house where tenants changed every year the city council/student unions would be chasing up all landlords every year. There was a proposal that electrical wiring should be inspected every five years but that never become a legal requirement.

The only legal requirement for an annual inspection is on the gas side and that is now done by a Gas Safe plumber

HTH

Brendan

[BogMonster]

I wired my own garage after it was built, and put in an armoured cable fed from a seperate 30A MCB in the house consumer unit, a new small consumer unit with an on/off switch (no need for RCB as it's protected by the one in the house) and two circuits one ring for sockets and one for lights each on an MCB.

When you look at some of the stuff that supposedly qualified sparkys do here (most of whom have professional UK training/qualifications...) I would rather do it myself every time but it sounds like from the comments above it isn't practical in your neck of the woods.

No offence to those that do a good job but some of the so called professionals I have seen I wouldn't let wire up the tail lights on a wheelbarrow especially if it involves putting in line taps from an overhead power line, I guess that bit isn't covered in the training syllabus

[Aragorn]

leeds: While its not a legal requirement to have a safety inspection every year like the gas side, it is the legal responsibility of the landlord that the electrical system is safe and meets the appropriate regulations. This includes things like PAT testing any appliances. I can understand your point about not wanting tenants to touch anything, had the wiring been sensible i might well have put up some fluoro tubes myself to replace the two crappy bayonet fittings, but seen as fixing this properly is likely going to involve changes to the fusebox in the house, its a bit past what i am willing to do, given that its not my responsibility.

It does seem to look like i have a reasonable case to get it sorted properly at his cost though.

I understand that he's unlikely to pay for a full on electrical installation with many sockets etc, but the bare minimum of a lighting circuit and a ring main thats properly installed is probably what i'll end up with anyway if done by a proper sparky.

I'd feel much better, even if they dont replace the MICC with something heavier, if the circuit is properly fused on its own fuseway etc at the house end, and correctly terminated in the garage. I'm pretty certain that taking a spur like that off a ring main isnt actually allowed unless its taken from an FCU.

Theres a bit of shonkyness in the kitchen that i think i'll bring up too, get it all sorted at once.

[simonr]

A long time ago albeit, a friend moved in to a rented house with very bad / dangerous wiring (No consumer unit - just a big choc-block, cotton covered, lead sheathed wire throughout, previous residents had taken most of the switches and sockets with them (they were there when he viewed it)). Complained to the letting agency who came round with a 'grown up' who just removed the house fuse. "There - that's fixed it". A month later, still with no power - He moved out.

My point here is, I think the most likely outcome is the landlord just disconnecting the garage altogether.

I would be inclined to use an extension lead and some lead lights - at least it will be cheap and can be re-used in your next house.

Si

[Aragorn]

Yer this is a possibility, I'm hoping they will be sensible though, especially as i asked about removing a kitchen cabinet in order to install a freezer (there isnt one in the kitchen for some odd reason) and they said no, and to just put the freezer in the garage

I used an extension to mow the lawn after seeing the state of the wiring, but thats really only a last resort. The problem is that theres no easy route to get an extension cord from the house to the garage, due to the layout of the house. It would either mean leaving the patio door in the livingroom open to let the wire thru, which isnt ideal especially if its raining or windy etc, or alternatively running it out the kitchen window, down the driveway and in the main garage door.

Called them this morning, they called back around 3 to clarify what i meant by "dodgy wiring" as the landlord "hasnt looked at the wiring in the garage recently" and they were going to go back to the landlord with the more indepth detail.