Old folks and electrical safety

[Tizer]

This is a plea for advice on behalf of a very frail old couple who live in a 1930s house which has never been re-wired and now has some electrical problems. They think that a decorator put his kit in a cupboard and knocked some of the wiring and that this accounts for some sockets now not working. They asked me to look in the cupboard and see if I could put things right. I took one look and told them I wouldn't dare touch any of it - it's all old wiring and very old-fashioned circuit boxes etc. The old chap did a lot of his own wiring in his better days but now his memory is poor and he can't remember what was done. The big problem is that in the past they wouldn't have the house re-wired because it's all too traumatic (I can sympathise with them on that matter!) and as they got older the worse it would seem to them. Now they won't call in an electrician because they are frightened he'll condemn the whole system and disconnect them from the mains.

This raises two main questions. First, if an electrician was called in and saw the tangle of old wiring and ancient boxes, would he cut off their electricity because he might be held responsible if he doesn't and then someone gets electrocuted or the house burns down? The couple are so frail I doubt they could cope with the house being re-wired and it's hardly feasible for them to go into temporary accommodation, it would be too unfamiliar. I daren't ask an electrician the question because I might trigger a `condemn' situation.

Second, does anyone know what the buildings insurance situation would be if a house burns down due to an electrical fire and it hasn't been re-wired? Can the insurance company refuse to pay out because the householder can be said to have failed in their duty to keep the electrics safe? I can't risk asking an insurance company directly in these days when they record everything, put it on a database against your name and share it with each other. It might have repercussions for my own `insurability' in the future.

Advice would be welcome! I'm afraid this sort of situation is going to become more common as the government encourages old folks to stay in their own homes. As we get older we can't keep the homes in as good a condition as we would like (and perhaps can't afford - or even find - someone else to do it for us), and we get to a stage where we can't even cope with work being done in the house. The Law of Unintended Consequences comes into effect and the drive to keep people in their own homes then begins to cause more trouble and strife.

[Pluggy]

I'm far from an expert (I completed and passed a PAT - portable appliance testing - course recently) but I think you'll find electrical safety isn't that tightly regulated. The biggest problem with calling in an electrician isn't him condemning the installation (I don't think they can) , as much as him ripping off the customer and playing on their fears. Electrical circuits had fuses back in the 1930's and 99 times out of a hundred if something catastrophic happens, (rodents chewing wiring is a big problem) the fuse will blow, rendering everything safe. its entirely possible even probable that the cause of some sockets not working is that the fuse has gone. If it has blown its blown for a reason and will need looking at. Even the oldest installations have a supply fuse typically rated at 80 amps and is in the realm of the DNO - http://www.nationalgrid.com/uk/Electric ... Companies/ although ordinary electricians sometimes remove them to work on 'their' side of the meter. You can still carry out a good proportion of electrical work yourself legally. There are professional bodies like the NICEIC http://niceic.com/ but they are not legally enforced and an electrician doesn't need to be registered. The British standards speak of 'competent persons' which isn't that tightly defined. I'm classed as a competant person, and I can "condemn" electrical appliances I don't consider safe, but it isn't legally binding. I have't been tested on fixed wiring so whether I'm classed as competent in that sphere is open to question. Fires caused by fixed wiring are very rare and often wiring is only a contributing factor when there are other problems such as fuel sources dangerously stored or used nearby.

Gas is an entirely different matter, there are no fuses and a very small leak can destroy a row of houses or worse. All gas fitters must be registered with Gas safe http://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/ to work legally. (Corgi in the old days). When they condemn something, it carries weight.

[PanBiker]

My daughters fiancée is a fully qualified electrical contractor fully certified for domestic and industrial, I will ring him tonight and ask his opinion. He has no axe to grind so I should be able to get a straight answer from him.

I would think that if a professionally qualified person has knowledge of a potentially dangerous situation the would have a duty of care to do something about it. I am not up to speed with current regulations which are set in stone but I will try to find out for you what the best way forward would be.

Back in the 1970's when I was a TV engineer, we were in and out of different properties all day as you can probably imagine. The term "seen it all" comes to mind. We would regularly run into single or double sockets at the side of the fireplace with 2 or even 3 double or triple adaptors stacked one on top of the other with a myriad of appliances plugged into them. TV, Video, Stereo, Table Lamp and even three bar Electric Fires. We used to point out the dangers and make recommendations, if there there was any indication of fire or other catastrophic potential due to overloading we would take further action as we had a duty of care to our customers. I once discovered a major problem in a house down in Earby which compelled me to cut the YEB seals and remove the input fuses from the house supply. I took the fuses away with me so that the householder had no option other than to call the Electricity Board, I also removed the TV back to the workshop so even if they did manage to get the supply back on they could not blame our equipment for burning the house down.

When I went to repair the TV set they had complained of a postcard sized picture, after changing the power supply in the TV to no avail, I checked the input voltage going into the set. From what should have been a nominal 240v the actual voltage was 150v, the power supply in the TV simply could not cope with this reduced voltage so presented a lower output and hence the postcard picture. When I investigated further by inspecting the supply socket I nearly fainted! There were two leads in and out of the double socket as would be the norm on a ring main circuit, the problem was the cable was figure 8 bell wire (rated at 3A)! They had the TV a Video and corner lamp all powered from the same socket. I asked the lady of the house if they had recently had any new wiring done and she said yes, my husband is very handy like that he has rewired most of the sockets in the house and he has put 8 more in the kitchen as well! The insulation on the bell wire showed severe bubbling and was in danger of melting, there was no earth present on any of the sockets I looked at. I asked where the fuse box was, cut the seals and pulled the 60amp mains fuses from the feed, lifted the set and rang the YEB. The family never forgave us for lifting the set and dobbing them in, they did not thank me either for probably saving their lives, they went elsewhere for their TV rental. We received a letter of thanks from the Electricity Board after it was all resolved.

I will ask my future son-in law and post again when I have some info.

[Whyperion]

One problem with 1930s wiring is that it could have been done to the supply standard of the locality ( the national grid and a 230-250v AC standard became commonplace a little later ). Lots of changes in regulation have occurred particularly on switching and earthing.

Depending on how they want the house to look , it might be best to run 'temporary' supplies in visible conduit surface mounted from a new consumer unit. Dependent on the house size the cost would be around £2000, I think electricity supply is still one area where (means -tested) local authority housing renovation grants , or loans , are still avalible ( to provide adequate means of cooking and hot water ).

[PanBiker]

Tizer, one question I would ask is what kind of socket outlets do they have in the house? Are they ring main (square pin, usually incorrectly referred to as 13A), old round pin 5A (small) and 15A (large) sockets or god forbid, offset square pin centre earth (Wylex) sockets. A house from the 1930's could have any of these but I would assume that they would be the modern ring main. The reason I say this is that all modern appliances legally have to be supplied with moulded on plugs. There is scant supply of the older obsolete connectors for the latter two described systems and it is actually illegal to sell them now so the actual installation if it has modern appliances running on it will more likely be based on 1960's rather than 1930's practices. This would make the installation potentially 50 years old rather than 80. There would then be a good chance that all the cabling is in 1.5mm and 2.5mm PVC sheathed twin and earth which is quite robust and a far cry from the rubber and sometimes lead shielded cables used back in the 1930's the rubber stuff used to perish and cause no end of problems on older installations. It all really depends in what era the owner did his own wiring, the sockets can give a clue to this.

[Tizer]

Thanks everyone for all the information and advice. They moved into the house in about 1972 so whatever he did should have been using cable of that era. He said he put in circuit breakers for safety. They have modern electrical gadgets - digital TV, computer etc - so have the modern sockets for them, although I don't know if all the sockets are of that type. Unfortunately they live about 150 miles away so I can't just pop in to have a look! (And some of you will guess from that information who I'm talking about.) I was at the house briefly on the weekend and all I really remember of the cupboard was like one of those many-tentacled monsters in Dr Who films, living in a pit of spiders! I remember now that about 5 years ago they had some air conditioning units fitted and they had to have their own separate circuit so at least those engineers didn't condemn the set up of the house.

[PanBiker]

Right Tiz I have information from a fully compliant and up to current spec electrician. Under normal circumstances any reliable electrician would not disconnect a supply unless there was, in their professional opinion an immediate danger from the installation.

Fully compliant contractors can only work within the current regulations, so for instance they would not and could not legally work on obsolete equipment that could not possibly be brought up to current specification. On finding such equipment a good electrician, providing the installation was safe but fully functional would make a recommendation to the customer to upgrade to current specification. For instance, swap out an old style fuse box for a modern consumer unit. If it was totally unsafe they would have a duty of care to advise the customer accordingly and in extreme circumstances they could make the installation safe by removing fuses. They are not allowed to remove any equipment from site as that could be considered theft so there would be nothing to stop the customer re-enabling the supply when they had gone.

If the actual cabling is the issue it comes down to whether or not the cabling can pass current insulation tests. If the cabling infrastructure fails insulation and leakage tests it simply will not function with a modern consumer unit with it's built in MCB's (Miniature Circuit Breakers) and RCD's (Residual Current Devices) that are common to all modern equipment.

Pluggy's comments about the greatest danger is that of being ripped of by unscrupulous electricians smacks of scaremongering and is not very fair to the vast majority of conscientious tradesmen who are fully qualified and do act fully professionally.

From your last post it seem like the basic setup is fairly sound, and it does sound like they have a reasonably up to date consumer unit fitted as they have had residual work done within the last 5 years without problem.

The recommendation would be to search out a few well known local accredited electricians and ask them to have a look and make a recommendation. They are highly unlikely to condemn out of hand and they should get multiple quotes if possible. Just make sure of their credentials. The customer is under no obligation to accept the advice or go ahead with the work.

It could well be that it simply comes down to a tripped or knocked MCB and a lot of worry over nothing. A professional contractor would not take advantage in a situation such as that.

I hope this is useful to you.

[Stanley]

What a wonderful site we have..... I agree with everything that has been said apart from one thing Ian said about scaremongering. Unfortunately there are rogue traders about and the first thing to do is avoid them. My understanding of the legal situation is that there are two segments to the process and in any situation where a NICEIC certificate is needed the work can be done by a competent uncertified electrician and certified by a registered electrician. When I moved in here we totally rewired the house using this route. My man worked in conjunction with a certified man who signed the certificate on completion. I made sure that the wiring was top specification even to the extent of a separate 60amp feed to the workshop because I wanted a 40amp connection point for a stick welder. Even in modern industrial premeises you'd be surprised how difficult it could be to get a feed for a welder when doing maintenance work.
As for insurance, best to assume worst case because we all know that insurance assessors will use any means to reduce any claim. The aim should be to end up with a certified installation.
If this was my problem the first thing I would do is find out the size of the rabbit. Forget the tangle in the meter cupboard, this can be easily sorted out with modern protected switchgear. The killer is the specification and condition of the wiring. Even if it was 1930 vintage this shouldn't be a problem if it is heavy enough. In the worst case no distinction was made in the early days between lighting and power and us oldies can remember christmas trees of connectors hanging from the central light socket powering the sewing machine, wireless etc. If they moved in in 1972 it's almost certain that some upgrading has been done to the wiring otherwise it would have showed up then, lack of plugs etc.
So my route would be to find a competent person by personal recommendation and get him or her to ascertain the condition of the wiring and give recommendations. Once you are sure of the size of the rabbit a plan can be made. Even if a complete rewiring was needed I don't see why this couldn't be done in such a way as to not make the house uninhabitable.
Finally, how lucky this couple are to have someone like Tiz who can do the research and help them. The moral of the story is that if you are moving into a house make sure that you have an adequate wiring system, far easier to attack any problems while the house id stripped. My spec 15 years ago included telephone jack points and TV cabling. When Harry and Janet moved into their house later it included fibre optic cabling for computers!

[Wendyf]

Many councils will have a list of recommended tradesmen, or it might be worth contacting the local Age UK branch. My mum is a member of her local "Live at Home scheme", which has been brilliant in all sorts of ways. There are different schemes around the country run by local Methodist organizations...well worth investigating.

[Tizer]

The One Guy forums are a great source of information and advice, and it's also very comforting to have you all giving support. It can be hard these days to get good help when there is so much misinformation and advertising about, designed to worry us into paying out oodles of cash or committing to dodgy contracts etc. Especially for those who are less able due to effects of age or physical or mental health problems. We'll try Wendy's approach to look for a reliable electrician and get a verdict. Thanks for all the help! This topic is bound to help other people in the future with a similar problem.

[Wendyf]

This is the Live at Home Scheme my mum joined. She didn't want to, I had to persuade her that it was a good idea and now I don't think she would manage without it. She attends the lunch club and the gentle exercise class once a week, and is collected & brought home by volunteers. They make sure everyone has smoke & carbon monoxide alarms, and there is a regular newsletter which includes lists of recommended local tradesmen. She has made many friends as well.

[Tizer]

Wendy, I see the scheme is run by Methodist Homes for the Aged (MHA) and that they have homes for elderly people. Do you know if there are restrictions as to religion, belief etc?

[Wendyf]

I don't know about the care homes Tiz, but there are certainly no restrictions on the scheme Mum belongs to.

[Gloria]

An elderly lady we know had central heating put in and the electrician said her electric wiring was in a dreadful state. He told her she should have it done or else her insurance would be invalid if there was a fire caused by the wiring. He wasn't trying to rip her off, the wiring was in from the original build c60yrs ago and she didn't want the mess. She wouldn't have it done along with the central heating "as they wold get in each other's way"!!! She has since had it done.

[Tizer]

That's the sort of thing that I see a lot on the internet Gloria - "Failure to ensure that the premises are electrically safe may invalidate the buildings insurance". But I haven't seen it on the web sites of insurance companies, it's usually on DIY sites and the like so it's difficult to know if it's true or it's one of those urban myths like many of the claims about Elfin Safety.

[Stanley]

Welcome to the site Sonya. I think we need more explanation!

[Marilyn]

....or a translator...
Think she is advocating smoke alarms? ( currently have four 'hard wired' ones in the house thank you ). And I never even burn the toast...

[Pluggy]

I found it late last night, determined it was a Philipino IP address, the post was spam and kicked 'her' out........

Maybe I'm getting a little right wing in my old age.

[Wendyf]

I've deleted the advertising link in the post.

[Stanley]

I thought it was strange but knew you lot would be on it. Nothing to do with being 'right-wing' Pluggy, just sensible. We have a clean site because we don't run a democracy! When in doubt, ban and delete!