48 Year Old Fault

[sparkytim]

Had a little job today, installing Class 1 light fitting at a mid 60s built dwelling, no CPC on lighting circuits.

Ran a 4mm 6491x from C Unit to the new light fitting, proved continuity with wander lead R2, but then on doing a polarity check found it was reversed. Checked at other light fittings to find the same.  The circuit was wired in singles L looped at switches, N at Light fittings, except that at first switch I found 2 Reds and a Black and at first Light 2 Reds and 1 black.

So what had the original sparky done here in 1965?

 

[NozSpark]

Surely if he'd looped at the switch in singles then he should have used 3 x red conductors.....

 

[ProDave]

in 1965 the test procedure was probably:

Turn the power on. Does the fuse blow?  No. Check.

Do the lights work? Yes. Check.

Job done.

 

[sparkytim]

Thats what it should have been Noz

Only if the Meter had been fitted by then Dave

 

[Andy™]

in 1965 the test procedure was probably:

Turn the power on. Does the fuse blow?  No. Check.

Do the lights work? Yes. Check.

Job done.

not much changed today

 

[sprocketflup]

in 1965 the test procedure was probably:

Turn the power on. Does the fuse blow?  No. Check.

Do the lights work? Yes. Check.

Job done.

Deke'll know

 

[kerching]

I can only ( with any certainty ) go back to the 70s when a PIR/EICR was a single sided sheet of A5......and that was too much work!

 

[Pete10001]

Single red + cpc to all the switches, single black + cpc to all the lights, ignoring 2ways single red as sw wires, in this case the sparky used a single black as a sw wire

 

[sparkytim]

No Cpcs, (Pre 1966 standard)

What he had done is take the Red L from the Consumer Unit to the first light (instead of the N) and Black N to first switch (instead of the Red) but then correct colours from there onwards. So whole circuit was reverse polarity. New Consumer Unit fitted and light fitting changed 5 years ago but not picked up.

Simple fix, over sleeve at light, switch + Consumer Unit and reverse L and N at C Unit.

 

[Evans Electric]

Deke'll know

Nothing was tested in the '60s  other than meggering pyros .  Not a joke I promise. Always look the other way when inserting the fuse, still do it  now TBH.

Ze   Zs  R1 +R2  etc  totally unheard of .

Never saw RCDs   just the occasional  ELCB  Voltage operated.

The only MCBs were C/tree C50s

Testers consisted of a Bellset   (doorbell /battery/two leads )  a neon , test lamps were a lampholder & 15w lamp  ...3 ph was two lampholders in series.

Well off Sparks would have the trusty Drummond testers.  

Also no percussion  drills  .

Much punching fixing holes out with the dreaded Rawlplug Tool jumper bit jobby .  An inch & half  X No 8 fixing could take 10mins to plug out by hand.

The cost of replacing a rule was a major setback to the average , poorly paid spark , with a Stanley rule costing £5  and take home pay  £ 25.00  ( Non metric)

 

[ProDave]

So what year did the wind up megger make it's appearance, because they were around when I was a lad.

 

[batty]

When I trained end of 70's early 80's my old boss had a wind up megger. Probably had it a long time to. 

 

[NozSpark]

I remember them while I was an apprentice with the MOD,,, and that was 1987... I don't remember using them for long though

 

[kerching]

Back in the day we had a large electrical retail outlet.....largest for about 100 miles.

if we had a particularly hard wall that the single speed back handled wolf drill could not tackle, then we used to take a black and decker drill out of the shop window, wrap it in a plastic bag to keep,the dust off, drill the hole then put the drill back in the window!

I kid you not!

 

[Evans Electric]

This will sound supid now but true.

As an apprentice with a large contracting firm in the Midlands , we were working on a multi storey carpark in the city .  Typically all concrete , miles of steel conduit for the lighting , the modus operandi was twanging a long chalkline then a line of sparks & apprentums sitting on the top of steps with a plugging tool & hammer , banging away at fixing holes for the saddles  for days on end .

Then one day a raucus da-da-da-da- da sound was heard from the upper levels and on investigation , the sprinkler system guys had started and were using the first percussion drills we had seen ,  Hilti I think.  One fixing hole was taking us 10 - 15 mins and most had reduced to 1" X 8  while the pipefitters had a pipe bracket on the ceiling  in about 1 minute flat. 

It was a big wake up call for the firm I remember .    I think back then , labour was cheap and materials were expensive specially when you consider that nearly every Sparks had an apprentice with him .  

 

[Pete10001]

Still got my wind up Megger give one hell of a belt

 

[binky]

talking of old faults, we changed a CU on a house that basically never had a main fuse fitted - bit of wire in holder and all old seals intact (til we got there)

 

[Steve3948]

When I started in the early 70's my job as apprentice was to drill all the holes in the joist with a hand auger, it used to take me all day to do one house, with 3 holes down each side in each room.

We got behind on site so the firm got a subby in who had a Generator and a Wolf drill, he drilled one house in an hour, so I asked the boss if he could drill all those that were ready, he agreed, mind you my arms were huge then now they are like twigs.

The boss was so impressed with the generator and drill they went and bought them, I then got demoted to chopping in boxes and fitting.

I always found the rawlplug jumper was quicker than the hand drill.