strange wires in loft

loopylass81

Depends how old your council house is, but I would suggest that they are the old electrical cables before everything changed.

If the house has been re-wired, more often than not they leave the old cables behind as it's a pain in the bum to strip them all out.

Best bet would be that they are dead, but it would be advisable to trace them as far as you can, or failing that get an electrician to put any doubts to rest.

Loopy Lasses Other Half.

Scratch all of that, all I got was that you didn't know what the wiring was, and not being one to nose, I didn't read the rest of the thread.

It's more than likely a not very cost effective form of loft insulation. If you can rip it out though, I'm sure the copper can be cashed in

Steve.

mark46327

Ceiling heating perhaps?

See http://www.cbsheating.com/radiant-ceiling-heating.php and http://www.flexel.co.uk/heatingelement.html.


Mark.

HugoSP

I would agree with Mark above and would put money on it being ceiling heating panels.

They were deployed in the late 70's and early 80's. The school I went to had them. We were all puzzled that heating elements should be put into the ceiling but infact they work primarily on radiation, as opposed to convection or conduction. Radiation can go in all directions and the insulation lying over it would prevent or reduce heat loss into the roofspace.

Remember, gas or oil fired CH was seen as expensive at the time. This was a really quick and cheap way to install heating that didn't need a plumber. It just needed someone who could connect wires together - no Part P in the 80's .

If you want to take it out, isolate the circuit, test it to make sure it's dead and simply remove them and replace the insulation, or contact Warmfront for a grant to do this for you!

arkonite_babe

Thanks to all for the replies

We have discovered that the strange stuff in question is indeed ceiling heating pads.

The suggestions certainly made interesting reading anyways

never_enough

We were most bemused when we bought an ex council flat & found out it had ceiling heating. We never used ours but downstairs did, was like having underfloor heating for us & the cat loved it!!

ormus

only the second one ive ever seen!
heaters in the roofspace, no wonder it wasnt popular!