Quick help needed! - New Fuse Box???

Money_saving_maniac

Yes 70's wiring is on borrowed time. If you can afford it don't just get a new fusebox, rewire the house at the same time.

keith969

There is a lot of FUD about the lifetime of mains pvc cable. The IET published data on cable lifetime, and at an operating temperature of 70C the figures are 23 years continuous or 69 years at 8 hrs/day.

70C is pretty hot, and lifetime is exponentially dependent on temperature, for example for a 8C rise the lifetime roughly halves; conversely for a 8C fall it roughly doubles.

So quoting figures like 40 years is meaningless.

Risteard

keith969 wrote: »

So quoting figures like 40 years is meaningless.

I said it is generally considered to be around that. I never claimed there was any absolute value.

As you rightly point out overloading cables dramatically reduces their lifespan. However in a typical domestic installation cables are never heavily loaded for long periods, and as such should not be operating at high temperatures.

It was made clear that the best way to assess the condition of the wiring is through periodic inspection and testing, culminating in the production of an Electrical Installation Condition Report.

It should be remembered however that the testing only supplements the inspection. The inspection with all the senses is the most important part of the process. If you can see that a cable is damaged but it happens to test out fine with a meter then it is still damaged and unacceptable!

I would suggest the use of an NICEIC Approved Contractor for producing an EICR.