Outdated electrics??

Simonon77

Section62 said:

Simonon77 said:

Risteard said:

Jonboy_1984 said:

Rewiring may well be the best option.

Yes, for an electrician... 

To the OP, yes it would definitely benefit from having a modern consumer unit fitted for added safety, but as long as the electrics are all working fine and safe then there is no reason to rewire the whole house. If you are planning on doing work on the house, need more sockets etc.. you can just update the wiring on rooms as and when needed. 

There are loads of older properties in the UK that haven't been rewired and are perfectly fine

I suspect where Risteard is coming from is that to achieve a compliant installation anyone is going to have to do rather more than just wire in a new consumer unit to replace the existing.

It is also questionable whether there would be "added safety" without carrying out a full rewire.  For example, with so few circuits then replacing the existing fuses with RCBO/RCD protection would create a new risk of a minor fault causing a disproportionate amount of the installation tripping out.  With (for example) lighting circuits tripping off, there is a risk of falls or other personal injury accidents which leaves the installation (overall) less "safe" than it currently is.  The circuits need sorting out and splitting appropriately - in accordance with the current regs... which in practical terms probably means a full rewire.

Risteard is an electrician, so he always tells people they need the maximum doing at a high price without taking into account their budgets.

We don't know the size of the property, so having a single lighting circuit may be perfectly adequate for now. If its a small 2 bed  then a single lighting circuit is quite common without the occupants constantly injuring themselves

Also looking at the current fuse box it looks like it has two ring mains for the sockets ( 2x 15A ) and a 30A possibly for a cooker. 

It would depend on how many sockets are in the property, but again, having 2 ring mains ( one for upstairs and one for downstairs ) is quite common, and saying a house needs a complete rewire just to be safer isn't true.

Ectophile

FreeBear said:

Section62 said: I also suspect that a request to have a smart meter will result in the identification of the meter tails as being inadequate, followed by a refusal to do anything more until a modern CU and adequate meter tails have been fitted by a qualified electrician.

Looks like 16mm² tails - More than adequate if there is a 60A main fuse.

Had my meter changed last month, and I have 16mm² tails (along with a 60A fuse). The fitter said nothing about the cable being inadequate. He also fitted an isolator switch free of charge

The tails from the meter to the fusebox look remarkably thin to me.  If they are 16mm² then that's probably fine, even if 25mm² is now the standard.  But are they really that big, and are they insulated & sheathed as they should be?

LurkingAgain

Thanks everyone,  good to know it looks scarier than it is. Yes the house does need work on it, but it's had a recent new boiler installed. So windows and electrics are a priority. 

Offer on the house now gone in.

Thanks again

Section62

Ectophile said:

FreeBear said:

Section62 said: I also suspect that a request to have a smart meter will result in the identification of the meter tails as being inadequate, followed by a refusal to do anything more until a modern CU and adequate meter tails have been fitted by a qualified electrician.

Looks like 16mm² tails - More than adequate if there is a 60A main fuse.

Had my meter changed last month, and I have 16mm² tails (along with a 60A fuse). The fitter said nothing about the cable being inadequate. He also fitted an isolator switch free of charge

The tails from the meter to the fusebox look remarkably thin to me.  If they are 16mm² then that's probably fine, even if 25mm² is now the standard.  But are they really that big, and are they insulated & sheathed as they should be?

Difficult to tell from a picture, but I was comparing the size with the bonding cable which looks about the same.  My guess is that is no more than 10mm2, some of it possibly 6mm2 or less.

I'd be surprised if an installation which looks that old had 16mm2 bonding.

At a guess I think the meter tails might have been stripped out of a length of T&E the electrician had handy... so likely to be inadequate by modern standards.

Section62

Simonon77 said:

Section62 said:

Simonon77 said:

Risteard said:

Jonboy_1984 said:

Rewiring may well be the best option.

Yes, for an electrician... 

To the OP, yes it would definitely benefit from having a modern consumer unit fitted for added safety, but as long as the electrics are all working fine and safe then there is no reason to rewire the whole house. If you are planning on doing work on the house, need more sockets etc.. you can just update the wiring on rooms as and when needed. 

There are loads of older properties in the UK that haven't been rewired and are perfectly fine

I suspect where Risteard is coming from is that to achieve a compliant installation anyone is going to have to do rather more than just wire in a new consumer unit to replace the existing.

It is also questionable whether there would be "added safety" without carrying out a full rewire.  For example, with so few circuits then replacing the existing fuses with RCBO/RCD protection would create a new risk of a minor fault causing a disproportionate amount of the installation tripping out.  With (for example) lighting circuits tripping off, there is a risk of falls or other personal injury accidents which leaves the installation (overall) less "safe" than it currently is.  The circuits need sorting out and splitting appropriately - in accordance with the current regs... which in practical terms probably means a full rewire.

Risteard is an electrician, so he always tells people they need the maximum doing at a high price without taking into account their budgets.

I think if someone is considering buying a property it isn't unreasonable to suggest they might need to budget for a full rewire - better that a professional gives a worst-case view, rather than underestimating what the buyer may need to pay to put things in order.

Personally I'm skeptical there is much point spending money replacing the CU without doing substantial work on the rest of the system.  I'm doubtful the age of the CU by itself is the thing in that installation which poses the greatest risk... but a professional inspection/report is the only way the OP can know for sure.

Simonon77 said:

We don't know the size of the property, so having a single lighting circuit may be perfectly adequate for now. If its a small 2 bed  then a single lighting circuit is quite common without the occupants constantly injuring themselves

Also looking at the current fuse box it looks like it has two ring mains for the sockets ( 2x 15A ) and a 30A possibly for a cooker. 

It would depend on how many sockets are in the property, but again, having 2 ring mains ( one for upstairs and one for downstairs ) is quite common, and saying a house needs a complete rewire just to be safer isn't true.

I think we might be talking at crossed purposes.

My point was that "having a modern consumer unit fitted" won't necessarily provide "added safety" without significantly more work being done on the installation.

There's more to safety than protection from electric shock - I gave the lighting example because one of the advantages of the modern approach to consumer units is splitting the loads (including lighting) across separate protection devices so a fault in one part of the installation won't shut everything (including lights) off.  Achieving that "added safety" is conditional on having an installation which permits the additional protection to function in a safe way.

Having known someone who passed away as a result of complications following a fall at home when all their lights tripped out, I personally would encourage people to consider splitting their lighting circuits no matter how small the property is.  It doesn't cost that much to do in the context of home ownership, and it may help you avoid a nasty accident.

FFHillbilly

the cutout is leaking it's pitch, your DNO will replace that for free as a non priority job if you report it to them

as for the rest of it, get an EICR done first and see what it says. because there's no RCD protection from the consumer unit, you can't just add to it if you want extra socket/lights/circuits so bare minimum would be a new consumer unit.
depending on how much you want to add, full rewire might be better value for money 

GDB2222

"Risteard is an electrician, so he always tells people they need the maximum doing at a high price without taking into account their budgets."

That's rather unfair. This looks like a 50+ year old electrical installation, and it's probably sensible to budget for a complete re-wire at some time, with all the making good that goes with that. It would be sensible to get that done before moving in, as a rewire is highly disruptive. 

Section62

Simonon77 said:

Section62 said:

Also looking at the current fuse box it looks like it has two ring mains for the sockets ( 2x 15A ) and a 30A possibly for a cooker. 

It would depend on how many sockets are in the property, but again, having 2 ring mains ( one for upstairs and one for downstairs ) is quite common, and saying a house needs a complete rewire just to be safer isn't true.

I forgot to comment on this point - the commonly used fuse rating for a ring main would have been 30A rather than 15A.  The use of 15A fuses in this case may point to the possibility of radial circuits, or possibly a ring using undersized cable.  Something which needs checking out.

There's also the issue of the 30A Switchfuse and what that does, given the absence of the fuseholder.

Risteard

FreeBear said:

silvercar said: It shouldn't take much persuasion for the supplier to swap the meter out for a  smart meter, at which point they may notify the DNO that  the Siemens unit needs looking at (I haven't got a clue, but the brown gunky stuff doesn't look too good).

an isolator ... is needed if you ever get an electric vehicle charging point.

No it isn't.

Risteard

Section62 said:

Simonon77 said:

Risteard said:

Jonboy_1984 said:

Rewiring may well be the best option.

Yes, for an electrician... 

To the OP, yes it would definitely benefit from having a modern consumer unit fitted for added safety, but as long as the electrics are all working fine and safe then there is no reason to rewire the whole house. If you are planning on doing work on the house, need more sockets etc.. you can just update the wiring on rooms as and when needed. 

There are loads of older properties in the UK that haven't been rewired and are perfectly fine

I suspect where Risteard is coming from is that to achieve a compliant installation anyone is going to have to do rather more than just wire in a new consumer unit to replace the existing.

It is also questionable whether there would be "added safety" without carrying out a full rewire.  For example, with so few circuits then replacing the existing fuses with RCBO/RCD protection would create a new risk of a minor fault causing a disproportionate amount of the installation tripping out.  With (for example) lighting circuits tripping off, there is a risk of falls or other personal injury accidents which leaves the installation (overall) less "safe" than it currently is.  The circuits need sorting out and splitting appropriately - in accordance with the current regs... which in practical terms probably means a full rewire.

It's fairly likely that there's unearthed lighting circuits in that era of installation as well, and possibly borrowed neutrals. The insulation resistance of the electrical installation probably isn't good, and I would not be surprised if main protective bonding is either non-existant or inadequate. There really are likely to be a plethora of issues with the installation, in addition to inadequate numbers of socket-outlets etc. Really I would suspect that it is likely to be at the end of its serviceable life.