Electric cable

asp746

some of you may remember late last year i had unwittingly given a rogue electrician to rewire my house that ended up in me 'ejecting' him and getting someone else to patch his mess up. Well.....

After the proper sparky had gone, i noticed a few loose floorboards upstairs so went about nailing them down. I lifted them slightly to look underneath and socket cables where threaded through the joist - apart from one rogue one that was lying right next to a water pipe that gets hot when the central heating is on. I phoned the sparky up and he came out and said he needed to chisel a bit of joist out so the wire would be bedded into it and thus not next to a red hot pipe. I've since put the floorboard over it but I'm still not convinced that it's been done properly and....i've noticed another cable in another room again, just lain over a joist right next to a hot waterpipe with the floorboard put directly over it - i'm worried about anyone nailing the floor and being frazzled. I'm not sure if the sparky was just after a quick fix by doing it like he did or couldn't be bothered drilling thru the joist (there wasn't room for it in hole already there accommodating about 4 wires - hence it just draped over joist - had it been underneath the joist i'd not have bothered or noticed it was potentially dangerous.

i know its there but i am concerned about others who may own the house after me. Shouldn't this wire be drilled through the joist or is it ok to leave it like it is? The wire is definitely socket wire and not for light fittings.

Urgent response required as i've got to put new flooring down and need it sorting one way or another. Thanks

ukwoody

The wires should indeed be fed thru a hole drilled into the joist. You can chiesel out the top and lay a cable in there, but it needs to be covered by a thick metal plate to stop nails hitting it. If doing that, it should also be in the middle of the floorboard width ie on a 6" floor board, 3" in from each side.
No cable should just be laid over the top of the joist, the floor board will crush the cable possibly causing overheating and possibly also break the wire. Those are fundamental sparky requirements that every sparks (and indeed most other tradesmen) know.

Proper sparkes may be able to advise abetter solution, but I have created a channel in the top of the joist before now, then sunk a metal plate that is used to join kitchen cupbaord doors together (about 4mm thick steel, 2" wide and 4" long) into the top of the joist finishing flush with the top so it can be boarded over.

I am not recommending that method, please await the advice of a Sparks, but it may be a way to get over the problem.

Woody