In message , charles
writes
In article sting.com,
Sailor wrote:
Andrew Gabriel wrote


A heads-up that Amendment 3 to the wiring regs (due in January)
will require
home consumer units to be made of a non-combustable material (i.e. metal),
or to be enclosed in a non-combustable enclosure. This follows a five fold
increase in 5 years of house fires starting in plastic consumer units,
often under the stairs, which are usually the only escape route. This
applies to any other switchgear too, not just the CU.

The new requirement will be delayed until January 2016, to allow
manufacturers time to produce metal consumer units in sufficient numbers.

Pleased to say I always throught the thermosoftening plastic CU's were a
liability and I have fitted commercial metal ones when I've replaced CU's
over the last ~15 years.


I had my lecci meter changed today. The electrician had come from a
house where he he'd refused to change the meter. He'd looked at the
circuits connected to it and discovered the T&E were lead sheathed. It
appeared much of the house was the same.

When we moved into this house (1977) there was still some lead sheathed
lighting cabling. The insulation had statrted to go, since the outer was
live!


In our old house we had one length of lead sheathed cable IIRC under the
floor.. Removed when I rewired the kitchen IIRC. It was ok, but the
rubber insulation would have been dodgy once moved.

More worrying was the lighting wiring. It still had the original 1930's
wiring - rubber sheathed singles in narrow metal conduit. In the loft I
found choc blocks where more modern additions had been made. The choc
blocks where not in nay enclosure, or even wrapped in tape. In one the
cable had become loose, and I found it happily sparking away. Felt quite
lucky not to have had a fire.
--
Chris French