Yes when we rewired in the 70s the old cable was mostly rubber with a kind
of fabric on the outside. The cooker supply here is aluminium wire, and it
seems to be pretty good, still, but of course dates back to the 60s, and was
merely moved to the new CU when the rewiring was done. I've never bothered
with another CU to bring it all up to date, since it seems pretty pointless
these days.
Brian

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The Sofa of Brian Gaff...

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"newshound" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 06/07/2019 17:03, ARW wrote:
Steel braided PVC cables found in an Airey house.

http://wiki.diyfaq.org.uk/index.php/...aireyhouse.jpg

Possibly never intended for domestic use and may have been used in pits
and quarries is one suggestion I have had. The cables cores are stranded
copper and the imperial equivalent of 1mm.

Anyone seen it before?


Is that a wire braid outside? The insulation looks a bit like rubber
rather than PVC, which suggests it might be pre-WW2?

"In the 1930's the first trials with PVC insulations were being made in
Germany and by the end of the second world war there were significant
varieties of synthetic rubbers and polyethylene.

By the 1950's PVC was commercially viable and replaced rubber cables in
many areas particularly in domestic wiring, aluminium was also starting to
be used widely as an alternative conductor"

https://www.elandcables.com/the-cabl...ctrical-cables