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Old 23rd Jan 2023, 9:10 pm   #1
Roger Ramjet
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Default 1960's Rewire tale

The council house we grew up in had very basic electric's i.e. Just lights, wired in VIR & fed by an overhead TT supply that looped from house to house. There were no power sockets but later on the council installed an Eziot self contained immersion heater powered b a new 15A radial. The adjacent copper pipework was bonded to the heater earth terminal via a stranded a bare cable wrapped around each pipe then soldered.

In 68, the council arranged for the house to be rewired. We had 2 x 13A Volex single sockets in the kitchen, 1 x single & 1 x double in the lounge, 1 x single in each bedroom & a 30A cooker point. The immersion heater radial was retained & everything was terminated an a Wylex consumer unit using their 1st generation mcb's. A separate earth rod was installed plus Chiltern Voltage Operated ELCB which as most know would never have worked due to a parallel earth path caused by bonding the water pipe via the 13A socket in the kitchen !

Alas.....

During the rewire, nothing was done to update the TT mains supply which although may have been adequate for just lighting, was insufficient for the new scheme. I seem to recall that the conductor site would be no more than 10mm in today's money & this could be feeding as many has 10 x dwellings.
Supply volt drop problems occurred which often presented on the TV sets at night - by the picture rolling. To prove the case I borrowed a large Avo from the physics lab at school which confirmed the mains voltage to be well below the expected 240V. Next day I rang the EMEB to explain and although they were dubious at first, some time after, the grass verges were dug up & new UG sub mains installed. These terminated on a box outside each house & the original TT overheads were disconnected at the soffit "T"' joint & rerouted to the UG termination. I recall that no supply earth was provided so each house still had to rely on an earth rod.

It was a good outcome and what the tale proves is that in those early day's it was possible for a mere schoolboy to speak with a someone in the energy supply industry and get a result without the usual triage and computer says no responses today.

Rog

Last edited by Roger Ramjet; 23rd Jan 2023 at 9:20 pm. Reason: add word
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Old 23rd Jan 2023, 9:44 pm   #2
Lucien Nunes
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Default Re: 1960's Rewire tale

Quote:
plus Chiltern Voltage Operated ELCB which as most know would never have worked due to a parallel earth path caused by bonding the water pipe
IMO one of the least satisfactory protective devices invented - there are more situations where they don't work than where they do. You've got the choice of not bonding stuff so that the only circuit from the MET is via the VOELCB coil, but then not having a proper equipotential zone; or you bond everything to make a nice safe equipotential but in the process disable the ELCB because part of that equipotential is extraneous in parallel with the coil and its rod. An earth-leakage device that trips when your neighbour has a fault? What were they thinking?

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a Wylex consumer unit using their 1st generation mcb's.
That must have seemed so modern and convenient. No fuses! They weren't great circuit breakers by today's standards (IIRC the 5A one was only rated to break 1kA or M1 as it was called, and the others M2?) But I suspect the design actually pre-dated BS3871:1965 because it was the same mechanism used in the screw-in DIAZED replacements made by Stotz for the European market, where they were somewhat ahead of us in adopting MCBs. I used them on one of the first installations I did, in the early 1980s, but by that time they were getting dated and DIN-rail types were becoming the norm.

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It was a good outcome and what the tale proves is that in those early day's it was possible for a mere schoolboy to speak with a someone in the energy supply industry and get a result without the usual triage and computer says no responses today.
I don't usually have to deal with them but I know what you mean. Unless something is actually on fire or there is a suspected broken PEN (that gets them moving) it can be quite difficult to stir them into action at all, let alone get a problem solved.
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Old 24th Jan 2023, 5:40 pm   #3
60136 Alcazar
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Default Re: 1960's Rewire tale

The fuseboard at my parents' house had, until the early 2000s, cast iron switched fuseboxes with rewireable fuses made by Prento of Leeds, plus a curious varnished wooden box containing two rewireable fuses for the electric doorbell transformer. The supply undertaking terminal box was also an enormous, green cast iron box, with 6mm house cables to the meter (Metrovick, of course). The whole set-up used lead-sheathed twin rubber-insulated cable. Each cable termination had the insulating rubber stripped back an inch, and the lead sheathing stripped back a further inch. Bituminised insulation tape was wrapped around each individual conductor and back over the rubber insulation as far as the end of the lead sheath; the two conductors were then taped up together and the tape wound back tightly over the lead for a further inch. The whole thing was sealed to both air and water as a result, and when finally removed there was no apparent deterioration of the rubber, and no discolouration of the conductors. You could have fetched it up from the Titanic and it would still have been useable!
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Old 24th Jan 2023, 6:08 pm   #4
G6Tanuki
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Default Re: 1960's Rewire tale

Quote:
Originally Posted by Roger Ramjet View Post
The council house we grew up in had very basic electric's i.e. Just lights, wired in VIR & fed by an overhead TT supply that looped from house to house.

Rog
That was a rather common cheap-and-nasty way for the old "electricity boards" to wire up council-houses. There are still some such installations locally; Single-phase, a Lead-sheathed cable runs underground, rises up to one house and terminates in a big cast-iron junction box - now rather rusted - with two separate rubber/fabric-insulated cables emerging and running between houses with 'line taps' for the drops down to each house.

Often up to ten properties fed this way! The people at the far end of the feed must experience rather poor voltage-regulation...
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Old 24th Jan 2023, 8:06 pm   #5
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My grandfathers house, built just postwar, had lead sheathed twin cable with matching junction boxes which clamped the sheath. My garage has a metal CU with those 1st generation mcbs, that I installed in 1980. They are the earlier push button types, but are BS 3871 Pt:1 type B but as Lucien says the 5A one is M1 the others M2 . I think my loop tester read 600A, so not a problem. It does say "STOTZ LICENCE" on them.
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Old 24th Jan 2023, 8:13 pm   #6
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Default Re: 1960's Rewire tale

Where we lived in the early 60s there were 8 terraced houses all fed overhead from a single transformer. We had low voltage problems causing the old b/w tv to have narrow picture and rolling problems at peak demand. My dad suggested I make a record of the mains voltage. He always encouraged me to "dabble".
Using my dad's Taylor multimeter I took readings around every ten minutes and logged them. The lowest being I think 192V. I remember being worried that continual operation of the meter might burn it out!
I wrote a letter, included the results and posted it to East Midlands Electricity Board. I had a reply, and a few months later a new pole mounted transformer was installed.
I was 13 at the time.
The next year, I took the meter plus some tools and a few used valves to school and left them with the deputy head for safe keeping. A dreaded 60+ lady who asked me what I was up to. When I told her, she was flabbergasted! All she could say was "Watch it. Just watch it!" I was quite afraid of her!
After school, our teacher took me as pillion with my kit in a rucksack on my back, back on his scooter to his house to repair his tv. He then delivered me back home.
Rob
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Last edited by CambridgeWorks; 24th Jan 2023 at 8:16 pm. Reason: Typo and addition
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Old 29th Jan 2023, 8:21 pm   #7
RichardGM
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Default Re: 1960's Rewire tale

I have a vague memory from about the late 50's of using a mains transformer which was even then ancient as an autotransformer to boost the voltage to a TV. I don't recall the circumstances but I do remember (and may even still have) the transformer, with screw terminals on top.
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Old 29th Jan 2023, 8:39 pm   #8
mark_in_manc
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Default Re: 1960's Rewire tale

My Polish mate tells tales from home of many flats having a 'box with a knob which clicks around' (I suspect an autotransformer) to feed the telly, depending on what the local heavy industry plant was doing to the supply voltage and whether the telly would show a stable picture. This would be 80s/90s. But then queueing for coal was a thing (to carry upstairs to your flat...) so an unstable telly picture was not your main problem.
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Old 29th Jan 2023, 8:41 pm   #9
paulsherwin
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Default Re: 1960's Rewire tale

MCBs in 1968? My current house was *rewired* with a consumer unit with rewirable fuses in the *late 70s*! It's still in use now and I've never blown one. I have a card of fusewire somewhere.

I do use plug in ELCBs where appropriate.
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Old 29th Jan 2023, 8:51 pm   #10
Roger Ramjet
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Originally Posted by paulsherwin View Post
MCBs in 1968? My current house was *rewired* with a consumer unit with rewirable fuses in the *late 70s*! It's still in use now and I've never blown one. I have a card of fusewire somewhere.

I do use plug in ELCBs where appropriate.
Sure it was 68 Paul....

It was either just after or prior in my last two years at school 1968 to 1969 but definitely before 1970.

Definitely 1st generation Wylex Push Button MCB's, complimented by a Chiltern Voltage Operated ELCB.

Rog

Last edited by Roger Ramjet; 29th Jan 2023 at 9:11 pm. Reason: add words
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Old 30th Jan 2023, 1:10 pm   #11
G6fylneil
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Default Re: 1960's Rewire tale

My house was built in 1980, it and the others on the development were fitted with re-wirable fuses. The only fuse that ever blew was the five amp lighting fuse, and then only when they stopped putting fuses in the lamps. Council houses often had higher standards though. I did add a 30mA RCD to the ring, but it was external, as it was a 4-Module DIN rail type, all that was available at the time. And French. Now I'm looking at AFDDs, it seems you can't win!
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Old 30th Jan 2023, 2:19 pm   #12
kellymarie
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Default Re: 1960's Rewire tale

The council house I grew up in was rewired in around 1980 after a nearby house had a roof fire must have got the council worried because it all happened within a year of the fire. Our houses were built in groups of 2 or 4 with each set of 2 being fed from a single phase 2 wire drop from the overhead feed that went round the estate the feed was split using a brown terminal box not sure if they were metal or porcelain. I remember that at the end of the rewire some of these brown boxes were replaced but only on some houses ours was changed but across the road wasn't. Only difference we had an electric cooker they didn't not sure if that was the reason but it's the only difference. I had a look round the estate and some were changed others not, randomly it seemed to me

Last edited by kellymarie; 30th Jan 2023 at 2:22 pm. Reason: Couple if spelling mistakes
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