Rewring the house

I've just replaced some sockets in the house which were very old, they had acceint 1960's back boxes on them as well which I replaced and put rubber gormets in the wholes and insultation in the earth wires.

The house was rewired in 1980 and the cable is modern PVC stuff, it all seems fine and like new. So apart from things like fittings and fuse boxes is their any point on re-wiring houses with modern PVC wiring?

Or is it just houses with older rubber type cable that tend to get re-wired?

 

AT

House rewires happen for many reasons.
TBH there is not a lot wrong with the old rubber insulated cables, so long as the are not damaged or perished.
When i was an apprentice we would quite often find old cloth insulated cables as we were re-wiring.
Unless you have problems or a specific need to re-were i would leave alone.
I would also strongly recomend against doing it yourself.

 

Yeah thanks I had no intention of doing it myself. I just wondered what the average life expency of modern wiring was. There is nothing wrong with the wiring, a fuse hasn't not blown since it was re-wired 24 years ago.

The main problem with this house is just lack of plug sockets (though I am slowly adding more) and the fact cheap fittings were used but they are easily replaced.

I don't think I've ever seen cloth insultated wires except old irons. Was this like pre 1950's?

 

wether it needs rewiring or not depends on numours factors,layout of circuits,earth bonding,type of fuses and earth trips fitted ect ect.A good clue is to remove a light switch and se if its got an earth wire.Also check under the kitchen sink, in the bathroom,and airing cuboard,all the pipe work should be connected together with earth wire,and there should be a largish earth wire close to the water stop cock and gas pipe just after the meter
if your adding extra sockets it might be better to have to new ring final circuits installed,if youve floor boards up and downstairs then its a fairly easy job.id recomemed a ring for upstairs,a ring downstairs and a seprate ring for the kitchen,also its worth putting an rcd to protect these circuits,but then its advisable to put a dedicated socket to power the fridge and freezer thats not protected by an rcd(but it must be labled "not for use outdoors")
As for older rubber cables,and early pvc it often had aluminium conductors,these can cause corrosion if mixed with brass,and have a lower current rating,also they often didnt have an earth.
finally as for the lifespan of pvc insulated cables,who long is a bit of string?

 

fitting n RCD to old circuits

 

and why not?
i actually ment fitting one as part of the installation of new rings

 

ah right
i thought you meant the other, i was reffering to the PITA of tracing neutral to earth faults after fitting

 

It does have earth everything is earthed but its not connected to the back boxes, I've connected this up to the new sockets, replacement sockets. I've only added two sockets so it should be ok not been on a seperate spur, the kitchen sockets are on the old electric cooker circurt with the correct fuse rating.

The earth is just attached to the main water main pipe but no where else

EDIT: the electric cooker cirtcuit has no electric cooker connected and there is a standard socket in place of the old cooker socket.