Another electrical question

My electrician has covid just now and will be rewiring the stables in the coming months, we have only ever used the lights in the building not the plugs, we want to put a chest freezer in there so I had a look at the fuse panel, now I usually never touch electrics or gas but does the wiring look right in the pictures below, like everything on the farm it looks jury rigged, can I use the plugs or not.
The lights are the 10 amp, the plugs the 16 amp.


Iā€™m not an electrician, but these are just ( single pole) fuses and it looks like you have blue wires (always only ever neutral) connected to red and black (live/phase) cables . Decidedly dodgy IMO

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Good Grief! Never mind the connections, what about the wildlife?!

A small bird has foolishly thought to make a home in the hole where cables disappear. The mortal remains are still there - and thereā€™s a tag on one of its legs!

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:laughing::laughing: all hovered out and cleaned up now.

It may well ā€˜workā€™ now - if it did before then itā€™s likely to continue. Safe? Probably not, but electricity doesnā€™t care about the colour of the wire it runs through.

Whatā€™s it fed from? Main house tableau or straight off the EDF box?

A trip on the new Main house tableau, the cottage was totally rewired 5 years ago and a new cable run to a dist box for the stables, the stables are getting done when we do the loft conversion, up until now there has only been two led lights used in the stables.

Itā€™s RCD protected then ā€¦ So it canā€™t kill you. Iā€™ve seen a lot worse ā€¦ Fed via the RCD it will be safe for people - functional is a different question.

It is a pretty simple fix to bung a small secondary tableau in

Itā€™s old and done roughly - itā€™s not unsafe per se itā€™s not ideal but equally once you
add your RCD in ā€¦ Iā€™d have plugged stuff in without thinking.

Well the cabling colour choice is clearly a mess, and the cable clamp screws are live with power which is why they would normally be covered by a plastic housing. The cable itself does seem to be of sufficient thickness to carry a reasonable load, and so as long as you donā€™t touch the cable clamp screws, or allow the fuses to be exposed to water, then it should be reasonably safe to use.

There is a cover to go over it, i have started to do the interior door knock throughs and hope to get the lintels in tomorrow, then we go back to Scotland for two weeks and then get married when we come back home, so the new roof timbers and tiles will have to wait a month.
Everything electrical will be ripped out and the walls raggled to do away with all the trunking (my pet hate) then the rewiring done once my electrician is fit and well.
I could write a book on the 1001 bodges done by the farmer here :roll_eyes::grin:

I wonder if there has been an attempt to fuse both live and neutral. I wouldnā€™t touch that lot with a barge-pole until sorted.

I donā€™t see an RCD either.

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RCD protection does not mean that an installation canā€™t kill you, it just removes one potential way that faulty appliances can try.

Whether a cable coming over from the house carrying earth is reliable will depend whether the main installation earthing is compliant and the distance from the main tableau. Given the French penchant for TT earthing and the fact that, given enough distance and fault current, there might be a large potential difference between house ground and stable ground, it would probably be better to run some 16mm2 from the house for L+N, to a sub-tableau in the stable with a main RCB and then a breaker for each of sockets and lights (or main switch and RCBO for each circuit), with a local earth stake in the stables.

@badger is the person to ask.

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The earth spikes and cables were all renewed 5 years ago including the one in the stables and checked at the end of last year, the ones that were there were either rusted or barely connected, everything bar the stables and one of the outhouses was ripped out and replaced, most of it cloth covered cable with tared cloth wrappings on bundles of cables.

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Wow, I wonder when that lot went in.

That would be a serious supply size for an outbuilding, unless itā€™s very distant & volt drop is a concern.
Unless the tableau divisionnaire is very distant itā€™s better to continue the main installation earth to it i.e. P+N+T cable, but thereā€™s no harm is also spiking the remote tableau too (which eliminates the chance of the potential difference you mention). The main installation earth must still be under the 100Ī© maximum allowed i.e. the additional spike cannot be included in the reading.

I havenā€™t seen wiring like that since the original 1930s stuff was ripped out of my parentā€™s house in the early 2000s.

I guess youā€™re right - though, somehow, ā€œstablesā€ does make it feel that they are at some distance from the house. Future proof though :slight_smile:

Do you mind if I PM you with a couple of earthing questions?

@badger . Does the wiring look ok to use for 6 weeks with a chest freezer until after the wedding and I can get it rewired, thanks.

Fire away.

With the sort of wiring in the photo this is a very apt comment.

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