Thread: Basic home wiring

pedro the swift
I agree.
When our place was built there was heaps of spare wire sticking out the wall and along came the sparkie and cut most off before mounting the sockets. ?????

I am not a sparkie but a tech officer from electronics.
Was legally allowed to do any mains wiring at work but not at home??????

Originally Posted by pedro the swift

Why is is it that every time I open up a power point or light fitting there is NEVER enought slack cable to easily remake a connection or add another.
Cheers

Couldn't agree more its a real PITA :mad:

There's probably one power point in the house that has all the slack. The sparky has gone around doing his fitout with a nice bit of slack at each point, but as he does the next one in the chain, he yanks on the cable a bit to get more slack and so on. The last one he did has all the slack

Actually, it can be a real pain to install a point if there's too much slack because you have to shove half a metre of cable into the cavity as well, especially if there's a loop or two as well. Not that I've ever tried it myself you understand

Originally Posted by pedro the swift

Working in the industrial scene as I do we always allow enough spare cable to remake connections.
Its aways a pain to have to struggle to make power point connections with an inch of slack hanging out of the wall or light fitting and wondering if the wire is going to break off and leave you with no connection at all. And by th eway I positively detest single core wiring. Give me stranded stuff any time.

I'm with you Pedro. Somewhere along the way in industrial, there's enough slack in the wiring for re-terminations.
Naturally, I wired my house and made sure all the GPO's (all 67 of them) had about 400mm slack in the wall for future hassle-free mods.
As far as single core goes, I'm in the "detest it" boat as well. I'm surprised that it's still made because of the poor workability.

Originally Posted by pedro the swift

Well, didn't this open a can of worms.
I have just one question for any sparky's here(as a sparky myself).
Why is is it that every time I open up a power point or light fitting there is NEVER enough slack cable to easily remake a connection or add another.
Surely it doesn't add any more cost to allow a few extra inches(mm) of cable to allow for future reconnection/additions.
Working in the industrial scene as I do we always allow enough spare cable to remake connections.
Its aways a pain to have to struggle to make power point connections with an inch of slack hanging out of the wall or light fitting and wondering if the wire is going to break off and leave you with no connection at all. And by the way I positively detest single core wiring. Give me stranded stuff any time.

Cheers

That's interesting Pedro my business partner the electrical contractor always with out fail would put a loop of slack at every point in an installation as well as in the back of the switch board. His argument was that you never know when you will have to come back and extend an installation.

The newer cable today has thinner white thermoplastic on it and is much easier to push it back into the wall.

When I built my house because it was steel frame the council made me put those black plastic shrouds on the back of all GPO's and switch plates and I had one six gang switch plate which included 3 x 2way switches as well as the 3 single switches in it and I had the lights wired in 1.5mm2 cable and with the old white thermoplastic in the double insulation. It really caused me some angst in getting it back into the wall. That was 12 individual cables going into the back of the shroud and into the switch mechanisms

Pedro,
sparky mate told me how the bloke he did his time under used to work out exactly how much cable was required for each run and then cut it slightly shorter:eek: . The blokes were supposed to somehow make it reach, all to save a few cents in copper. Domestic work is usually pretty tight, profit-wise so sparkys do tend to leave really short tails. Working on commercial it's a different story, I took home enough long off cuts to rewire a transportable building.

Mick

Hey people, check out the ads at the top of the page, this is how it all started!! Great thread by the way.
Cheers!!

Originally Posted by Border boy

Hey people, check out the ads at the top of the page, this is how it all started!! Great thread by the way.
Cheers!!

How did that happen? Is someone watching? I knew the disclaimers would be a bit dodgy.

Jeeez...... wirecutters, alligator clips, screwdriver.... merlot, empty cans.... woaaaa!
Gone!

Is this the Friday thread in some alternate universe? :confused:

I see the electrical ads disappeared already.... they must have figured out that the contributors were all deranged - not likely customers for structured cabling design etc... Oh, we are mortally wounded by this!

My sister is buried at Mt Gravat, her boyfriend did her wiring.
Get an electrician if you do not know how to do. it it is too late when someone is dead

Sorry to hear that mate.