Welcome to the third episode of the adventures of the Polish Electricians in UK
Man oh man, what a fantastic surprise regarding all the subscriptions and thumbs up this channel received over the last few weeks
I genuinely thought nobody was watching it,
and then one morning I get up and suddenly we have dozens, then hundreds, then the first thousand viewers.
What an amazing feeling.
I am glad that you found a little bit of time for us and please visit the channel more often,
I'll bore you a little, we'll drink some tea
me at my own home, you at yours, and yet together.
Today I would like to take you on a journey through time and share a local old wives' tale.
There is a legend among local masters of the trade that when an electrician opens a prehistoric fuse box
in a complete silence, alone, somewhere under the stairs, and he listens well,
then from the inside of the old enclosure, and through the aged cables one may still hear fragments of sounds and music captured inside of it all those years ago.
Maybe we will overhear something interesting?
They call me Regan and you came across the Resistance channel.
I shall see you right after this:
The Resistance presents: Polish Electrican In UK
Episode 3: Fuse boxes and cables of the 20th Centrury
Welcome back
In the UK, "skrzynka beczpiecznikowa" is called a fuse box,
while the more modern, extended version of the fuse box is called "a consumer unit"
So in UK the name for a "modern fuse box" is more adequate to that of a shopper in a mall.
[on the screen: Walt - a consumer unit (with wife)]
The term "distribution board" is used mainly to describe three phase industrial electric panels
Flat three-wire installation cables for domestic wiring are commonly called "twin & earth",
(translates with a picture of twins from an old Polish movie and.. well.. a picture of the Earth )
But the odd thing about the cable is that since the dawn of time,
the circuit protective conductor inside is manufactured without the secondary insulation or sleeving.
I'll expand on why this is the case and why it's a logical decision in around two episodes.
I bet you wonder if we leave the CPC so naked inside junction boxes and sockets?
No we don't
It gets much funnier:
after peeling the cable off the external insulation,
we dress our CPC in West Bromwich away shirts, which every British electrician always carries with them.
That said however - due to the fact that the circuit protective conductor has no additional PVC sheath
and can dissipate temperature faster upon overheating,
The CP conductor in UK has a smaller cross-sectional area than the line or neutral conductors.
In a typical flat cable with a cross-sectional area of 2.5mm2 according to today's standards - the CPC is only 1.5mm squared.
What's more interesting - flat cables imported from mainland continent,
fully double-sheathed and CPC with a larger cross-sectional area,
do not meet the standards and are not approved for use in fixed wiring installations.
In contrast - flexible round cables in the UK are practically identical to European ones, with all cores fully insulated and equal CSA.
We'll start our journey in time in the 40ies of the last century
What will we hear after carefully lifting the lid?
[faint polish folk music]
Sound somewhat familiar....
The forties were the times of mass electrification of Great Britain.
Gas lighting from the 1920s and 1930s is being exchanged for the electric
and terraced streets of towns and cities get connected to the mains via network of underground cables, yes, the ones in paper insulation from the previous episode.
The service heads and some fuse boxes installed at home are made of cast iron
while home installations are protected with fuses made of wire manually wound on porcelain inlays.
Many fuse boxes on the market at that time still have wooden casings, often painted with paints discounted by the defense industry after the war.
Many cast iron incomers from that time house 30A amp fuses for the entire property
and often feature an additional fuse for the neutral wire.
All such service cut outs are currently being replaced as an utmost priority
Main earthing in those days was either a very early of TN-S system where the earth is delivered via metal protective tape on the main cable,
or a TT system - where the means of earthing is served by a rod driven by the electrician in the ground near the property or through the soft flooring of the basement.
The main earth conductor in such scenarios was not insulated or sheathed.
The earthing in most cases was only provided to the fuse box, while the cables going around the property usually did not have any protective conductor.
While the tails from the head to the fuse box in most cases had copper cores,
the wiring around the house consisted mostly of single wires made of multi-stranded aluminum insulated with rubber and wrapped in cotton sleeving or a system of double waxed fabrics.
As electricians - we still find cast-iron service heads with 30 amp fuses and also cast iron fuse boxes
But I hope I don't have to explain to anyone that all elements of such an installation do not currently meet any certifiable safety standards.
And if, while renovating your home, you discover any energized cast iron switchgear, wires in fabric sleeving or porcelain junction boxes,
then all circuits with such archeological finds require immediate and full rewire,
and under no circumstances should you be trying to move or touch them in an energized state.
The materials used for their production are past their most optimistic "best by" predictions by about sixty years
and the rubber insulation in most cases will literally crumble apart in your hands.
Here is a typical fuse box from the 1950s.
What acoustic memories are hidden inside?
[an old poetic song with clearly polish lyrics plays in from the box]
Don't know about you, but I completely didn't get a word of that
Sounds like an old French ballad, maybe the electrician was from Bretagne?
In the 1950s, British homes go sharply upmarket
Each newly built house has one single socket and - wait for it - one lighting luminarie in each room.
Practical and easy-to-use luminarie in the form of a rope with a holder hanging from the ceiling
is called by the locals - A PENDANT
And since the beginning of its existence on the market until today - the pendant is the most popular type of lighting in the UK.
Pendants in the fifties were most often mounted not centrally in the middle of the ceiling, but on the edge, near the window,
so that the light came from the natural direction and did not introduce a temporary stupor and shock among older tenants as to why the center of the ceiling suddenly gives off a bright light.
In this decade, service heads are usually made with plastics, usually bakelite.
Each new incoming connection is already supplied with TN-S earthing
and inside of service heads, we find cylindrical fuses often in non-flammable and hard to overheat ceramic cartridges.
within domestic fuse box we also still enconter ceramic cartridge with fuse wire wound by hand
which has to be replaced in a complete darkness every time the tenant does something stupid
In 1958 this ingenius method of creating fuses while you wait will receive its own British Standard de nomination
and from now on will be known as BS3036.
In mid 50ies some manufacturers added special fire guards to fuse carriers to prevent shrapnel of hot wire from entering deeper into enclosure.
Woven fire guards were made in 75% of novelty inflamable material, known today as "white asbestos"...
and because every disturbance of the fuse carier may involve dangerous asbestos dust
every maintaince of fuse carrier or wire should theoretically be undertaken in full hazmat suit and PPE and special ventilation.
Screws that secure mounts of the fuse carriers are always on the front
And are always live when carrier is fully inserted.
To prevent electrical shock, exposed parts of rivets and screws were painted over
and the colour of the paint indicated rating of fuse.
This questionable method of insulating live parts remained in use for 50 odd years.
And before you remove such fuse, you should always check if the paint on the screws and rivets is still intact...
Around the same time period cables were often made of multistrand aluminium or tinned alloys
And insulation was often made of vulcanised indian rubber
known locally as VIR
Circuit protective conductor is seldom found in lighting circuits of the era.
While socket circuits at the time often employed metal pipes and conduit as means of earthing
intricately joined on every junction to maintain continuity.
In properties were installation of metal conduit was not practical
one may often find prohibitivly expensive wiring with lead outer sheath.
Many properties were also wired in a military system known as MICC or "pyro"
where the conductors are run inside copper pipes filled with mineral insulation.
Sizing of pipes and fittings are usually imperial and completely unupgradable in this day and age.
While earthed joints and glands at backboxes and enclosures are often filled with resin and impossible to remove.
Obviously everything you see on the screen is completely unserviceable and was never meant to serve as long as it has.
And here we have a modern fuse box from the sixties.
(Paul Anka style polish song playing)
Don't know what that was, some dance hit maybe?
In the sixties many British households all of sudden need more than four simple circuits.
and one single socket in each room is no longer considered enough for all mod cons.
Cut outs design becomes more modern and less rounded.
While most of the fuse boxes are made of fashionable plastics.
In the middle of the decade ceramics become too expensive to mass produce
and cheap and cheerfull carriers for BS3036 fuses are now made of bakelite or plastics with only a tiny ceramic element inside.
Many fuseboxes have plastic fronts with wooden frame at the back.
It may be hard to believe but according to an old British marine tradition oak, mahogany and teak woods are considered inflamable
Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers to this day maintains opinion of their inflamability.
By the end of the decade rich country side mansions begin to benefit from early earth leakege circuit breakers
The cost of this modern technology is diabilicaly prohibitive
and is based around sensing changes in voltage rather than current.
But this black monstrocity with yellow button on the screen is an early version of RCD as we know it today.
Rubber based wiring is slowly replaced by the cheaper and more sturdy option
polyvinyl chloride or PVC in short.
PVC cables of the era have a characteristic grey colour of the outer sheath
and due to chemical reaction with early plasticisers most of the multistrand cores in them are tinned.
Many properties, due to particularly poor and unpure mixture of alloys in the wire, had to be wired in 4mm2 instead of 2.5mm2 to help high resistance readings.
1960ies is also the last decade when wooden joinery backboxes were used, from now backboxes in solid walls will be made of metal.
Similar to the prehistoric items of the previous decades, majority of wiring and switchgear found in 1960ies installations is long overdue for a complete replacement
and keeping them in your home is a bit like watching YouTube on a 1960ies black and white TV set.
And what in the fuse box from 1970ies?
(cheerful distrorted music)
Oh, obviously - British punk era
The tune sounds somewhat familiar, yet I can't put my finger on it...
At the start of the seventies many catalogues finally offer modern mechanical "miniature" circuit breakers
for the time being - in a frighteningly American size
By the end of this decade earth leakage devices - ELCBs - will undergo miniaturisation and finally fit inside fuse boards rather that outside.
In economy targeted installations cheap and cheerful plastic will replace bakelites and steel
Soon the manufacturers will offer cheaper mechanical overcurrent devices to replace a piece of wire wound on a carrier.
Following change in regulations and due to shortage of raw materials
circuit protective conductor in 70ies cables becomes smaller.
For the socket circuits wired in 2.5mm2, CPC is now 1mm2 instead of standard 1.5mm2.
At the start of the decade T&E cables still have grey outer sheath but by the end of the decade the colour of outer insulation changes to white.
After 20 odd years the cabling of this era will be mostly known for its chemical issues in PVC
and corrosive reaction of plasticiser with copper oozing out of accessories and junctions as green, sticky substance.
If you open an accessory and find uniformely green sleeving on CPC
then the wiring you are looking at can be dated to before 1977.
The 14th edition of electrical regulations that year introduced new green and yellow standard for marking circuit protective conductors.
Let's find out what comes out of this 1980ies pile of plastic...
(clearly a U2 riff with strangely polish lyrics)
Well, I certainly still haven't found what I'm looking for, but this sounds very Irish
Residual current devices in the eighties become more common
Inside twin and earth cables all the cores up to 2.5mm2 are now always solid copper, multistrand is now a thing of the past.
Cross sectional area of CPC in 2.5mm2 cables returns to standard 1.5mm2, never to be downsized again.
In 1983 Wylex makes the last BS3036 fuse box with antiquated wooden frame.
From now on the backs of the dreadful wind-ups will be made exclusively of plastics.
And what's inside consumer unit from the 90ies?
(grungy music in Polish)
Nevermind the lyrics, but sounds like emo.
In the 90ies mechanical mini circuit breakers become more popular
and finally outsell old wired fuse boxes in new builds as a new standard.
Most consumer units finally feature some form of RCCB
either as a main switch, or for socket circuits.
The enclosures are mostly made of plastic and cheaply made abroad
and within the next 20 years this cheap plastic will be responsible for one of the biggest shakeups of electrical regulations in British history
Meanwhile the inexplicable attachment of British market to a piece of wire as a safety device finally comes to a long awaited happy end
although many landlords and farm owners to this day still prefer old Wylex and MEM fuse boxes to modern technology.
Because of the ability to oversize the fuse wire and hide issues in the instalation.
In rental properties with multiple electrical heaters and socket circuits extended to the size of olympic stadiums
and single phase kitchens utilised by multiple tenants
the owners quickly found that fuse wire offered something that no modern MCB ever would:
One could wind fuse wire several times over in a "just stop calling with every forking fault" fashion.
The older BS3036 cartridges were designed in such a way that inserting anything else than fuse wire between wire holders was very difficult
but with time the manufacturers seemingly made a marketing decision to simplify the design and allow the users to plug anything they wanted into fuse carriers
Through the years of emergency callouts and fuse box replacements
we found fuses wired with guitar strings
copper cores stripped from 2.5mm2 cables
and even nails.
And cables overheated to such a degree that the insulations would fuse together in one big blob
while the installer would braid the cores together with full awareness of this malarky.
Statistically, we presume 11 out of 10 of old fuse boxes were at some point throughout their pitiful existence
fused by an item or device exceeding its rating.
Soon, in the new millenium regulations would stop this madness once and for all.
but that's a subject for another episode.
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We'll see you in the next episode, after we film the content.
But I can't wait to see you all again.
They call me Regan and you were watching The Resistance Channel
Oh, I think I finally remember where I know this song from...
But... that would mean....
107 percent of all the fuse boxes on the island across the last 60 years were installed by Polish electricians?
[ lyrics of very cheesy Polish disco song ]
[ "I adore her, she's here with me" ]
[ "To dance for me" ]
[ "For she knows that I will grab her" ]
[ "and hide her deep in my heart" ]