Here’s a picture (below) of something that you may not recognise. It’s something used in and around almost every house in the country. No! It’s not a piece of kelp. No. It’s not  a piece of licorice or a long thin fish finger. What is it?

It’s piece of post war, black rubber sheathed aluminium cable; or at least it used to be.

I was called to a clients home to investigate the constant blowing of the central heating fuse which had started earlier the day before. After locating the pump and finding it with leaks that were dripping into the wiring section the pump was changed. After starting the system back up the fuses were still blowing?

I went under the house to see if I could ascertain where the cable was running as it appeared to be going under the dirt (mud) floor. I found the source of the problem and the cause of the short. The five meter long piece of cable had never been clipped along the joists and lay free on the floor; which was not dry but rather mucky. The section of cable pictured here was submerged under the moisture for a very long time. So long that it had turned into a barnacle!

Perhaps the pump shorting out caused the final bit of sheathing to finally give out or perhaps the shorting of the wiring cooked the capacitor in the pump. Either way, the petrified cabling didn’t help matters. Wiring should always be clipped and never just thrown down under the house. Loose cables are a danger to everyone in or out of the trades. It’s unprofessional, it’s against the building regulations, it’s dangerous and shows a complete lack of pride in one’s workmanship.

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