DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Bad ‘Electricians’
Regulations broken: BS7671:2008

You may have never heard of a Marrette or Marr connector and I was surprised as anyone to see one in a job to remove a fluorescent light fixture. As an ex-Canadian I’ve used hundreds and have seen thousands of Marrettes over the years…but never in the UK.

During a small renovation we had to remove two separate lights from a kitchen that was having the ceiling lowered a few inches. During the removal I found the usual mess or wiring and blobs of tape. When I peeled the tape off what looked like a Marrette I was surprised to see said Marrette!

So a Marrette or as it known here in the UK a scru-it or wire nut is used for connecting two or more cables together or for terminating a cable. The idea is that once the insulation is stripped back  the wires are then twisted together. You can see the twisted cable in the photo after we removed the Marrette. Once the wire is twisted together the wire nut is screwed on to the exposed ends just like screwing a lid on a jar.

The problem is that these devices though used in their millions in the Americas and not used over here anymore. In all of the years I’ve been working I’ve never come across one in a residence until now. The one we found was ceramic and about the size of a sewing thimble. They were in use in the fifties but disappeared for reasons I have not been able to uncover as yet. Watch this space. As for this property it was rewired in the last ten years so these wire nuts were no longer in use then and the electrician probably had one in his bag which was easier to use than it was to go get a proper connector.

We removed all of the tape, the scru-it and the terminal blocks which were screwed down so tight the copper was flattened to the point of breaking. We mechanically crimped our connections and fit a choc-box. Job done. Correctly!

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