I also recommend once you find where the damage or fault is in a cable, run a fly lead between to the two points and connect it temporarily then turn on and test again to make sure that a new cable is the resolution to the fault. Saves time and money rather than running a new cable then testing and it not being solely the issue👍
I was taught that the main reason rodents chew wires is because there is salt molecules within the Grey PVC and it’s used during the manufacturing process, presumably salt water to cool down insulation once formed. The main culprit is normally squirrels as they have a very limited vegetarian diet and can lack salt in their diet so they will go to town if the find it. Rats / Mice have a more varied diet and tend more to chew cables to keep their teeth in check which is why they don’t tend to strip cables as much unless in the countryside where food is scarce or limited in variety. Hope this helps and keep your videos coming, I’m a big fan!
Here in Norway it is also mandatory to have the wires in PVC tubes - which also makes it easier to replace them. And for these "old" spotlights that are warm we must use large insulation-boxes (basically a 5 sided plastic box) that you can put glands on for those PVC tubes.
Also in the Netherlands we usually have a single junction box per room, located behind the lamp in the ceiling. So fault finding is easy since you can disconnect almost everything from a single point.
A little tip from an electrician here in Italy, where there are conduits fitted to carry cables - use a bit of liquid hand soap on the wire to lubricate it.... makes pulling much easier and less likely to snag.
We go thru the same problems in automobile repair where rodents chew thru wiring and after research we discovered that when wiring was made by certain manufactures they used peanut oil in the process of producing the coverings. Not sure if it's the same with home wiring but looks like the same results. Happy hunting!
I would recommend to the customer that they get their loft areas checked outside for any rodent entry points and have them sealed. Don't want this happening again. Good video Jordan, your easy patience a blessing.
I once had a twin and earth cable in a school which has been chewed by squirrels. They has eaten all the outer and inner cores on a 2 inch section, no loss of power, no dead squirrel, no faults. Just 3 bare cores running happily along each other.
I think the best one was checking a house with clear squirrel infiltration... Could not find the damaged cable though. Colleague was narrowing it down by isolating some circuits.. (old house with about 4x 1mm cables in the upstairs lighting breaker). He removed one feed.. yelled fit me to keep clear so I stepped back onto the loft ladder.. as he switched on I saw the flash right in front of me under the insulation lol
With that amount of damage you have to assume that other cables may be damaged. I'd leave that circuit powered off, give the old cable to the customer, and have the them contact their insurance company.
Jason Dragon yeah I made them aware but the insulation readings were high enough that it’s not certain there is other damage. Difficult to know what to do.
@@artisanelectrics The insulation reading is good that means you as electrician is out of fault if something else happen, so good to turn on again and you of course document the reading and take pictures to make sure your on the right side of things.
Great video as always! Here in Italy every cable is always inside a conduit/tube so that it is almost impossible to damage it and it is easier to change...i suppose you can wire things without conduits but no one does it in reality here, i think thats very good practice to use conduits
We did that with an extensive loft area and used recycled conduit stripped out from an old building that was being torn down. Did a deal with the site foreman and got it for peanuts.. OOO squirrels like peanuts 🥜 👀🤣🤣I agree that it certainly is well worth the extra time and money.
Expensive and unnecessary when you follow the appropriate placing of plates in your framing. Use Romex and the protective plates and you will doing it faster and cheaper and It pass inspection.
Artisan Electrics, you are a great man and hamble how to give all your time to teach us to fault finding and rewire a lot of more, I am an electrician myself I have done NVQ level 3 and seventeen editions but I hardly did much work but since I start to watch your episode really enjoy it I appreciate your teaching Thanks a lot.
I am glad that in the Netherlands (and more European countries) we use pvc pipes or flexible conduit for the wiring in walls and ceilings. This way you avoid these problems and you can easily pull new wires. But great video 👍
Was anyone else waiting for the string of expletives towards the start when he pulled on the cable...I was kind of expecting it to give suddenly and the other end disappear into the insulation! 😁
I really enjoyed this, very informative. Would love more fault finding videos if you can. I am an apprentice who does mainly new construction so fault finding is new to me. Thanks so much for taking time while working on the job to film and show us! Much appreciated from Canada ! 🇨🇦
Good vid Jordan... here’s a weird fact for you, I’ve worked on BT line plant over 30years, and we get a lot of Rat infestation in external u/g duct, practically every time rats have chewed the cables in a multi DP joint they only chew through the live’ cables, dead or spare cables left untouched... dunno why..god knows?
Good work. What we learnt, cables should be always installed into conduits, that brings safety and easy replacement possibilities. Flexible or rigid conduit, here flexible as it follows difficult shapes easily. Also easy to install with XPS/styrofoam with right tool in building phase.
A colleague on the site maintenance team was going up though a loft hatch from a pair of steps ladders which were a a couple of treads short for the task. I think he was looking for the source of a leak in the roof. He put his hands on the edge of the loft hatch and started to lift himself up; he got about half way through the hatch before his arms gave way and he came crashing back down. Turns out that there was some twin and earth clipped to the side of the hatch, and it looked a lot like the piece pulled out of the roof in this video. When that part of the building was re-wired after it was "squirrel proofed", everything was put in steel trunking and steel conduit. You can try really hard to keep out, but eventually they will find a way in.
You may have megger'd a squirrels face. Lol Nice video editing showing the time travelling help from your future self. And I like the way you pronounce wagos (wah-goes). Up north we call them Way-goes.
My hobby is amateur radio. I have had a coaxial antenna cable in the garden chewed through completely by squirrels. I now run the cable in a plastic water pipe and that has finally done the trick!
I did work on an old radio (transistor) gram unit and when I opened it up there was the (oh yes) SKELETON of a mouse next to the mains transformer. Nothing on it just bone etc. So no guesses as to how long it had been there. 👀 A lot of the older valve systems had rubber coated wiring where the wiring as in house wiring with rubber sleeves, the rubber dried out and crumbled. 👀
As electrician on board of ships, my experience is that rats first go for the UTP-cables. One time a was searching for a malfunction in bow engine, more malfunctions popped up. At the time I was searching the rats were eating the cable. The ship load was grain at that moment.
Good technique for joining the old cable for pulling through, I'm going to try that in future. In the past, I've failed dismally every time I've tried to do that and been forced to resort to rods/tape or chopping bits of ceiling out
@@artisanelectrics what ive done in the past is run a bit of solder on the wires if i think its going to be a difficult pull through run a bit of silicone lub on the cable to
When I’m using a draw wire to pull in a new cable I also tie & tape the two together with the narrowest joint possible. I always then always take the weight off of the new cable and simultaneously feed it into the hole whilst slowly and steadily pulling and taking the slack of the draw wire. Only when it’s stiff or get stuck do I pull it harder. Very nice when you can do what you need to and not create any damage. Hopefully there aren’t any dead rodents in the ceiling but you’d probably be able to smell them.
And this is precisely why I put cabling in my own cottage in conduit. It's a little more expensive but prevents this and makes pulling cables so much easier. I hate halogen down lighters, I did my back in once working in a tiny attic installing some years ago.
The like the oils in the insulation I have heard. We have fixed loads of chewed cables in retirement home but they only ever chew the outer and leave the inner.
I think you should have recommended to rewire the full lot then gave them a 500 v IR test before lights were connected Cheers I believe your work mate came back to this fault as it went faulty again
You were a lucky lad to pull that cable through. I was convinced it would of been clipped tight through out its run. Only time will tell if the others are just as easy.
At first my money was on heat damage from the old halogens… I’ve seen that cable damage before and found a decomposed squirrel nearby, just fur and bones left it’s last words were, this cable is liiiiive
I had this at the house of a high profile client. Their chandelier had completely lost power and in tracing the cable I moved a book case and you could see where the mouse/rat had bitten the dust because there was a smoke stain on the skirting board 🤣
Two observations from me, and one is that the ground wire in that cable is "naked" and not the Yellow/Green insulated. The other is that to protect against rodents and squirrels pulling the cabling through conduits (flexible or solid) will lower the risk a lot. That's the normal way to do it here in Sweden.
The only trouble is, Jordan, the rest of the cable, and even your new cable, is not protected from further damage. Rodents chew soft things because their teeth never stop growing. If they didn't their teeth would grow into such a position as to make it impossible for them to eat and they would die.
Chewing soft things does not wear teeth. They chew hard things like wood, etc. The reason the eat insulation off is soybean oils used in modern plastic wire insulation. They smell the vegetable fats.
@@JP-pf5pz I have to disagree. I have been a spark 30 years and soy in PVC is a fairly recent thing. But rodents have been chewing cables for as long as cables existed. I have even seen rubber-insulated cables that have been gnawed.
+Artisan Electrics Consideration could have been made to changing the lightswitch (and possibly others) to be a double-pole switch so that turning 'off' the lights will at least isolate if fault returns on that section... 16 to 20a single-gang switches are not heavy/oversize, might be a quick peace-of-mind to start with... Also, at what point do you suggest to the customer that a switch+RCBOs goes into the CU instead of the RCCB+MCBs?
A rat had been poisoned and died behind a dot and dab wall deteriorated and the maggots were looking for an exit, they found the socket and tried to escape, customer said he could hear sparking behind the socket, kept on tripping thought fault with the socket I was shocked when I discovered a back box full of maggots and the landlord said he had a rat problem so put down lots of poison. Job finished 15 min but not pleasant. Interesting watching, I’ve retired now and live in Thailand but love watching your vids. Nice calm manor you have well done.
I wonder if squirrels like wago box’s yet? In years to come we will find lots of wagos in ceilings that used to be in boxs. Plenty of C2’s to look forward too.
I’ve had squirrels chew through the ABS sensor wires on the rear of my Transit van. I kept repairing it with Wago’s. Very annoying when you start the van up and you lose your hill start. Squirrels also took great pleasure in chewing through the insulation of the 95mm DC cables running in the loft of one of our buildings
It sometimes helps to put a little bit of washing-up liquid on the cable to help them slide through easier..Because if that breaks then you will have to chase out the ceiling.
4:02 If you always tape in the direction that the cable will be moving you will avoid the overlap of the tape snagging if it has to pass through an obstacle, so you taped in the wrong direction.
Might of been a good idea to look outside to see if there was any holes in the soffet or else where ,they will be back ,came up with the same problem many times
They are usually only actiive in buildings from spring to late summer,which is breeding time,normally two litters per year,up to about eight per litter, come autumn they will leave to build their dreys.
Wago could do with some competition. The total cost of that connection is about £2, which adds up on big projects. The old boxes are about 50p. But then again I use the Click Flow, which is even more expensive, but I remove all the lights so the painter does not 'cut around' them as I cant stand to see that. The click flow connectors are great once fitted, but do take as much time as an old j-box
I remember fault finding a block of flats on an air base to find a cable that had been completely stripped on one side running through the loft space. I could see three gleaming, bare copper cores running for several meters in my torch light. Squirrel damage.
Had a Dr's surgery years ago with no network computers working. They used Unix with a specialix card with everything taking over 25 pin serial some 32 terminals. The server room was in an old bathroom there was even a toilet & sink in there still. Anyway popped the huge trunking off the wall to find loads of dead rats & all the cables stripped to copper. Got the lead GP in & said there's ya problem, call us back once it's cleaned up byeeeee. Luckily installations got the rewire job that was a big big job.
Wow, I've never seen rodent damage as bad as that! I was wondering if you are aware that the Wagobox Light and the Wago 224 connectors are not maintenance free? I assumed that they were, and made the mistake of installing them in an inaccessible location, but a Wago representative told me that they are not maintenance free. Obviously this isn't important where you installed it behind the downlight, since it's accessible.
Rodent damage! Hadn't seen it at all until I changed an outside meter box in a HA house in Cardiff. Strangely the rats had not touched the live tail, but the 16mm neutral tail was completely destroyed back to the last 10mm from the wall. Managed to stretch it into a neutral block, fun conversation with the housing association about their rat problem... of course they don't want to admit that's what caused the completely chewed cables.
Perhaps they should think about making wire rubber out of something that tastes like something rodents won't eat. Now I think about it that might be difficult, the carrion eating buggers.
ages ago I heard there was some compound that smells like nuts to rodents, I think in some automotive electrical wiring, it may also be in house wiring (in the UK), that or they chew it to try grinding their teeth down, I think their teeth constantly grow out and they need grinding down constantly
2 Things! 1. Would of it been made easier to pull the cable through if you sprayed a lubricant like WD40 or similar or wrapped it in PTFE Tape? 2. I am just putting this out here and I am not sure if this would be the case or not, however you mentioned the fact that the roof was heavily insulated in your previous video, so I am wondering if it maybe down to insulation if it was sprayed in and curing was acidic and it burned the insulation away or if the previous sparky cut the insulation away?
I will preface this comment with the usual ‘I am not an electrician’ however I have always had success when pulling through using the old cable as a mousing line similar to your method but without the tape and substituting adhesive shrink tubing to cover the joined wires, it streamlines the cross section a tad and provides a bit of strength.
If you got out your nuts the squirrel would have came out.....terrible joke! Nice video, I remember my tradesman back as apprentice finding this problem in a ceiling space. Nice cable pull, so satisfying when it works out!
Hi, Jordan ,from a fellow . electrician and I can attest to the fact that rodents and especially squirrels love chewing on what we call Romex here in the US or non metallic cable. There is a compound I forget in the insulation that is like fish and chips to them rodents. 😊😊
So thankful we don't have squirrel infestation in Poland. We got rats and mice but they never do sht. like that. We got martens, they can chew on cables in a car, but never heard off one chewing house installation. Weird. Great job tho.
May 11 1882, Rules and Regulations for the prevention of fire risks arising from electric lighting (1st ed regs) "Reg 13. It is most essential that the joints should be electrically and mechanically perfect. .......", those round bakelite junction boxes as fitted in that situation have NEVER been allowed EVER. There is NO strain relief on the cables, if you have ever used any similar bakelite junction box then it MUST be fixed to a joist (or some other part of the fabric of the building) and all the cables MUST be cleated to provide strain relief, just because nobody ever did that does not make it right or acceptable. The light fittings are not acceptable (today) as fitted, maybe 20+ years ago you could get away with that if the lamps were dichroic, but NOT today, I would not have reinstated those lamps as you found them.
Great vids, some new cars have hemp in the wiring loom🤔 as a work mate found out when camping, rabbits had the wire insulation on the under side of his car, it must be tasty as he was only there for one night and in morning car was a none starter 😂
Seeing you fix this has me wondering.. Do you not tie the neutral and earth together in the first panel in the system? That's what happens in North America, and since all of the circuits run like a tree, there's always continuity and low resistance between neutral and ground. Obviously it gets larger as you get further away but it seems like in the UK, you're expecting extremely high resistance.
Had the same damage on a switch wire drop it created a partial connection to the 60w light globe.The ever so slight arcing super heated the conductors ignition a real possibility .The 30ma ELCB did not trip.
Yes i am a qualified electrician in South Africa what we use is a pvc 8 way round box with your wires coming in with pvc glands and then we connect the wire to a 5 amp socket and the we connect the lights drivers on a 5 amp plug cortset that plugs in the 5 amp sock
Strikes me that the reason this particular cable was eaten is because it was (probably) exposed up in the apex void above the ceiling... whereas all the rest are lower down in the insulation and therefore 'safe' from the rodent activity...So, with luck, there is relatively little more damage elsewhere... fingers crossed!
You are correct Wago 224s are perfect for these kind of lighting transitions from normal mains voltage to low voltage especially useful for fine stranded low voltage wire.
How are squirrels getting in? I put most of my wiring through plastic trucking to stop rodent damage.. It helps to have a cat rat out loft occasionally. Hornets also like to nibble cable s for fun just to annoy. Was the insulation packed in after rodent damage? There may even be squashed dead animals in there.
we still do it the old way here our junction boxes don't even have connections inside wires are twisted together and joined with terminals or ferrules real old school
Round my neck of the woods, the glis-glis or 'edible doormouse' get up in the loft and wreak havoc.... Once trapped you are forbidden to let them loose into the wild again!
Hemel Hempstead railway station had a small colony of them, I think they spread out from Tring about 1900 from the Rothschild estate. The station had a few rats as well,
If its anything like automotive cable they have changed the make up of the cable for envionmental reasons and have added fish oils/animal fats to the mix
Watch the process I used to find the original fault here: ruclips.net/video/BK6ykUkJ-8A/видео.html
Called it! 😉
Mice and rats teeth never stop growing so they like materials like wooden joists or cable insulation to gnaw on and keep their teeth from over growing
I also recommend once you find where the damage or fault is in a cable, run a fly lead between to the two points and connect it temporarily then turn on and test again to make sure that a new cable is the resolution to the fault. Saves time and money rather than running a new cable then testing and it not being solely the issue👍
I was taught that the main reason rodents chew wires is because there is salt molecules within the Grey PVC and it’s used during the manufacturing process, presumably salt water to cool down insulation once formed. The main culprit is normally squirrels as they have a very limited vegetarian diet and can lack salt in their diet so they will go to town if the find it. Rats / Mice have a more varied diet and tend more to chew cables to keep their teeth in check which is why they don’t tend to strip cables as much unless in the countryside where food is scarce or limited in variety. Hope this helps and keep your videos coming, I’m a big fan!
And that's why we put out electrical wires in hard PVC tubes in The Netherlands. This also makes changing wires easier!
Same here in Sweden. It's legal to have cables in the walls, but I've never heard of a single electrician that does it.
Here in Norway it is also mandatory to have the wires in PVC tubes - which also makes it easier to replace them.
And for these "old" spotlights that are warm we must use large insulation-boxes (basically a 5 sided plastic box) that you can put glands on for those PVC tubes.
No tubing required in Denmark any more the last 15-20 years. Also not required in Switzerland any more.
Also in the Netherlands we usually have a single junction box per room, located behind the lamp in the ceiling. So fault finding is easy since you can disconnect almost everything from a single point.
@@mywave82 Kult at andre Norske ser her også :) Hilsen Elektriker lærling
A little tip from an electrician here in Italy, where there are conduits fitted to carry cables - use a bit of liquid hand soap on the wire to lubricate it.... makes pulling much easier and less likely to snag.
I would mention to the client to get the facias, soffits and air vents checked for any access points, squirrels have a habit of coming back.
Yeah I did that
We go thru the same problems in automobile repair where rodents chew thru wiring and after research we discovered that when wiring was made by certain manufactures they used peanut oil in the process of producing the coverings. Not sure if it's the same with home wiring but looks like the same results. Happy hunting!
Sometimes using a lubricant to pull cables through tight spaces is handy, as sudden yanks or jerks can cause friction damage. Another great video!
how do you apply the lubricant to the cable?
@@corbanswain
With your hand.
I would recommend to the customer that they get their loft areas checked outside for any rodent entry points and have them sealed. Don't want this happening again.
Good video Jordan, your easy patience a blessing.
I once had a twin and earth cable in a school which has been chewed by squirrels. They has eaten all the outer and inner cores on a 2 inch section, no loss of power, no dead squirrel, no faults. Just 3 bare cores running happily along each other.
I think the best one was checking a house with clear squirrel infiltration... Could not find the damaged cable though. Colleague was narrowing it down by isolating some circuits.. (old house with about 4x 1mm cables in the upstairs lighting breaker). He removed one feed.. yelled fit me to keep clear so I stepped back onto the loft ladder.. as he switched on I saw the flash right in front of me under the insulation lol
Thanks for sharing
With that amount of damage you have to assume that other cables may be damaged. I'd leave that circuit powered off, give the old cable to the customer, and have the them contact their insurance company.
Jason Dragon yeah I made them aware but the insulation readings were high enough that it’s not certain there is other damage. Difficult to know what to do.
Matter of time before rodents chew replacement and other similarly placed cables. Get a roofer in to block off rodent access and place poison in void.
Artisan Electrics inspection camera an option?
@@robinmyman I found rats like the new cable best, swapped a new cable for an old bit from the scrap bin and they never touched it again.
@@artisanelectrics The insulation reading is good that means you as electrician is out of fault if something else happen, so good to turn on again and you of course document the reading and take pictures to make sure your on the right side of things.
Great video as always! Here in Italy every cable is always inside a conduit/tube so that it is almost impossible to damage it and it is easier to change...i suppose you can wire things without conduits but no one does it in reality here, i think thats very good practice to use conduits
We did that with an extensive loft area and used recycled conduit stripped out from an old building that was being torn down. Did a deal with the site foreman and got it for peanuts.. OOO squirrels like peanuts 🥜 👀🤣🤣I agree that it certainly is well worth the extra time and money.
Expensive and unnecessary when you follow the appropriate placing of plates in your framing. Use Romex and the protective plates and you will doing it faster and cheaper and It pass inspection.
Viva la zanzara
Artisan Electrics, you are a great man and hamble how to give all your time to teach us to fault finding and rewire a lot of more, I am an electrician myself I have done NVQ level 3 and seventeen editions but I hardly did much work but since I start to watch your episode really enjoy it I appreciate your teaching Thanks a lot.
I am glad that in the Netherlands (and more European countries) we use pvc pipes or flexible conduit for the wiring in walls and ceilings.
This way you avoid these problems and you can easily pull new wires. But great video 👍
FunkerStumper thnks you’re so right!
Rats will chew through pvc just as easily - they can even chew through metal given enough time. House cat is an option ...
@@peterthomas9440 yes, but any least you can put new wire in when needed again
Was anyone else waiting for the string of expletives towards the start when he pulled on the cable...I was kind of expecting it to give suddenly and the other end disappear into the insulation! 😁
I really enjoyed this, very informative. Would love more fault finding videos if you can. I am an apprentice who does mainly new construction so fault finding is new to me. Thanks so much for taking time while working on the job to film and show us!
Much appreciated from Canada ! 🇨🇦
Good vid Jordan... here’s a weird fact for you, I’ve worked on BT line plant over 30years, and we get a lot of Rat infestation in external u/g duct, practically every time rats have chewed the cables in a multi DP joint they only chew through the live’ cables, dead or spare cables left untouched... dunno why..god knows?
warmth
Good work. What we learnt, cables should be always installed into conduits, that brings safety and easy replacement possibilities. Flexible or rigid conduit, here flexible as it follows difficult shapes easily. Also easy to install with XPS/styrofoam with right tool in building phase.
A colleague on the site maintenance team was going up though a loft hatch from a pair of steps ladders which were a a couple of treads short for the task. I think he was looking for the source of a leak in the roof. He put his hands on the edge of the loft hatch and started to lift himself up; he got about half way through the hatch before his arms gave way and he came crashing back down.
Turns out that there was some twin and earth clipped to the side of the hatch, and it looked a lot like the piece pulled out of the roof in this video.
When that part of the building was re-wired after it was "squirrel proofed", everything was put in steel trunking and steel conduit. You can try really hard to keep out, but eventually they will find a way in.
You may have megger'd a squirrels face. Lol
Nice video editing showing the time travelling help from your future self. And I like the way you pronounce wagos (wah-goes). Up north we call them Way-goes.
I am using a dremmel gas soldering ion, to join wires after folding them over
thought about doing that instead of using tape, electrical tape always bunches up on the head and gets stuck
My hobby is amateur radio. I have had a coaxial antenna cable in the garden chewed through completely by squirrels. I now run the cable in a plastic water pipe and that has finally done the trick!
Thanks for sharing
@@artisanelectrics i wold say to use some metal copex if you do decide to require the lighting or someting made of metal , capping maybe
I love that you actually use the new stuff like wagos, people here still use wingnuts and mangle the wire so much that it's a fire hazard
love the re-pulling technique, thanks
That's unreal damage, presume they did all the chewing when the power was off otherwise there is a bbq squirrel in the loft.
I had a bbq mouse on a cooker cable in my kitchen a few years ago. The cable was easier to change than tha one.
I did work on an old radio (transistor) gram unit and when I opened it up there was the (oh yes) SKELETON of a mouse next to the mains transformer. Nothing on it just bone etc. So no guesses as to how long it had been there. 👀 A lot of the older valve systems had rubber coated wiring where the wiring as in house wiring with rubber sleeves, the rubber dried out and crumbled. 👀
Double thumbs up for that one. Squirrels love alarm cables as well.
As electrician on board of ships, my experience is that rats first go for the UTP-cables. One time a was searching for a malfunction in bow engine, more malfunctions popped up. At the time I was searching the rats were eating the cable. The ship load was grain at that moment.
Glad they let you do it because I really wanted to see what caused it. Didn't expect it to be *THIS* bad (or obvious).
Good technique for joining the old cable for pulling through, I'm going to try that in future. In the past, I've failed dismally every time I've tried to do that and been forced to resort to rods/tape or chopping bits of ceiling out
Robin Rawson-Tetley yeah it’s simple but effective! Just don’t be overconfident and make sure it’s really tightly attached!
@@artisanelectrics what ive done in the past is run a bit of solder on the wires if i think its going to be a difficult pull through run a bit of silicone lub on the cable to
When your connection for pulling cable is a better electrical connection than most DIYers
Old school. I was taught back in the 70s to do precisely that
I imagined the little buzz you had when you pulled that through in 1😄nice 1 champ 👍
When I’m using a draw wire to pull in a new cable I also tie & tape the two together with the narrowest joint possible. I always then always take the weight off of the new cable and simultaneously feed it into the hole whilst slowly and steadily pulling and taking the slack of the draw wire. Only when it’s stiff or get stuck do I pull it harder.
Very nice when you can do what you need to and not create any damage.
Hopefully there aren’t any dead rodents in the ceiling but you’d probably be able to smell them.
I love work ....... I could watch it all day long! (he he from Ireland).
And this is precisely why I put cabling in my own cottage in conduit. It's a little more expensive but prevents this and makes pulling cables so much easier. I hate halogen down lighters, I did my back in once working in a tiny attic installing some years ago.
The cable pull under the scout hut hall floor was also lucky
Yeah! 😅
For those of you messaging me about the wire strippers, I use these: amzn.to/3b423NE
Excellent work, smart guy, great vid, thanks.
What a satisfying video to watch something go right.... I was expecting the plaster to come straight off the ceiling.
In Sweden we put most all of our cabels in plastic tubeing. Whit problems likes this we ty on in one end and pull it throu.
Works like a charm
The like the oils in the insulation I have heard. We have fixed loads of chewed cables in retirement home but they only ever chew the outer and leave the inner.
I think you should have recommended to rewire the full lot then gave them a 500 v IR test before lights were connected Cheers I believe your work mate came back to this fault as it went faulty again
For a while, fishmeal was added to the plastics used for cable insulation in the automotive industry. Therefore some cables were popular with martens.
You were a lucky lad to pull that cable through. I was convinced it would of been clipped tight through out its run. Only time will tell if the others are just as easy.
😎
It might've been originally, but it isn't anymore ;)
At first my money was on heat damage from the old halogens… I’ve seen that cable damage before and found a decomposed squirrel nearby, just fur and bones left it’s last words were, this cable is liiiiive
I had this at the house of a high profile client. Their chandelier had completely lost power and in tracing the cable I moved a book case and you could see where the mouse/rat had bitten the dust because there was a smoke stain on the skirting board 🤣
Two observations from me, and one is that the ground wire in that cable is "naked" and not the Yellow/Green insulated. The other is that to protect against rodents and squirrels pulling the cabling through conduits (flexible or solid) will lower the risk a lot. That's the normal way to do it here in Sweden.
The only trouble is, Jordan, the rest of the cable, and even your new cable, is not protected from further damage.
Rodents chew soft things because their teeth never stop growing. If they didn't their teeth would grow into such a position as to make it impossible for them to eat and they would die.
Wow thanks good point
Chewing soft things does not wear teeth. They chew hard things like wood, etc. The reason the eat insulation off is soybean oils used in modern plastic wire insulation. They smell the vegetable fats.
@@JP-pf5pz I have to disagree. I have been a spark 30 years and soy in PVC is a fairly recent thing. But rodents have been chewing cables for as long as cables existed. I have even seen rubber-insulated cables that have been gnawed.
@@simonabbott7323 I have to agree with you on that, it the rubber cables didn't dry out and crumble we could find rodent activity on them. 👀
+Artisan Electrics
Consideration could have been made to changing the lightswitch (and possibly others) to be a double-pole switch so that turning 'off' the lights will at least isolate if fault returns on that section... 16 to 20a single-gang switches are not heavy/oversize, might be a quick peace-of-mind to start with...
Also, at what point do you suggest to the customer that a switch+RCBOs goes into the CU instead of the RCCB+MCBs?
A rat had been poisoned and died behind a dot and dab wall deteriorated and the maggots were looking for an exit, they found the socket and tried to escape, customer said he could hear sparking behind the socket, kept on tripping thought fault with the socket I was shocked when I discovered a back box full of maggots and the landlord said he had a rat problem so put down lots of poison. Job finished 15 min but not pleasant.
Interesting watching, I’ve retired now and live in Thailand but love watching your vids.
Nice calm manor you have well done.
I wonder if squirrels like wago box’s yet? In years to come we will find lots of wagos in ceilings that used to be in boxs. Plenty of C2’s to look forward too.
Haha they like wire nuts!
every sparks I know calls them JB's
I’ve had squirrels chew through the ABS sensor wires on the rear of my Transit van. I kept repairing it with Wago’s. Very annoying when you start the van up and you lose your hill start.
Squirrels also took great pleasure in chewing through the insulation of the 95mm DC cables running in the loft of one of our buildings
At what point do you wrap your important wiring with other wires connected to a pulse-generator (electric fence) style ...?
It sometimes helps to put a little bit of washing-up liquid on the cable to help them slide through easier..Because if that breaks then you will have to chase out the ceiling.
Talcum powder is an excellent lubricant in twin and earth cable
Good job well done 👍
4:02 If you always tape in the direction that the cable will be moving you will avoid the overlap of the tape snagging if it has to pass through an obstacle, so you taped in the wrong direction.
No he did not. He taped in the correct dirrection.. Opposite direction from the travel of the cable...
Might of been a good idea to look outside to see if there was any holes in the soffet or else where ,they will be back ,came up with the same problem many times
They are usually only actiive in buildings from spring to late summer,which is breeding time,normally two litters per year,up to about eight per litter, come autumn they will leave to build their dreys.
I love fault finding and the challenge
Wago could do with some competition. The total cost of that connection is about £2, which adds up on big projects. The old boxes are about 50p. But then again I use the Click Flow, which is even more expensive, but I remove all the lights so the painter does not 'cut around' them as I cant stand to see that. The click flow connectors are great once fitted, but do take as much time as an old j-box
Really interesting/ scary thanks for this.
There is a compound in the insulation that is very sweet for them and it also makes them high which is why they will always come back for more.
I remember fault finding a block of flats on an air base to find a cable that had been completely stripped on one side running through the loft space. I could see three gleaming, bare copper cores running for several meters in my torch light. Squirrel damage.
Had a Dr's surgery years ago with no network computers working. They used Unix with a specialix card with everything taking over 25 pin serial some 32 terminals.
The server room was in an old bathroom there was even a toilet & sink in there still.
Anyway popped the huge trunking off the wall to find loads of dead rats & all the cables stripped to copper.
Got the lead GP in & said there's ya problem, call us back once it's cleaned up byeeeee. Luckily installations got the rewire job that was a big big job.
Wow, I've never seen rodent damage as bad as that! I was wondering if you are aware that the Wagobox Light and the Wago 224 connectors are not maintenance free? I assumed that they were, and made the mistake of installing them in an inaccessible location, but a Wago representative told me that they are not maintenance free. Obviously this isn't important where you installed it behind the downlight, since it's accessible.
Eicles thanks!
Surely that's just to cover company in case something goes wrong
I guess pulling that hard to get it out might have helped ripping more insulation off.
Rodent damage! Hadn't seen it at all until I changed an outside meter box in a HA house in Cardiff. Strangely the rats had not touched the live tail, but the 16mm neutral tail was completely destroyed back to the last 10mm from the wall. Managed to stretch it into a neutral block, fun conversation with the housing association about their rat problem... of course they don't want to admit that's what caused the completely chewed cables.
Perhaps they should think about making wire rubber out of something that tastes like something rodents won't eat. Now I think about it that might be difficult, the carrion eating buggers.
ages ago I heard there was some compound that smells like nuts to rodents, I think in some automotive electrical wiring, it may also be in house wiring (in the UK), that or they chew it to try grinding their teeth down, I think their teeth constantly grow out and they need grinding down constantly
Really enjoy your videos! I haven't been qualified for that long but it's extremely beneficial to pick up tips and tricks!
2 Things! 1. Would of it been made easier to pull the cable through if you sprayed a lubricant like WD40 or similar or wrapped it in PTFE Tape? 2. I am just putting this out here and I am not sure if this would be the case or not, however you mentioned the fact that the roof was heavily insulated in your previous video, so I am wondering if it maybe down to insulation if it was sprayed in and curing was acidic and it burned the insulation away or if the previous sparky cut the insulation away?
Bryce Goodall I don’t think so in this case, if it was in conduit maybe a bit of lube would help but not with insulation in a ceiling.
Bryce Goodall I. use silicone spray
Jordan may have stripped a lot of insulation/sheathing off when pulling it through the clips, assuming there were some.
@@jayktee96 That's actually a really good point! Maybe the squirrels were innocent after all!😮
I will preface this comment with the usual ‘I am not an electrician’ however I have always had success when pulling through using the old cable as a mousing line similar to your method but without the tape and substituting adhesive shrink tubing to cover the joined wires, it streamlines the cross section a tad and provides a bit of strength.
If you got out your nuts the squirrel would have came out.....terrible joke!
Nice video, I remember my tradesman back as apprentice finding this problem in a ceiling space.
Nice cable pull, so satisfying when it works out!
Haha thanks!
Hi, Jordan ,from a fellow . electrician and I can attest to the fact that rodents and especially squirrels love chewing on what we call Romex here in the US or non metallic cable. There is a compound I forget in the insulation that is like fish and chips to them rodents. 😊😊
So thankful we don't have squirrel infestation in Poland. We got rats and mice but they never do sht. like that. We got martens, they can chew on cables in a car, but never heard off one chewing house installation. Weird. Great job tho.
May 11 1882, Rules and Regulations for the prevention of fire risks arising from electric lighting (1st ed regs) "Reg 13. It is most essential that the joints should be electrically and mechanically perfect. .......", those round bakelite junction boxes as fitted in that situation have NEVER been allowed EVER. There is NO strain relief on the cables, if you have ever used any similar bakelite junction box then it MUST be fixed to a joist (or some other part of the fabric of the building) and all the cables MUST be cleated to provide strain relief, just because nobody ever did that does not make it right or acceptable. The light fittings are not acceptable (today) as fitted, maybe 20+ years ago you could get away with that if the lamps were dichroic, but NOT today, I would not have reinstated those lamps as you found them.
What's got a hazelnut in every bite?
Squirrel poo! 💩😂👍 Great video.
muzikman2008 😂😂😂
Removed a downlight once to find it was a family of rats toilet spot 🤢
I bet you scooped it up into your finger nails and started nibbling the shit out of them
🤮🤮🤮
@@Tisapery I think I just vomited in my brain a little. No a lot.
Great vids, some new cars have hemp in the wiring loom🤔 as a work mate found out when camping, rabbits had the wire insulation on the under side of his car, it must be tasty as he was only there for one night and in morning car was a none starter 😂
Seeing you fix this has me wondering.. Do you not tie the neutral and earth together in the first panel in the system? That's what happens in North America, and since all of the circuits run like a tree, there's always continuity and low resistance between neutral and ground. Obviously it gets larger as you get further away but it seems like in the UK, you're expecting extremely high resistance.
Had the same damage on a switch wire drop it created a partial connection to the 60w light globe.The ever so slight arcing super heated the conductors ignition a real possibility .The 30ma ELCB did not trip.
Yes i am a qualified electrician in South Africa what we use is a pvc 8 way round box with your wires coming in with pvc glands and then we connect the wire to a 5 amp socket and the we connect the lights drivers on a 5 amp plug cortset that plugs in the 5 amp sock
Strikes me that the reason this particular cable was eaten is because it was (probably) exposed up in the apex void above the ceiling... whereas all the rest are lower down in the insulation and therefore 'safe' from the rodent activity...So, with luck, there is relatively little more damage elsewhere... fingers crossed!
Hi what about the fire side of damaged cables left in position ??
Working for an ISP/Media provider we have many issues with rats especially. they love fibre cables
The protective part of fiber cables must be like a rodent peanut brittle or something.
Plenty of rodent damage here in Thailand, squirrel damage the cables here all the time.
Hi love your videos 👍
Awesome thanks!
You are correct Wago 224s are perfect for these kind of lighting transitions from normal mains voltage to low voltage especially useful for fine stranded low voltage wire.
WAGO 222 and its newer version 221 also connects both, flex and rigid wires
dd313car yes I think you are right but for splicing fine and solid inline connectors are useful and take up less space allow even cleaner termination.
Yes they are
Good evening
Found a dead mouse across the live and cpc terminals of a range cooker once, which tripped rcd . Also found one across the terminals of an old meter.
Great work my man
Had a bit of luck pulling the new cable in and yes no chance doing that to the rest of the lightsot sure I would of ruined the ceiling with holes
Dear me, surely there’s got to be some fried squirrel up there somewhere.
Maybe they ate the cable clips too :o)
HAHAHA
How are squirrels getting in? I put most of my wiring through plastic trucking to stop rodent damage.. It helps to have a cat rat out loft occasionally. Hornets also like to nibble cable s for fun just to annoy. Was the insulation packed in after rodent damage? There may even be squashed dead animals in there.
Don't know if anyone else has explained but they do it keep teeth sharp and at a good length as they are always growing
we still do it the old way here our junction boxes don't even have connections inside wires are twisted together and joined with terminals or ferrules real old school
Could that cable not have stripped like that pulling it through a tight hole in the joist to small a hole or over or under a tight joist.
Loving the video
Thanks!
Round my neck of the woods, the glis-glis or 'edible doormouse' get up in the loft and wreak havoc.... Once trapped you are forbidden to let them loose into the wild again!
Hemel Hempstead railway station had a small colony of them, I think they spread out from Tring about 1900 from the Rothschild estate. The station had a few rats as well,
@@nw5835 I don't think they've got as far north as Cambridge..... Yet!
Whatever animals are chewing the cables have probably been attracted by the warmth of those old bulbs. Newer LEDs may be less comfortable for them.
Another great video
Thank you!
If its anything like automotive cable they have changed the make up of the cable for envionmental reasons and have added fish oils/animal fats to the mix
It would be great if the mixed rat poisen into the pvc