General > General Technical Chat
Termites could burn your house down
vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: Cubdriver on October 11, 2019, 05:49:32 pm --- :wtf: :o :o :o :o :o
Holy crap!!! That might not have ended will! Good thing you caught it when you did!
Edit to add - I'm surprised to see that the switch appears to be set directly into the wood, with no box of any sort.
-Pat
--- End quote ---
Not a major drama, if, as is normal, there is enough clearance around the switch.
All but one of the light switches in my place are mounted into the trim around the door frame.
Most of the power outlets (GPOs in Ozspeak) are mounted into the skirting boards.
The other GPOs are set into the double brick wall, as is the light switch in the lounge room.
Termites absolutely love softwood.
I remember at my Mum's place, the electrician had used a bit of pine embedded into the brick wall to fit a light switch (the old round "surface mount" type).
The termites ate their way up the jarrah door frame (jarrah heartwood is not their favorite), & completely hollowed out the pine.
Electro Detective:
Watch out who you hire for 'pest control'
Some are smooth talking rats in human form that rid you of one problem, at not so cheap 'professional' prices,
and ensure they come back again for another future problem.. they planted whilst underneath or out of sight.
Shop around for good operators via referrals that know their job and get plenty of work,
not turkeys that resort to 'making work' to bleed unaware battlers out of their cash
Don't ask me how I know this$$$... |O
vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: TerraHertz on October 12, 2019, 12:50:02 am ---@SeanB actually the house is not that ancient. It was built around 1970, and the wiring is PVC insulated. The intact insulation isn't brittle at all. Those wires near the switch are bare because the 'hot spot' of conductive carbonizing worked it's way along the wire like a burning fuse cord. Then the resulting gunk fell off when I moved them.
A pest eradication is going to happen urgently. In the meantime I went and bought a couple of cans of surface spray, broke open all the termite tracks I could find, and gave the entire area in the wall cavities and under the house a good dose.
I found where their trail comes up from the ground. It's inside a brick double wall, under the bathroom concrete slab. Looks like a metal wall capping there may have rusted through, but I can't see the hole. Rust suspected due to an in-wall toilet cistern made of plastic, that developed a crack and leaked some years ago. I fixed that, but it hadn't been leaking long enough to rot the timbers so I had only needed to replace sodden wall plaster and some tiling.
Before hiring the eradicators, I'll hammer-drill some big holes in the internal wall of the double brick, for access to that space.
My mum is 90, and probably only has a few years left. After she passes that property will be sold and it's virtually certain a buyer would demolish the house and rebuild. So, minimal effort repairs.
--- End quote ---
Even really old houses in Oz are unlikely to have anything other than PVC insulation.
There was a bit of a paroxysm in the Electrical industry in the mid 1950s, with the widespread adoption of PVC for both cable insulation & power plugs -- the classic PVC Oz plug dates from about that era, with just a few mods having occurred over the years.
Certainly, in WA, even 100+ year old houses have been rewired with PVC over the many years since then.
I had occasion to climb around in the roof of a "Federation" era house, & came across some "tramline" type wiring.(bare copper wire supported by porcelain standoff insulators).
It had long ago been disconnected, & the wiring in use was all PVC.
An interesting sidelight ---someone in the past had put a TV antenna inside the roof, which does work OK with tiles, but not with a metal roof like this house had.
The antenna was resting across both sides of the old "tramline' wiring, so it's just as well it had been replaced.
amyk:
--- Quote from: vk6zgo on October 12, 2019, 01:50:01 am ---
--- Quote from: Cubdriver on October 11, 2019, 05:49:32 pm --- :wtf: :o :o :o :o :o
Holy crap!!! That might not have ended will! Good thing you caught it when you did!
Edit to add - I'm surprised to see that the switch appears to be set directly into the wood, with no box of any sort.
-Pat
--- End quote ---
Not a major drama, if, as is normal, there is enough clearance around the switch.
All but one of the light switches in my place are mounted into the trim around the door frame.
Most of the power outlets (GPOs in Ozspeak) are mounted into the skirting boards.
The other GPOs are set into the double brick wall, as is the light switch in the lounge room.
--- End quote ---
Another example of the massive differences in regulations between countries. At least in North America, switches and outlets are required to be in junction boxes and that rule has been around for probably close to a century.
Cubdriver:
--- Quote from: vk6zgo on October 12, 2019, 02:23:45 am ---Certainly, in WA, even 100+ year old houses have been rewired with PVC over the many years since then.
I had occasion to climb around in the roof of a "Federation" era house, & came across some "tramline" type wiring.(bare copper wire supported by porcelain standoff insulators).
It had long ago been disconnected, & the wiring in use was all PVC.
An interesting sidelight ---someone in the past had put a TV antenna inside the roof, which does work OK with tiles, but not with a metal roof like this house had.
The antenna was resting across both sides of the old "tramline' wiring, so it's just as well it had been replaced.
--- End quote ---
That sounds like what's known in the states as "knob and tube" wiring. I've seen it in a few old houses (even still in use in a few lighting circuits at a friend's 1920s-ish house). The knobs are porcelain insulators used to support the wire, and hold it where turns were made, and the tubes were porcelain sleeves with larger heads at one end the were fitted in a hole wherever the wiring passed through a rafter, joist or wall stud. I'm happy that I can just pull a single cable with hot, neutral and ground all in one these days. MUCH easier!
--- Quote from: amyk on October 12, 2019, 03:10:49 am ---Another example of the massive differences in regulations between countries. At least in North America, switches and outlets are required to be in junction boxes and that rule has been around for probably close to a century.
--- End quote ---
Right? It is amazing how much different the standards and methods for things like this are depending on where you are in the world! I'm not sure when junction boxes became a requirement in the US, (don't have anything on wiring going back that far), but even the knob-and-tube I mentioned above at my friend's house came together into boxes at fixture and switch locations.
-Pat
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