General > General Technical Chat

Termites could burn your house down

<< < (6/8) > >>

Cyberdragon:

--- Quote from: Monkeh on October 12, 2019, 02:14:37 pm ---
--- Quote from: Marco on October 12, 2019, 02:13:19 pm ---
--- Quote from: Monkeh on October 12, 2019, 02:11:19 pm ---what earth?

--- End quote ---

Well I'm assuming with the talk of a theoretical earth leakage breaker he was also talking about theoretical earthed wiring.

--- End quote ---

Earth wiring is not necessary for operation of an RCD.

--- End quote ---

But an external path to earth is, and with no electrical box or any sort of metalwork, let alone a ground wire, I don't see how that would be possible.

shakalnokturn:
Earth wiring isn't necessary, in the worst case a human will do the trick (that's why it's always good yo have a nice new sensitive RCD) in this case there was no way the RCD would trip with a switched phase or neutral and no nearby wood damp enough to conduct to ground.
Would have needed a non-insulated earth connection just resting nearby.

SeanB:
Can confirm that termites love soft wood. Years ago we cut down a turpentine tree, and left it as logs at the boundary, yo control soil erosion. Years later those turpentine logs were absolutely unscathed by termites, but the pine logs next to them, despite being 4 times the diameter, were just a bark shell over termitories.

Guy, a simple way to fix the termites is to go to the industrial suppliers store near you  and buy a few big bags of Borax, sold as a laundry brightener. Then simply either dig into the soil around the house, or make a near saturated solution to pour around the foundations lavishly. Termites do not like that at all, along with roaches and pretty much every other insect.

Quarlo Klobrigney:
Borax or get some ants. They simply loooove :P them some termites. Now what to do about the ants?
I only use AFC Flex cable in metal boxes. I've seen Romex go up in flames for a multitude of reasons, handyman - homeowner bodges, mice etc. Nothing is perfect, but for what we all do here, a pound of prevention....

amyk:

--- Quote from: Cubdriver on October 12, 2019, 04:28:01 am ---
--- 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!
--- End quote ---
K&T still had insulation over the wires. I've never seen it with uninsulated bare copper wires.

If you're curious about the history of electrical wiring, archive.org has some good old books about it.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod