Exactly! My folks had a guy in to replace an extractor in the kitchen a few years back. The new one didn't work so they ran a surface cable in trunking from ... somewhere ... That's one of those two 2.5mm cables. When I removed the fitted wardrobes to start on the ensuite I found two sockets. Great methought, something to maybe switched-fused-spur off for the ensuite extractor. Nope! Dead. The other of those 2.5mm cables it turns out. I've excised those two now, and will add a new one back in pending tests ....
You should have seen my Dad's face when I told him all this ..... ... and yes that really is him ..... Anyone recognize the advert??
When I moved into my house the dining room light would flicker if someone was upstairs. Turned out the P.O. had moved the light but didn’t have enough cable so it went. Existing cable to a foot of gold flex to a foot of 2.5 twin and earth cable. All the joints were held together with Sellotape. When we did the kitchen behind one of the cupboards was a hole and a flash mark and written next to it caution cable. When I dug it out sure enough there was a hole that had taken the earth and half the live out. One day I will rewire the house but we have only been in 12 years so time yet.
Looks like a plumber has used the protective conductor core instead of using three core cable. There's a surprise...................
^^^^This^^^^ If you say the cables are excessively long, possibly suffering voltage drop that has increased the current being drawn - although in practice I've never seen any effect from voltage drop in a domestic application.
I went on a holiday once to Greece to a little town called Tolo on the Peloponese. The hotel shower there gave you a shock unless you turned it on or off while kneeling on a white plastic stool. Basically I think all metalwork in the hotel was live. And that original wiring mess failed to use American wiring nuts ( twisted wires with a bit of plastic over them) . Chocolate block connectors are too advanced.
That's actually not that bad. Bit scruffy, and might have invested in a bit of sleeving, but otherwise ok(-ish). Melted cables aren't.
Done the socket by socket run through and it looks as if two circuit breakers are serving nothing, and of the other two, one serves all of upstairs and 80% of downstairs, which makes me think when they upgraded from bakelite and wires (!) they made radials ints a ring but got over zealous. At least the life threatening mis-labling of the main board is gone. The wires that were contacted and melted would have been supplying the oven, and any number of appliances around the house including the rest of the kitchen, so something didn't trip when it should have, or at least not soon enough. This is the house that has cooper central heating pipes supported on bent nails which caused a leak after about forty years of rubbing from expansion/contraction movement!
Everything you are describing sounds normal for how things were done in the 60s/70s You use to have one ring covering the whole house normally one socket per room with a couple in the kitchen. One lighting circuit to do the whole house normally with no earth wire. a cooker point And a immersion point
