Lead-sheathed wiring – why?

[David Jupp]

On David Jupp Said:

Where I used to work, some of the older 11kV distribution cables were lead sheathed, paper insulated.

Remember that the polymers we take for granted simply were not widely available at the that time, and certainly had no history of use in cabling.

Polyethylene was very new during WWII, it was key to enabling airborne radar – only saw wider use an insulator in other duties later.

A metallic sheath would give a degree of fire protection.

Wish I had a £1 for every joint I’ve made !

H

 

[Stuart Smith 5Participant @stuartsmith5]

Don

If you had contacted your local electricity network operator, rather than your supplier, they would have either sweated the earth onto the lead sheath or replaced the cable with a modern plastic one.

You did not need a PME type earth, so the advice you were given was wrong.

 

Stuart

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

I remember when I was much younger, about 1970 when installing central heating in Farnborough drilling through a wall and I thought I had hit a flint, but it was some lead sheathed cable. It had been disconnected downstream when pvc was retro installed, but not at the fusebox. My boss had given me a brand new Black & Decker 1/2″ percussion drill, plastic body and double insulated. Double insulated drills were a new idea and I was just in time to benifit. Percussion drills were also a new idea at the time. It nearly spun me off a set of steps when I was drilling for a water pipe above a door frame, about 800W, two speed gearbox and no safety clutch like SDS has.

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