Odd 1980's SWA
For conext - yes I am an electrician 😄
A question that isn't largely important but just piqued my interest as i haven't come across this elsewhere.
I grew up in a street built ariund 1980-1983. My 'rents still live there, and i've done work in a fair few of the houses - and the setup is the same throughout so i know the history and know its original to the build.
All the houses have detatched garages (only slightly, like 15cm from the house). The original Wylex 3036 DB's all had about 10m worth of 2 core SWA (all terminated without a gland at the house end 🤣, just a few strands of armour shoved into the earth bar) from a 15a fuse that feed a 2 way Wylex metal DB in the garage (lights & socket).
Herin lies my question. The SWA feeding the garage DB's is weird. It's definitley SWA - has normal CW20 glands
on the garage end...steel armour...inner insulation....and then the 2 inner black/red conductors.....but the weirdness is that the cores themselves are single strand....ie the same as in modern 1.0-2.5mm twin and earth. Not like any other SWA i've ever seen which is all 7 strand copper. I can't even gauge the size...it looks like 1mm (which i dont think has ever existed as an SWA). All the garages ive been in have had paint slapped over the cable so cant make out any data on the cable.
Wondered if anyone has come across SWA like this before?