Re: get out quick
Apologies in advance for brevity...
no earth bonding on central heating pipes.
A lot of things like this are because they weren't mandatory at the time the installation was designed. New editions of the regulations aren't retrospective unless you happen to be working on the part of the installation concerned.
wire plastered into walls with no trunking.
Not strictly necessary, even now. Plastic trunking might protect cable from the plasterer's trowel, but the 17th edition requires either burial 50mm deep or protection good enough to deflect (say) a picture nail or (more common) protection by an RCD.
not a singe socket that has been opened up has any insulation over the earth wires from the T&E,
Not, strictly speaking, insulation. It's mainly there as an indicator to identify the conductor.
and it appears that as each socket was installed, the cable was pulled tight so there is no slack in the cable at all
A properly applied crimp to add a couple of inches of wire will be at least as reliable as the screw terminals in the outlet, probably more so.
find that the knob head cut a notch out of the TOP of the joists to run cables across it, i am supposed to follow that route and not drill a hole through the joist for the cable to pass through...
Drilling a hole would just further weaken the joist, but re-using the notch isn't ideal die to the risk of nailing through the cable, even when you know it's there. In many cases it's possible to fit a plate across the notch, which my inspectors never whole-heartedly recommended, but seemed happy to accept.
M.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
