Re terminating ancient cables

OMS:

Those cables are almost certainly paper insulated lead covered with steel wire armouring. Originally they would almost certainly had hessian covering with an impregnated denso type paste. They look  they've dried through and lost the covering.


Difficult to judge but they look as if they are terminated (badly) into an enclosure full of bitumen, or to a dry enclosure and the lead sheath has been formed over what is effectively a conduit coupler to act as a gland, and to allow clamping to the sheath for earthing purposes


Personally, unless you have good experience jointing and terminating PILC, I would leave them well alone, even on a temporary basis.


Probably easier to replace with a length of wavecon if acceptable to the DNO as a temporary BNO cable or use a length of SWA


Regards


OMS

Alan Capon:

I can’t remember where the asbestos is in that type of cutout, but it is likely to be in the phase barriers at least. It is conceivable that the DNO will want to cut it out and bag it, without opening it, due to the risk of releasing asbestos fibres in to the atmosphere. The usual method is a “dig and cut” to isolate it outside, then suitable cutters on the cables inside. If it has been obviously interfered with, for example the DNOs seals missing, they may request an asbestos survey of the immediate area first. 


As OMS has stated, I would have expected the SWA to have an outer hessian wrapping, which may have failed and fallen away due to age, rodent attack, or overheating. If overheating was the cause, the insulating papers may be dry and brittle, the impregnating oil having long since dried. 


Regards,


Alan.