Regs on redundant cable

cut back and insulate, or connect to earth. Do not leave redundant cable energised.

Most jobs I have done are newbuild , but the replacement jobs I have seen all cable is deenergised, made safe and removed, I cant think of any situation I have seen where you cannot remove the old cable other than through wall apertures and where the cables have been cable tied in bundles. Even big SWA that are buried get removed with special cable pullers if they can or dig it out.

I don't know I might not have seen the sort of thing you have encountered , I would say once deenergised make a clean end and wrap with tape and label as not in use ..

an old steel works electrician (think large DNO DC supplies sort of era) told me that if anything was disconnected but not terminated, he would drive a nail through it to short the cable out so it wasn't possible for it to be accidentally energised.


Seemed a good idea to me, but mentioning it now causes people to recoil in horror

In my world, we categorically and without exception put every unused core to earth, solidly and reliably.


If a cable is not in use, it is disconnected from any source of supply and treated as above.


Regards


OMS

I agree with OMS here. We would short the cores to earth if the cable could not be removed. This allows the cable to be used in the future, but also allows the cable to be located using standard tools from the other end. 


Regards,


Alan.

So short cables to earth on supply side and terminate accordingly at the other end ie suitable junction box and ternate to screwed connections

Regs wise I don't know of anything specific - if it's energised then it's still part of the installation and so all the normal regs apply. If it's permanently isolated then it's just another a bit of metal and plastic and likely out of scope of wiring regs (other than for metallic sheathed cables which might count as extraneous-conductive-parts in some situations).


As for common practice, there's probably a bit of consideration of scale and likelihood of reuse - a bit of old redundant T&E or phone cable buried within plaster or concrete is likely to be just chopped off and left.


  - Andy.

What is the general consensus on the load end of the cable? Terminate each core in a separate terminal?