Oh the wiring in these flats is worse than that!
I recently decided to replace the emergency light which no longer worked. The emergency light takes its live and neutral from behind a bulkhead(?) wall lamp fitting which, in turn is fed from behind the light switch below. Faults found while doing this:
1. The wall lamp is 1970s and predates the requirement for an earth in Italy, and so has no earth terminal, but it would have been easy enough to fit one to the metal casing when the place was re-wired in 1993. This had not been done, but there was a green and yellow cable run to the fitting as if the intention was there. The earth cable that was run (but not connected) to the bulkhead light fitting was, at the opposite end, connected to another cable serving another similar lamp but not to the green/yellow cable run to the main junction box.
2. The single core phase and neutral cables run to the emergency light were visible on the wall without conduit. In fairness, they were only exposed for a couple of inches, but still, this strikes me as wrong (although it is common to see a short section of exposed single-core single insulated cables at electricity meters, so perhaps this is not considered a fault over here).
3. The green/yellow cable from the lightwitch to the main junction box was being used as a neutral. As the bulkhead lamps have their neutral switched at a remote relay, there was no permanent neutral from which to feed the emergency light, so what was clearly intended to be an earth endeded up being misappropriated.
4. The green/yellow cable was identified in the main junction box as being a neutral by being joined to the main neutral terminal via a short section of blue cable. The joint was twist and tape (not a marriage joint - literally twist and tape). The joint at the lightswitch junction box was similar, but the cable's actual nature was not identified by any kind of coloured tab or sheathing.
5. The bulkhead light itself is of a design that a quite elaborate mechnism involving levers and moving parts to allow for removal of the glass cover and the lampholder design could easily short the casing and the lamp terminals together should a set screw come loose. To add to these inherent design limitations, it was only fixed to the wall by a single screw because drilling two holes was too much like hard work, just to make a fault developing a little more likely.
6. ES type bulbholder connected with neutral to inside pin.
7. The entire installation was signed off as a compliant installation by a registered electrician in 1993. He was previously a waiter. I expect the hotel was glad to see him leave.
I have corrected some of the above faults myself as the waiting time for a local electrician seems to be about 3 years.
