Electrician in Welling DA16 and East Wickham

The loft over the bedrooms

Almost two homes in three in DA16 are semi-detached houses: 8,744 households at the 2021 Census, 63.6% of the district, about twice the England figure of 31.5% and well above Bexley’s 44.2%. Most of them have a loft over the bedrooms, and the loft is where much of the upstairs wiring lives. The cables feeding the first-floor lights run across the ceiling joists, with the junction boxes left by past alterations, the feed to a loft light, and sometimes a heavier cable passing through on its way to a shower or an extension. Two things tend to have happened in those lofts since the wiring went in. The insulation has been laid thicker, and a cable buried in insulation can carry less current before it runs hot than the same cable in open air: of little consequence for a lighting circuit, a real one for a shower or cooker cable that crosses the loft. And downlights have been cut into the ceilings below. Electrical Safety First’s advice is that downlights must not touch or be covered by loft insulation unless they are designed and rated for it, and it says poorly installed downlights cause a significant number of fires in homes every year. An inspection looks in the loft wherever it can be reached safely, and where it cannot, the report says so as a limitation.

Census 2021 is five years old. Counts households, not buildings. Summed over the output areas where most postcodes are in the district; small-area counts carry ONS's disclosure-control adjustments.

Source: Electrical Safety First, downlights