mattg4321

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Apr 6, 2014
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If you're a qualified, trainee, or retired electrician - Which country is it that your work will be / is / was aimed at?
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Not sure if this has been posted before but it just goes to show that eventually someone does get hurt. We’ve all seen loads of jobs where we wonder how it didn’t kill someone.

The terminology in the article is bad, but reading between the lines it sounds like no rcd protection and no cpc at class 1 outside lights. Probably poorly fitted too no doubt. By an ‘electrician’ with 50 years experience! He should really be facing jail time imo.

It doesn’t surprise me that it was a pub. Most of them are death traps from what I’ve seen.
 
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Not sure if this has been posted before but it just goes to show that eventually someone does get hurt. We’ve all seen loads of jobs where we wonder how it didn’t kill someone.

The terminology in the article is bad, but reading between the lines it sounds like no rcd protection and no cpc at class 1 outside lights. Probably poorly fitted too no doubt. By an ‘electrician’ with 50 years experience! He should really be facing jail time imo.

It doesn’t surprise me that it was a pub. Most of them are death traps from what I’ve seen.
So sad to hear. If that so called electrician did that if the US he would definitely go to prison. It goes to show so people shouldn’t be doing electrical work.
 
I saw this come up on IOSH Magazine, then went down the rabbit hole looking at every electrical incident on the site, some horrific stuff out there.
 
The terminology in the article is bad, but reading between the lines it sounds like no rcd protection and no cpc at class 1 outside lights.
My reading of it is there was no earthing of the installation at all, so probably the outside lights were on a CPC but that became live.

Also probably no RCD, but even with RCD on some circuits like the lights, if the there is a fault to earth on any non-RCD and if spectacularly fails Zs due to no MET connection it would still cause a lethal supply outside.

A bit like a PME fault but far worse as less reliable wiring (already disclosed state of electrics with tampering) and not even any neutral volts suppression due to partial balance between phases.
 
From the MSN article with [my annotation] has:

Penny [prosecutor] said Bearman [pub owner] was once “blown across the cellar” after touching a fuse box in 2018, which left a large purple injury on his arm – though Naylor [so-called electrician] said he thought the injury was unrelated to the electricity supply.

So it seams the installation CPC has been live for some time?

It beggars belief that he has not caused more accidents in his time if that is his standard of understanding and attention to basic safety. Maybe none caused enough injury or death for HSE to bring him to trial :(
 
From the MSN article with [my annotation] has:
Penny [prosecutor] said Bearman [pub owner] was once “blown across the cellar” after touching a fuse box in 2018, which left a large purple injury on his arm – though Naylor [so-called electrician] said he thought the injury was unrelated to the electricity supply.
Bloody hell... that sounds like the hole thing was live! I would not be surprised if he is fond guilty for this as whilst the regs are not statutory the EAWR is and there is no real defence, either it was dangerous and you should fix it before work or it isnt.
 
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I think one thing in the EQCSR which is statutory is there must be a means of earthing. Probably there will be a detailed technical write up of what was found by HSE but not seen anything beyond the tabloid reporter's limited take on the trial technical contents.

A truly awful thing.
 
Having worked on a couple of pub installations this doesn't surprise me.

In this day and age we shouldn't be seeing incidents like this, typical money scrimping by a landlord has cost another life.

Yet people are still happy with their £60 EICRs...
 

Not sure if this has been posted before but it just goes to show that eventually someone does get hurt. We’ve all seen loads of jobs where we wonder how it didn’t kill someone.

The terminology in the article is bad, but reading between the lines it sounds like no rcd protection and no cpc at class 1 outside lights. Probably poorly fitted too no doubt. By an ‘electrician’ with 50 years experience! He should really be facing jail time imo.

It doesn’t surprise me that it was a pub. Most of them are death traps from what I’ve seen.

Most older pubs are electrical death traps.

Decades of retired DIY modifications and additions onto long outdated installations.

When they were all bought up by Pub Corp Inc. They, in many cases, just redecorated and titivate and get a drive by Cert.

Before lockdowns I spent a year doing breakdowns and they were all pretty poor.
 
To me manslaughter isn't enough of a charge. Obviously they didn't purposefully kill someone but the negligence is staggering. This is the electrical equivalent of death by dangrous driving.
 
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When they were all bought up by Pub Corp Inc. They, in many cases, just redecorated and titivate and get a drive by Cert.
It is a real shame this pub did not have a diver-by EICR, as having one of those companies' directors in the dock on negligence charges might have shaken up the industry the way it needs.
 
As already mentioned , above Pubs have notoriously shoddy wiring with decades of Diy alterations and add ons

several pubs I had the displeasure of working on I have found loads of unearthed class 1 lights , taped connector block in flowerbeds , disconnected earths , by passed rcds , cables cut on fire alarms

rough as a badgers
 
Wasn't it a pub that famously put an interior socket for the beer garden inside a plastic butty box to make it 'waterproof'?
 
One of my daughters is the restaurant manager at a local rural pub.
About 3 years ago, at about 11am on a Sunday, she 'phoned me, requesting my immediate presence, as half the power to the pub had failed, and there were about 80 lunch bookings, starting in about 2 hours time.
Split phase supply, one RCD for each phase, and one tripping out. Quickly determined it was a lighting circuit causing the problem, and started testing with the other phase still switched on. Checking that the circuit I was going to test was dead revealed it wasn't! Never did get to the bottom of this one, since it wasn't what I was there for, and didn't want to be, but the voltage was the opposite phase of my circuit, and was coming via the emergency lights, some of which were on each phase. Must have been an open circuit shared neutral.
I found out that their usual 'electricians' (a large, well known local firm) had replaced two fluorescent lights in the kitchen on the relevant circuit about a month before, so that's where I started. Cover off, and the permanent lives straight through a choc. block and out the other side, and touching the cover.
Power back on, lunches saved, but in the short time I was there I saw half a dozen C2s at least, as well as the C1 for the emergency lights.
This place must have had regular EICRs from the local firm, but they obviously work and test to different standards than me.
 
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From the MSN article with [my annotation] has:

Penny [prosecutor] said Bearman [pub owner] was once “blown across the cellar” after touching a fuse box in 2018, which left a large purple injury on his arm – though Naylor [so-called electrician] said he thought the injury was unrelated to the electricity supply.

So it seams the installation CPC has been live for some time?

It beggars belief that he has not caused more accidents in his time if that is his standard of understanding and attention to basic safety. Maybe none caused enough injury or death for HSE to bring him to trial :(

I'm intrigued to know what the electrician thought it was that caused the incident with the barman and the fusebox.
 
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Wasn't it a pub that famously put an interior socket for the beer garden inside a plastic butty box to make it 'waterproof'?
My local has a regular metal clad socket in the beer garden inside a metal biscuit tin screwed to the fence post.
 
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My local has a regular metal clad socket in the beer garden inside a metal biscuit tin screwed to the fence post.
as long as it's a hobnob tin, C3. anything else C2.
 
Having worked on a couple of pub installations this doesn't surprise me.

In this day and age we shouldn't be seeing incidents like this, typical money scrimping by a landlord has cost another life.

Yet people are still happy with their £60 EICRs...
as long as it's a hobnob tin, C3. anything else C2.
I cannot recall ever seeing hobnobs in tins so I calling bo*** ks on this early. Also, even if ever tinned( yeah, right) the variety is so low brow as to warrant only the flimsiest of tins, never suitable for exterior applications.

Now, Fox's Fabulously Chocolaty selection tin is on a whole new level. Both substantial and designed so as not to allow water to settle on horizontal surfaces.

61v9yCVZmXL._AC_SY879_.jpg


The only tin capable of getting away with a C3, I think you'll all agree.
 

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mattg4321

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South East UK
If you're a qualified, trainee, or retired electrician - Which country is it that your work will be / is / was aimed at?
United Kingdom
What type of forum member are you?
Practising Electrician (Qualified - Domestic or Commercial etc)

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