A Rant About Incompetent Electricians!

P

Piratepete

I've taken the stand that I will not pass off anybody elses work and I actively tell Joe Public to use only Part P registered guys. This is not a guarantee of a good job but it helps. At least his test gear is likely to be calibrated, he'll be insured and he'll be up to date with the 17th Ed., he'll test and issue certificates and even maybe know how to do the work.
Case in point.
Got asked to a 25year old house to redo a loft light. Found no switch (connected to study light below) and done in flex.
Was then invited to the recently refurbished kitchen and utility room (converted from attached garage).
There was no accessible isolation for any of the white goods. The double oven was connected to the ring cct. The ring cct neutral was open circuit. The wall mounted TV was directly connected to the ring cct as was the kitchen extractor (the flex just disappeared into the wall!). The new lighting in the utility room is connected to the ring cct but not via a fused spur. Even the under cupboard lights were directly on the ring.

The guy who did this lot, a relative, has been practicing in south Brum for the last 2 years, Gawd help us!
Apparently he even found somebody to pass his work off!!!!

Resigned sigh! Pete
 
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If customers are ignorant of the fact that work needs to be signed off by a qualified electrician and qualified electricians are happy to sign off sub standard work then you're fighting a losing battle.

Why can't you just report the contractor and the qualified guy who signed the work off?
 
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Relative or not....put a stop to it ...now mate......If he`s a relative then maybe you can have a chat with him over a pint...or three..lol.....and explain to him ina tactful way that this kind of work is substandard and he needs to get with the program as far as installing is concerned.......
 
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I work in the metering industry, unfortunately we employed electrically experienced contractors and the statistics are alarming. For every five electrician incidents we had one incident with a un-qualified based background. Some investigations were a joke, chiefly tightening terminations and basic wiring were sub-standard.
 
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Rubbish is rubbish even if its a scheme member. There's plenty of good sparks not willing to be ripped off by a scheme. I've seen plenty of rubbish scheme members and plenty of good JIB sparks, not all tho'.
 
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No offence to any of our experienced sparks but you will find twonks in DIY, new qualified sparks and old timers.
Example: Just finished a rewire - told the CU and Kitchen done 12 yrs ago so would be ok. Hmmm. Did celler and three floors fine myself.
CU labeled as RCD protected even with the RCD "test me" sticker yet ... no RCD.
All lights switched in neutral.
No bonding to GAS or Water.
Outside light spured off nearest socket in 1.5 T&E but not fused down and cable at 45 degrees up the wall.
Circuit spured from an existing house RFC at a socket but the CPC tied to the back of the plastic patress so now there was no CPC to existing socket. THEN ran a single new leg back to the CU on a different CB! House sockets isolated by turning off not one but two CB's.
 
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DaveyD said:
No offence to any of our experienced sparks but you will find twonks in DIY, new qualified sparks and old timers.
Example: Just finished a rewire - told the CU and Kitchen done 12 yrs ago so would be ok. Hmmm. Did celler and three floors fine myself.
CU labeled as RCD protected even with the RCD "test me" sticker yet ... no RCD.
All lights switched in neutral.
No bonding to GAS or Water.
Outside light spured off nearest socket in 1.5 T&E but not fused down and cable at 45 degrees up the wall.
Circuit spured from an existing house RFC at a socket but the CPC tied to the back of the plastic patress so now there was no CPC to existing socket. THEN ran a single new leg back to the CU on a different CB! House sockets isolated by turning off not one but two CB's.
Click to expand...
well by any standards thats poor though Dave...
 
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People will always play with electrics,that guy Faraday potched about with it and man has carried on ever since

In order for it to be installed safely,some are trained to work with the stuff
After training,there are good,aveage and poor sparks
The non electrician is devided up the same but with more poor installers,sometimes bordering on suicidal

The effects of electrics poorly installed can be lethal but on the whole there are very few fatalities
Because the danger is not reflected in nuimbers of injured the regulation of electrics is piecemeal
It is not difficult to decide that the motivation for any regulation has been motivated by things other than safety

Electrics will continue to be installed by anyone who thinks they can
The authorities are happy for that to continue

Trying to police a non system that is awash with culprits of poor standards is a complete and utter waste of time
Unless the person is in competition with you for work that he is depriving you of
The economic reason can be justified but the safety concerns of the work of these others is not worth the effort
 
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Piratepete said:
I've taken the stand that I will not pass off anybody elses work and I actively tell Joe Public to use only Part P registered guys. This is not a guarantee of a good job but it helps. At least his test gear is likely to be calibrated, he'll be insured and he'll be up to date with the 17th Ed., he'll test and issue certificates and even maybe know how to do the work.
Case in point.
Got asked to a 25year old house to redo a loft light. Found no switch (connected to study light below) and done in flex.
Was then invited to the recently refurbished kitchen and utility room (converted from attached garage).
There was no accessible isolation for any of the white goods. The double oven was connected to the ring cct. The ring cct neutral was open circuit. The wall mounted TV was directly connected to the ring cct as was the kitchen extractor (the flex just disappeared into the wall!). The new lighting in the utility room is connected to the ring cct but not via a fused spur. Even the under cupboard lights were directly on the ring.

The guy who did this lot, a relative, has been practicing in south Brum for the last 2 years, Gawd help us!
Apparently he even found somebody to pass his work off!!!!

Resigned sigh! Pete
Click to expand...

Never ceases to amaze me how they can get it so wrong, when it's so easy to get right. It's idiots like this though that keep getting the work & the rest of us have to keep clearing up their mess, none of their customers would probably dream of reporting them. Cos he's a good old boy & he was only doing it for some beer money etc ( how many times have i heard that 1) but should we ever make a mistake then god help us, they'll throw everything they can at us.:furious3:
 
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To be honest i think thats exactly what it was intended to do. Bring in revenue for the Government, Local Authorities & the Scam. Oops sorry I meant to say scheme providers, don't think it actually had anything to do with making Domestic wiring safer. All they did was wrap it up as a building Reg to quell the outcry if Joe public actually realised it was a scam.
 
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When you introduce a scheme where someone who has completed an overpriced 5 day course, can then complete 2 jobs and be accepted by a part p scheme provider you will get a large amount of poor work appearing. I know only a few members of the public recognice part P but those that do will generally have more trust in that electrician. As far as I can see Part P is a way for the chancers and cowboys to jump into a profesional trade with no experience. I know there are a lot of you guys who have years of experience and have to pay a small fortune to join a scheme must be gutted to see the standard of people coming into the trade. Stick to industrial, no 5 day course will ever help you make it there.
 
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I've never been that fussed on Domestic to be honest, hate having to lug punters furniture about & some of the things you see / find can take a lot of Stomaching. Commercial / Industrial great.
 
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Hi Guys
I guess this could run and run. IMHO Part P is a good thing, flawed though it may be. Electrical wiring should've been covered by building regs years ago.
When it came in I heard oldtimers complaining about having to buy test equipment!!! So a lot more testing is, I guess, being done now.
A lot of prospective customers do now ask if I'm Part P or NICEIC registered (They've never heard of all the other organisations!). Conveyancing solicitors now send out very detailed questionaires asking what's been done and please provide the test certificates. A lot of DIYers don't do their own wiring now. So I think, over time, that house wiring will improve.
Notifiable work is now insurance backed.
I do think that the annual check is a waste of my time and money - NICEIC was trying to get this reduced but I understand couldn't get agreement from the others.
But - signing off other monkey's work has to stop!

Cheers
Pete
 
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trev1 said:
To be fair Pete, no spark I know that's worth his salt will sign off any work not done either by himself or under his very close supervision
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Hi Trev
Interesting you say that. I recently got an email from a guy asking me for a price to sign off his work because his usual electrician was unavailable. He'd just done an extension - all circuits were already covered and energised!! I told him what I thought and politely declined
Cheers
Pete
 
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I am in two minds about the incompetent electricians:

1 - They produce work for the competent who fix their mistakes
2 - They initially take away work from the competent
3 - They may kill some innocent person. Why is that when Darwinism should apply it is usually someone else that gets hurt?

Do you have to be able to count to be competent?
 
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Specialist said:
I've never been that fussed on Domestic to be honest, hate having to lug punters furniture about & some of the things you see / find can take a lot of Stomaching. Commercial / Industrial great.
Click to expand...
oh i dont know special......seen some stuff in some houses thats cheered me right up..... **** stashes spring to mind here....lol.....
 
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Know what you mean Glenn, we used to do a lot of local authority work & to be fair a lot of them were'nt as bad as the private houses lol. Seen my old apprentice run out of 1 or 2 but that's not for an open forum:blush5:
 
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Piratepete said:
Hi Trev
Interesting you say that. I recently got an email from a guy asking me for a price to sign off his work because his usual electrician was unavailable. He'd just done an extension - all circuits were already covered and energised!! I told him what I thought and politely declined
Cheers
Pete
Click to expand...
I completely agree mate but I did say no spark worth his salt would do it. There are always a few who don't give a damn in every walk of life the bad thing is those who don't give a damn in our trade risk injuring or killing people
 
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Specialist said:
Know what you mean Glenn, we used to do a lot of local authority work & to be fair a lot of them were'nt as bad as the private houses lol. Seen my old apprentice run out of 1 or 2 but that's not for an open forum:blush5:
Click to expand...
well my boss seems a bit indifferent to it all.....used to work for the leeds city council see.....but the way he just shrugs it off..lol....mind you they can keep fitting them crappy surface boxes for me..;..as they soon get whacked off the wall/skirting board by furniture legs and parties n stuff.......so we have to replace em.....tut tut....IPs gone on that love.....got to change it......
 
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Just make sure to wipe your feet before you go into the street, don't want to contaminate the pavement lol. If you ever find out where all the Smoke heads dissapear to let me know mate, we used to replace so many for 1 Authority i kept a box of 20 in the van.
 
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A Rant About Incompetent Electricians!
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