Backward Strides

[telectrix]

What are your nominations for the worst retro steps that have been made by our industry? my nominations are:

1. scrapping of stranded T/E cable in favour of the solid rubbish we're stuck with today.
2. the stupid new cable colours.

let's have other nominations. the best will receive a "thanks" and a "like" ( sorry geordie, no broon in the prize list.)

 

[Deleted member 26818]

The requirement to have so many pieces of paper to prove that you can do a particular job.
IPAF, JIB/ECS, LUCAS, PASMA, etc.

 

[Engineer54]

Has got to be the ridiculously low number of bona fide apprenticeships that are offered by the big to medium sized companies these days!! Which in essence has led to the rise of the fast track 17 day training centre course.

So my offering is, The fast track wanna-be electricians that are flooding the domestic and light commercial industry, which in turn are devaluing and de-skilling our once proud industry as a whole!!

 

[trev]

The introduction of Part P. It could have been so much better

 

[Sausage]

Working for the same money as 10 years ago when the price of staple products has trebled.

 

[Engineer54]

The requirement to have so many pieces of paper to prove that you can do a particular job.
IPAf, JIB/ECS, LUCAS, PASMA, etc.

Never heard of any of them, apart from JIB that is...lol!!

 

[Billythekid]

The lack of attention to three phase installations in apprenticeships.

Fitting RCBO's to everything, just to negate the lack of knowledge/training (no, I'm not saying they don't have a place).

 

[cogsey133]

the introduction of short courses making people think they are sparks who can do anything at the end of them.

 

[silverfox1]

The adoption on larger sites of 7-30am or on some 7-00 am start times.
I need my kip !

 

[HandySparks]

2. the stupid new cable colours.

let's have other nominations.

Sorry Tel, I think you've identified the winner.

Hard to think of a worse colour than black, brown or grey for marking out a line conductor with a potentially dangerous voltage on it. And once they're a bit dirty, sorting out black from brown in a badly lit location... I'm lost for words.

 

[D Skelton]

Sorry Tel, I think you've identified the winner.

Hard to think of a worse colour than black, brown or grey for marking out a line conductor with a potentially dangerous voltage on it. And once they're a bit dirty, sorting out black from brown in a badly lit location... I'm lost for words.

Instinctively we see red as danger and green as safe, red as stop and green as go, hence why I also think the new colours are poo.

Imagine thinking up the best colour combination from scratch, for me it would be something like L1 - Red, L2 - Red with yellow indication stripe, L3 - Red with blue indication stripe, N - White, CPC - Solid green. I might be wrong but I think the yanks use white for neutral?

 

[rsp84]

Ive been told the colour incidators were for the colour blind?

 

[D Skelton]

Lets be honest though, if you're colour blind, you shouldn't really be choosing a career in electrical installation. Same as you'll never see a midget window cleaner or an armless spread. Some people just can't do certain jobs, it sucks, but that's just the way it is.

 

[lardy]

I`ve always thought the colour change in 3 phase was always a little strange.
Changing blue from a line to a neutral always looked like it was asking for trouble!

 

[rsp84]

Defo, I wouldnt be contemplating it if I was colour blind, its just what I heard.

 

[boberty]

A neighbour of the mother in law was a sparks and also colour blind, however there are different types of colour blindness and i would suppose if you were told often enough as an apprentice(whats one of those i hear you ask) what colours what, you would pick up the difference. Also the old colour system are the three primary colours from which all others can be made from. Which certainly made work in low light areas easier as metioned above. But theres probably a elf and safty reg on safe lux levels to work by.

 

[Swicade]

Replaceing Apprenticeships with privately run training centers is by far the worst step taken in my eyes.

A very very close second is the joke commonly known as harmonised colours.

Finaly allowing the various scheme providers to amble along without haveing the balls (or will power due to profits) to actualy makesure electrical installers work is upto scratch (by proper drop in visits unarranged or backing up complaints)

 

[rsp84]

A neighbour of the mother in law was a sparks and also colour blind, however there are different types of colour blindness and i would suppose if you were told often enough as an apprentice(whats one of those i hear you ask) what colours what, you would pick up the difference. Also the old colour system are the three primary colours from which all others can be made from. Which certainly made work in low light areas easier as metioned above. But theres probably a elf and safty reg on safe lux levels to work by.

Apparently it works out so they see light and dark and stripey. But that wont be that good for brown, black, grey

 

[cogsey133]

I had a colour blind apprentice once....i only found out after he nearly killed me!

 

[trev]

I can remember having a test for colour blindness. I'm not sure whether it was just before leaving school or when I got to college but I definitely had to have one

 

[cogsey133]

I started out with the mod and one of the many tests undertaken was a colour blindness test....i always thought they were compulsory!

 

[rmc86uk]

I remember having a colour blindness test to get on to JTL apprenticeship it was free from the local opticians.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Marvo]

Maybe they should make the colours a free-for-all so you can use whatever colours take your fancy for lives neutrals and earth. That would certainly introduce some Darwin type natural selection by culling those who don't know how to use a tester properly

 

[1shortcircuit]

Maybe they should make the colours a free-for-all so you can use whatever colours take your fancy for lives neutrals and earth. That would certainly introduce some Darwin type natural selection by culling those who don't know how to use a tester properly

Oooh that sounds like fun

 

[DaveyD]

Bringing "screwits" back !

 

[Phil]

The biggest issue with the industry is the ability or lack of it for an apprentice to get a job in the trade now and to be able to gain the relevant experience in different areas. it really is a lottery for them when they get taken on by a company. for instance if they go work with a company that just does domestics are they to blame when they don`t get the chance to learn and gain the relevant commercial or industrial parts of the industry? it is true that you unfortunately are only as good as the person training you (with a few exceptions), this then will also relate to the lack of quality training within many of the colleges. many of the apprentices I have visited on site have never been shown how to make of swa work with pyro or even wire up a basic alarm system. and then when they come on here to ask for advice too many times have they been put off ever asking any type of advice again. many of the colleges will only give the bare basic training needed to complete the exams now and if its not in the exam then you wont be doing it in the workshop. It is a real shame to see some of them not able to then do the work in which they would have been more than capable to undertake because of the lack of opportunities. it is a real shame that the apprentices are not able to be put onto a national register where they can complete the different types of work thus leading to a real good all round qualification rather than the nvq in which units can be bent in the direction of having the work signed off.

 

[ipf]

Going metric. (the beginning?)
Poor standard of conduit accessories (brass bushes really are cheap crap)
Demise of pyro ( in most peoples' eyes)
Half baked courses provided by training centre, money merchants, giving false confidence to the inexperienced.

 

[MarkieSparkie]

The introduction of single screw terminals for termination of tails in Consumer Units and T+E in >40A accessories.

 

[hermetic]

Hope you're not forgetting that in the seventies three phases became three browns!!!. This is a good thread, as it shows there is agreement on what is bad in our trade, and also exposes the fact that the changes come about as a matter of manufacturing expediency (more profit/ single core cables are easier to make) or tinkering by eurocrats with our system. We are the people who should be consulted on change, now that the IEE seems to have taken a back seat, and NICEIC is registering gas fitters.

 

[Guest111]

selling all the sparks kit in diy shed,.they didn,t do it years ago and joe public left things alone now every man and his dog thinks he,s a sparks just cause he fitted a plug top once.
Incidentally regarding colour blindness,when we went from red, black and green in flexes to the brown, blue and green/yellow the thinking was that the darkest colour was the live and the lightest was the earth,whatever was left went to neutral.