Change in the Law regarding RCDs in Rental Properties

[Dave 85]

A £10 modification to prevent a potential death - no brainer to me

A £10 modification???
Is that what you charge for a 17th CU upgrade plus full testing and rectification????
Fancy doing mine?

 

[Dave 85]

The only thing this thread is about is the welfare of electricians bank accounts.

The same can be said of most of this particular OP's threads. Why it got, and has remained, sticky'd is beyond me...

 

[TIGGERTOM13]

I agree about the rcd, if there is no rcd protection at it is classed as unsatisfactory. If the sockets have rcd protection and nothing else all the bathroom circuits should all be bonded together along with the pipework. But then there is still the problem of cables not buried below 50mm or protrected by earhthed screen.

 

[houstonaccessco]

No more question, I have cleared my doubt. Thank you for sharing.

 

[dchester]

I can see that this is a great idea - but only if I wear my Electrician's Hat because it would be a government enforced ticket for us to print money. There are a lot of installations with no RCD and even old wired fuses. Currently if the system is safe there is no requirement for the Landlord to spend money on it but with legislation forcing the use of RCDs, we would have a field day upgrading installations, not just fitting an RCD.

If I wear my Landlord's Hat, however, it takes on a completely different shade! If an installation is safe, why should I be forced to cough up a great deal of money on my properties just to protect someone who is daft enough to take a bath with an electric bar heater? And, in many installations, simply fitting a global RCD will not be possible for reasons already mentioned, so the consumer unit would need to be replaced and possibly the entire property wiring. Provided the wiring is safe why should I have to do this?

Secondly: You cannot compare electrical and gas installations. Electricity can not fall out of the wires, filling the house with explosive and suffocating gasses. Neither can it fill the house with lethal carbon monoxide if the kettle suddenly decides to malfunction. I'm sure that the plumbers out there would all like an annual inspection certificate forced upon landlords too. Heaven forbid if all the water fell out of a pipe, filling the house and drowning the poor tenants! I don't need a Plumber's Hat to see that one's daft but, hopefully, you get my point.

If I put on my Computer Consultant's hat I can demand that the Government bring in annual computer checks to ensure that your computer is not infested with viruses and adverts which are emailing themselves to all the innocent victims contained in the computer's address book and then on to all of their address book contents too. The spread of computer viruses and trojans is a menace to society and must be stamped out. The cost to the internet providers and email hosts for electricity used in processing this vast quantity of spam must be quite significant. Our own email server is hit by up to 20 thousand spam emails a day, over 99% of which are, thankfully, filtered out by our software, but a computer CPU uses far more power when processing than it does at rest. Help me stamp out this menace now by writing to your MP demanding an annual PC cleanliness check!


Thanks

David

 

[trev]

While we're on dchester can we tag on a provision to check all domestic kitchens each week for potentially harmful bacteria and force every parent to undergo food hygene training. You never know what could be going on and if we're going to have a nanny state it may as well be done properly

 

[dchester]

I like the way your mind works Trev.

While we are on it perhaps they should add a germ detection to the MOT test in order to check car seats for harmful bacteria. Hmmm. perhaps not

David

 

[AV-Nik]

Good Idea. I lost a nephew from old sockets. An RCD 'may' have saved his life.

 

[Knobhead]

What's a good idea?

 

[Dave 85]

Welcome to Nics nanny state where all electricians are millionaires and everyones else has starved to death through poverty. Its for their own good mind, cos now they have RCD's.