Domestic PIR No RCD - can I / can't I?

mattcos1972 · Mar 13, 2011

Evening all!
Quick domestic PIR question.
I have been asked to PIR on a home for a friend of mine. The installation is perfectly sound throughout the home. Lighting is split into 2 circuits, there are a total of 5 ring finals for the sockets as extensions / loft conversions have been added over the years. All spurs are fused, including boiler etc.
All dead tests, Ze, PFC & Zs are well within their parameters. IR is off the scale and every ring test is spot on. Smoke alarms are interlinked, mains powered and battery backed up, even the doorbell is fused off a lighting ring. Basically it's spot on....only problem is there are no RCDs.....Can I pass it on a PIR? The installation went in in 2002. I've not been sparksing for that long so I don't know what the regs were at the time?

Thanks in advance for any help, opinions, advice etc........

Oh and yes, I am 2391 before you ask!!

IQ Electrical · Mar 14, 2011

baldelectrician said:
Remember when we PIR we are interpreting the current regs against actual installation I am looking at

Although it's a matter of opinion on how you pass / fail a PIR, there seems to be a difference on opinion as and when things fail

You can't look at the regs and pick and choose the bits you want.

As far as the 17th Edition goes, I think RCD'ing lights is a step too far. The days of plugging and iron into a lighting point are long gone

These days people like to sue electricains (not had any yet!), but the regs, the OSG and the ESC guides are there for guidance- if you use the guide and somoene tries to pull you up they are on to plums

It's a bit like king canute and the tide- you need to go with the flow- not agree with it wholehartedly, but go with it

Don't forget, you aren't 'RCDing lights' per se, you're protecting cables buried in walls at depths of less than 50mm etc etc whether that's a lighting circuit or an immersion is not the actual reason.