Electrical safety diy

[ian.settle1]

there is the MOT legal anual check so even if its DIY its checked the next MOT no house has an MOT and noone can get access to your house n check whats been done Police can check a car anytime they stop it different scinarios

But there are people out there with no MOT

 

[mogga]

that wasnt my point there are people with no mot but theat posistion is POLICED the DIY electrical crap isnt policed by anyone

 

[Madmole]

The only truly dangerous thing ever done to one of my cars was done by a Ford dealership, who left a mole grip clamped to a brake line (wrong tool for the job). I noticed the lack of brakes immediately on driving away. They claimed to have test driven it. AFAIK there are no legal certification requirements for car mechanics (Ford only emply 18 year olds to plug the diagnistic computer in now, if it dont tell em exactly whats wrong they havent a clue)

The only truly dangerous thing ever done to my house electrics was done by a qualified NECEIC member who put the neutral for an RCD on the wrong Bus and mislabelled all the MCB's. Whats worse he then proceeded to test? the Installation and issue an EIC without owning anything more than a Socket tester and neon screwdriver. Did I bother reporting? no cos then I would get grief and more cost. Took me 10 mins to put right and 3 RCBO's to bring up to 17th

I however with no qualifications can quite happily service my Land Rover (10 years now) without a single MOT failure and that not only has included regular services and brakes, but suspension lifts, rewiring, Reversng cameras, brake lines, wading kits and custom armour bumpers etc. Land Rover are very good about making detailed service information available to owners

Also constantly amazed at the ignorance and lack of knowledge expressed on this site by a few "Qualified" folks and the examples posted on this site of work done by others. So I would say that there are just as many qualified folks wearing cowboy hats as non qualified

What this shows is that in the real world, it is almost impossible to legislate a regime that is safe and suits all people. What is clear is the current system isnt working.

What would work I think would be a system that says that anyone can do the actual wiring and it must be to regs. But they must not energise until signed off by a qualified inspector. This could be at 2 levels

1) Work done by competent person and fully self tested with written documentation. Low fee inspection. Basically visual with few key tests done. ie just signing off a proper sparcs work

2) Work done by non competent persons and not tested. Full Fee with full test and inspection.

Thus we would have 2 tiers of professionals, Fitters and examiners

This will be controversial but I personally beleive that in safety critical situations it is wrong to be allowed to certifiy ones own work. No other system in healthcare, mission critical IT, military etc would allow this. Just accasionally that second set of eyes spots something missed or forgotten

BUT to work, it must be publicised and there be strict penalties for non compliance. Currently 90% of the population think anyone can do anything with the leccy and sparks are only needed for big jobs. The easy availabilty of CU's and equipment that requires notification or certifying to fit demonstrates that the market for home electrics is big enough for large stores to cater for.

Maybe if Napit, NICEIC etc all made preresentation to parliment or even publicised the current regs to he public, that would cut down the amount of DIY and dodgy sparc work and mean more for the truly qualified and professional sparks

 

[Deleted member 9648]

The point I made about unqualified mechanics seems to have touched a nerve......the thing I meant to get across was that there are plenty of unqualified people doing electrical work/mechanics etc perfectly well while equally there are plenty of qualified people making a right pigs ear of it.....I recently done a CU change where the client has had a new kitchen and bathroom installed and the electrics done by two different NIC domestic installers.
The client produced the certs for both jobs,when I did a ring continuity test on the altered kitchen ring (which I know used to be a ring because I've tested and worked on it before) I got open circuit....a break in continuity,the guy left it on a 30a 3036 fuse with no RCD protection.Luckily there are no big appliances so I was able to drop it to a 20a mcb.
On checking the cert for the bathroom I noted that a 30ma rcd was protecting the altered lighting circuit and the trip times were filled in on the cert......odd because there was no sign of an RCD anywhere.
As the circuit was going to be on an RCD in the new DB I assumed the guy had hidden an RCD spur somewhere and I had best remove it as it would give me a low IR reading.
To cut a long story short no such spur was found and eventually I carried out an RCD test on the bathroom lights and nothing tripped!! Clearly the cert and readings were a complete fabrication.

Dont know what the answer is but Madmole made some very good points in the above post.

 

[Risteard]

Don't know how you would judge who is a spark and who isn't (it used to be a JIB card)

A JIB card would be the correct way to ensure that a purchaser is an Electrician. No reason why people should have to join expensive schemes - and what if they are an employee rather than company owner? They're hardly going to be a member of a scheme provider in their own right.

 

[jase]

The only truly dangerous thing ever done to my house electrics was done by a qualified NECEIC member who put the neutral for an RCD on the wrong Bus and mislabelled all the MCB's. Whats worse he then proceeded to test? the Installation and issue an EIC without owning anything more than a Socket tester and neon screwdriver. Did I bother reporting? no cos then I would get grief and more cost. Took me 10 mins to put right and 3 RCBO's to bring up to 17th


why not just do your own board in first place? lol and that EIC mayaswell be used as bog paper with no IR, continuity and Zs etc etc values on it

 

[jase]

What would work I think would be a system that says that anyone can do the actual wiring and it must be to regs. But they must not energise until signed off by a qualified inspector. This could be at 2 levels

1) Work done by competent person and fully self tested with written documentation. Low fee inspection. Basically visual with few key tests done. ie just signing off a proper sparcs work

2) Work done by non competent persons and not tested. Full Fee with full test and inspection.

s

Isnt this what the notification process is for? if i do a job being non registered as part P i notify building control, as i am deemed competent being a qualified electrican and i test my own work they sign it off based on my certs,
if i deemed non-competent they get someone of their own choosing to come and test inspect and certify my work, and if i am on a government approved scheme , i am assesed every year for competence and every notifiable job i do is logged with that scheme, but we all know people who are registered whose work is still questionable, you only have to do 1 good job a year to get assesed on and that gives you free reign to do what you want the rest of the time because you re registered???? how bout on the spot assesments seeing as every notifiable job is logged with the scheme you are on?

and that still doesnt stop joe bloggs going down to b&q and picking up his own materials to run in a new supply for his shower or whatever and not telling anyone what work he has done

 

[Madmole]

The only truly dangerous thing ever done to my house electrics was done by a qualified NECEIC member who put the neutral for an RCD on the wrong Bus and mislabelled all the MCB's. Whats worse he then proceeded to test? the Installation and issue an EIC without owning anything more than a Socket tester and neon screwdriver. Did I bother reporting? no cos then I would get grief and more cost. Took me 10 mins to put right and 3 RCBO's to bring up to 17th


why not just do your own board in first place? lol and that EIC mayaswell be used as bog paper with no IR, continuity and Zs etc etc values on it

Yep, our EIC doesnt have values for any of that on it!!! but the Council Inspector was happy with it and then signed off on the whole extension!

Dont worry. There is a new version with all the correct values completed now, done by me. But I'm NOT qualified or a member of a scheme! but I am Competent. As I'm only ever going to work on my house and maybe my parents, its not sensible to pay money to register (I spent it on a 1552!). I would either notify council (like I did when I added a new workshop and all its electriics) or just ignore the rules like most folks (As I did when I fitted RCBO's to all the light circuits and bonded the water supply)

But it strikes me that competancy isnt a requirment for scheme membership. Belonging to a company or paying money and showing a scheme examiner a finished piece of work, which may have been done by somebody other than you, is.

Its a shame that a few bad members spoil it for the majority of good electricians out there. Until the Schemes police them out, joe publics view of electricians will be diminished and they will continue to DIY

 

[Golden_Boy]

I am wondering just how many deaths / burns / other injuries are caused each year by electrical DIY jobs going wrong, As a percentage of the number of "major" jobs carried out by Joe Bloggs ( other DIYers are available LOL ). I am not an electrician but have never killed anyone or caused any other injury due to my DIY projects in the past. ( and none of my houses burned down either ) Neither did any of my plumbing jobs leak, nor did my house fall down when I installed a RSJ to hold up my upstairs walls.
With a lot of research and a bit of intelligence most jobs can be tackled quite easily. When you see the silly amounts some people are quoting no wonder there are more DIY jobs carried as a way of saving what ca be sometime a LOT of money.

G

 

[J@mes]

A JIB card would be the correct way to ensure that a purchaser is an Electrician. No reason why people should have to join expensive schemes - and what if they are an employee rather than company owner? They're hardly going to be a member of a scheme provider in their own right.

what if you don't have a JIB card but are an electrician?

I think it would be better to have to show a card relating to passing the 17th Edition - as this shows you can read the BRB and apply its regulations, and can therefore be accountable for your actions as "ignorance" would be no defence.