The lack of gratitude shown by customers for doing your job....correctly

[LlandrilloSpark]

Had a small job today via a building contractor, 4 LV downlights in a bathroom, simple job, customer fine throughout, 3 storey house plus basement, ccu per floor, I explained i was going to fit an RCBO on lighting circuit ect ect, fine no problem.

I go into the basement to measure the main Ze and check the supply gear for the certs, I notice its a "homemade" TNS by the guy who rewired the house 8 years ago, stanley knifed the cloth sheathing of the main cable and an earth clamp tightened on and fitted with 10mm, fairly obvious it was the same guy as the terminations and clamps were the same, it was not sweated and wrapped.

Ze is 2.09 which explains the zs on the top floor lighting of 5.92 and the ze at the top floor board of 2.01, Im faced with a dilemma as i dont know if it should be tns or was it a tt removed by the last guy, I phone DNO they cant/wont tell me, they say they will send an engineer.

My possible outcomes were:-

Guy says "its not ours and walks"..........fine I will RCD the whole house

Guy says "its ours and i will fix it"......great, job sorted

Guy says "its not ours and he shouldnt of done that and i will have to remove it from our supply cable and disconnect you"........disaster


Customer gets home I explain the above, she blames me(to some degree!) , she says " its been fine, we have never had a problem", " ive had other electricians say it was safe", "british gas insure my electricity and they say its safe"

Engineer has not called yet......we will se

 

[ashrow]

Customer will always doubt you !, show them the regs ie max values, prove to them that previous tradesman were wrong or did not test electrics

Option 3 above is very rare, just be there at the time to sort what they want

Hope all goes well

 

[lamb]

Just ask the DNO for a PME upgrade, the customer will probably have to pay £65 contribution towards the new cutout and earth connection, supply is then up to modern standards and everyone's happy.

 

[oldtimer]

Explain to the customer that the last spark would not have measured it plus this can change if the water or gas pipes have been replaced recently ie metal supply to plastic so what does that mean well the guy next door has a good earth plus him and your customer have earth bonding to gas and water pipes get changed and your customer lost an earth because she was borrowing one from next door .

Also this is happening a lot and funny enough its BG who are highlighting it as they appear to be doing Zs tests at the boiler with a Socket & See led tester but not sure what they are set for as they are led type ie green pass red fail

 

[Adam W]

Does anyone know where it says you can't use an earth clamp on a supply cable?
When I was doing the 2391 the tutor mentioned he'd tried to find it to no avail, and come to the conclusion it was just 'bad practice'.

 

[LlandrilloSpark]

You cannot earth clamp DNO cable yourself with a clamp, it isn't the customers property, any lecturer that says that shouldn't be teaching , imagine if you over tighten and damage the conductors, very unlikely I know but big bill and very dangerous

Old timer... I had my boiler serviced by BG yesterday, had intresting conversation with the engineer, I told him to chuck his gear away, he reckoned 2 green lights meant the house is earthed!, I told him it can be Earthed via the 1.5mm cpc from the boiler circuit

 

[ashrow]

Does anyone know where it says you can't use an earth clamp on a supply cable?
When I was doing the 2391 the tutor mentioned he'd tried to find it to no avail, and come to the conclusion it was just 'bad practice'.

i am one that always fits a earth clamp and 16 mm from the sheath to the consumer unit

 

[oldtimer]

You cannot earth clamp DNO cable yourself with a clamp, it isn't the customers property, any lecturer that says that shouldn't be teaching , imagine if you over tighten and damage the conductors, very unlikely I know but big bill and very dangerous

Old timer... I had my boiler serviced by BG yesterday, had intresting conversation with the engineer, I told him to chuck his gear away, he reckoned 2 green lights meant the house is earthed!, I told him it can be Earthed via the 1.5mm cpc from the boiler circuit

I had 4 callouts via BG and confirmed 3 of them

 

[Adam W]

You cannot earth clamp DNO cable yourself with a clamp, it isn't the customers property, any lecturer that says that shouldn't be teaching , imagine if you over tighten and damage the conductors, very unlikely I know but big bill and very dangerous

Yes but where is that written? That was the question.

 

[devonsparky]

This is in the NIC EIC 'Snags & Solutions' book 'Part 1 - Earthing and Bonding'

There is 2 pages of 'whys' and 'why nots' but it says the mis-use of a clamp on such cable is a departure from Regulation 512.1.5

 

[ashrow]

This is in the NIC EIC 'Snags & Solutions' book 'Part 1 - Earthing and Bonding'

There is 2 pages of 'whys' and 'why nots' but it says the mis-use of a clamp on such cable is a departure from Regulation 512.1.5

I heard that also from another NIC sparky but is that only the NIC's interpretation of the regs or ? (i would love to know all others thoughts on this?)

 

[Jonny66]

I dont think its within the scope of BS7671 as its part of the DNOs equipment and as such will probably come under the ESQC Regs

 

[Guest55]

Does anyone know where it says you can't use an earth clamp on a supply cable?
When I was doing the 2391 the tutor mentioned he'd tried to find it to no avail, and come to the conclusion it was just 'bad practice'.

well he wont find it in bs7671 lol.
try regulation 25 of the ESQCR 2002

 

[ExArmy]

she blames me(to some degree!) , she says " its been fine, we have never had a problem",

if i had a pound for everytime someone said that to me! "we've had no problems with that for 30 years" they say, "you must have made the neutral to earth fault your talking about, you must have done it with your new consumer unit cos it's been fine for as long as i can remember" etc. I feel like screaming back at them, "no it's not bloody fine, it's just nobody has told you untill now!"

Customer will always doubt you !, show them the regs ie max values, prove to them that previous tradesman were wrong or did not test electrics

I wouldn't bother, i've tried this and all you get is a blank confused face looking back at you all the while they are hoping you will undo whatever problem you've found (caused in their eyes) and it will continue to be ok for the foreseeable future.

 

[ashrow]

The Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002

Thanks for that

 

[ashrow]

ExArmy, i know and have been there many times! but i do persist with them and then ring the DNO to get things sorted (once you get through to someone on the line that knows what we are talking about they normally fix it for free ) but i do agree the client never does believe us until its fixed !!!!!

 

[LlandrilloSpark]

If I remember rightly in college your taught to 'enquire" via the DNO to what earth system a house has, FACT.....rubbish I've called in 6/7 faults in last 6 months, they know nothing

 

[Adam W]

The Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002

Thanks for that

I took that to be more about bypassing the meter or running your household supply off a street lamp, but it's close.

 

[Guitarist]

If I remember rightly in college your taught to 'enquire" via the DNO to what earth system a house has, FACT.....rubbish I've called in 6/7 faults in last 6 months, they know nothing

They must have a database of the earthing arrangements for each property, surely?.....

 

[kingeri]

Going back to BG, I have had more than one run in with those clowns and their magic plugin LED indicators. They knew nothing about what the device was actually checking. Green means ok. That's it. Same guy fitted earth clamp to green/blue 50 year old copper pipe without wirewooling it.

 

[i=p/u]

just dont touch cutout and back

 

[Robotstar5]

Going back to BG, I have had more than one run in with those clowns and their magic plugin LED indicators. They knew nothing about what the device was actually checking. Green means ok. That's it. Same guy fitted earth clamp to green/blue 50 year old copper pipe without wirewooling it.

At least he fitted it, we had our gas meter changed a couple of years ago (has to be changed every few years?) the fitter removed the clamp and threw it in the back of the meter cupboard. I asked him about re-fitting it, "not my job mate"!. Made me wonder how many properties no longer have an earth bond after he'd been?.

 

[oldtimer]

There is a flip side to this as well i was called out by a tenant who assured me she would pay and claim it back off the landlord and yep she did not pay because he said he would sort it then she paid only to find that he did the same thing so I wrote to her asking for her bank details so I could refund her and i got a nice email thanking me for my honesty mind the following day a guy said you charge too much because he could not bang me down on cost.

 

[smu_diddly]

The water companies are best, they cross bond both ends of their nice new meters when there's no main water bond. Must be made a regulation that gas and water guys check bonding when they mess with their meters. They are putting lives at risk!

 

[Knobhead]

They must have a database of the earthing arrangements for each property, surely?.....

Half the time they don't know where their cables are never mind whats on the end of them.

A mate of mine was working on a GPS system for them, "there's a lot of blank bits!"

 

[rich.250]

Explain to the customer that the last spark would not have measured it plus this can change if the water or gas pipes have been replaced recently ie metal supply to plastic so what does that mean well the guy next door has a good earth plus him and your customer have earth bonding to gas and water pipes get changed and your customer lost an earth because she was borrowing one from next door .

Also this is happening a lot and funny enough its BG who are highlighting it as they appear to be doing Zs tests at the boiler with a Socket & See led tester but not sure what they are set for as they are led type ie green pass red fail

They are set to 1 ohm from what I can find! Looked into them After being told by a meter fitter I have no earth to the installation on doing his checks!!
It was a 40 ohm TT system. I told him to get out lol

 

[Noshocks]

I'd ask the DNO for a PME conversion as soon as the engineer arrives and you have both had a moan and laugh at the DIY clamp, the cost where I am with WPD comes straight on the customers bill the next quarter, if they dont have to pay for it up front it may make the medicine easier to swallow.