Palindr?me said:
Dave D wrote:
Simply yet another way of getting taxes under the guise of Health &
Safety, so what's new?
In this case it is aimed at industrial and commercial qualified and
experienced electricians who do a bit of domestic work in their own
time, cash in hand. These outnumber the "cowboys" 100:1, as they
invariably get the work by word of mouth recommends from happy customers.
It has now't to do with qualifications or experience - the kid doing the
actual wiring need have neither.
What it will do is to lead to more wiring problems and more fires - as
houseowners will "do" the job themselves, rather than call in a friend
or a friend of a friend. You are quite right - no one will know if the
job is done properly. Of course, if it isn't, the fire engine and/or
ambulances might be a bit of a giveaway.
The laugh is, of course, that even the engineers that drew up the wiring
regs are caught by this - they are highly unlikley to be working for a
self-certifying company...
Of course it is going to be difficult to argue that the work was done
prior to the change...in an extension or loft conversion that was done
after that date...
That will be the obvious exception, but I suppose most people who get the
builders in to add an extension will be likely to pay an electrician to do
the wiring anyway.
I think a sensible compromise would have been to create an official 'highway
code' like document for homeowners intent on doing their own work, and
possibly compelling them to inform a surveryor of their work on selling
their house. That combined with holding people responsible for fires, injury
and death as a result of shoddy work would perhaps have been enough.
Educating people against wiring sockets with bell wire and such horrors
would have been much fairer and even-handed IMO.
The part of the regulations which really beggars belief, if I understand it
right, is that one can rewire an entire ring (to replace damaged wire etc)
provided the original course of the wiring is followed. One can also add one
spur to a ring (or per socket? Surely it's the former?) but one cannot add a
socket to the actual ring! This makes no sense to me from a safety point of
view.
Also one cannot add to or change any circuit in bathrooms or kitchens, even
lighting. I'd love to know how changing a light in a kitchen is any more
dangerous than changing one anywhere else. Unless of course one is going to
stand in a sink of water at the time!
I think in the main these new rules will be treated with the respect they
deserve- none whatsoever. I've never wired in a spur when it has been
practical to add the socket to the ring, and I'm not about to change my ways
now.
Dave