Distro and the 18th Edition Wiring Regs.

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MattStolton View Drop Down

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Joined: 04 September 2010
Location: Walthamstow
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Posted: 25 April 2019 at 8:53pm

Danielr wrote:

<font face="Verdana, sans-serif">I'm curious as to how you would police such a thing?

Try buying anything "Mains Gas" from anywhere reputable, without a Gas Safe certificate. Screwfix will not serve you. Plenty of backstreet/ebay will, but do you want to sling a Chinese/ebay dodgey bayonet connector pipe to your cooker?

Perhaps sparky stuff should follow, but no where does it say that you have to be qualified to spark, just "skilled". To work on Gas, you have to be qualified and skilled.

Back in the day of Corgi, a registered/qualified person, who had any doubt about the safety of your Gas installation, could turn off your Gas from the street/meter. Sparkys have never had the same authority.

Stopping purchase of 13A plugs is stretching it a bit far, beyond the remit of the "installation". Perhaps better education would be more useful? My GCSE Physics had an assessed practical which involved correctly wiring a 13A plug. Kind of useful. We should also encourage a little bit of Darwinism, but proper installations are doing too good a job of stopping harm to life and property

Matt Stolton - Technical Director (!!!) - Wilding Sound Ltd
"Sparkius metiretur vestra" - "Meter Your Mains"

Danielr

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Posted: 25 April 2019 at 11:43pm

MattStolton wrote:

Danielr wrote:

<font face="Verdana, sans-serif">I'm curious as to how you would police such a thing?

A part of the reason that I was curious as to how such a thing would be policed is precisely because of the way the gas safe schemes are (I can buy anything from big name "high street" suppliers.)

I can buy as many gas flues as I like. - it is simply illegal for me to fit them.

plenty of people buy boilers from B&Q, it's just illegal to fit the gas part of them (and the exhaust flue.)

given pubs and clubs have a hard enough time restricting alcohol, when most forms of government ID are difficult to forge, I wonder about the practicalities of policing a qualification that was an e-certificate.

GasSafe is policed on trust and hefty fines/jail time.

I somehow don't think that many people here are going to be happy if that happens to electrical stuff...

It is doubtful that the multiple choice test that boxes-r-blue suggested would be the "standard" and there are not a lot of "current" qualifications that would immediately slide into place. so you'll end up with either a power grab by a trade body, (like NICEIC) and the cost of C&G that they endorse going up. or you'll end up with the power being placed in the hands of the IET... who are bound to set EngTech and the minimum level... because it at least requires registration, and as it is a professional registration you can be struck off etc.

How many here can afford to pay a qualified registered engineer to go to the shops for them?

I also remember the wiring a plug lesson school - and agree better education is the answer.

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Posted: 14 July 2019 at 4:44am

Danielr wrote:

Boxes-R-Blue wrote:

As I have said here 1000 times, IMHO, no one without at least a basic 18^th ticket should be able to buy as much as a 13A plug top in this country.

I'm curious as to how you would police such a thing?

but also, it doesn't matter how many times you say it if you are wrong...

I've said before, there is no 18th qualification, the standard DOES NOT specify a course and does not endorse either a course, certification scheme, course provider, or exam provider.

Yes C&G like to pretend that they are the chosen ones, but they really aren't...

NIEIC like to pretend that they are the authority...

but have a look at their site for domestic installers.:

http://www.niceic.com/join-us/part-p-domestic-installer-scheme

qualifications: be certified by a qualified supervisor, much have public liability insurance, have bought the current edition BS standards, have bought test equipment and have it calibrated, have a site where you have done and certified work.

so 5 of seven requirements are you must have bought something... (great start to a technical qualification...)

one specifies you must do work whilst not qualified (how will they do that if (under your scheme) they cannot buy materials) and another requirement is that you must have your work assessed bya qialified supervisor...

- what do you need to be a qualified supervisor and unleash other sparkies onto the world? some NVQs... (which I'll give you is a better qualification than just needing to buy stuff...) but NVQ L3 is equivalent to A levels being sat by 16 year olds...

I chose domestic installer because there are at least entry requirements.

https://www.niceic.com/contractor/training-courses/electrical-courses/18th-edition-full-course

your 18th ticket that you hold so dear has "no formal entry requirements"

-It is suggested you have a "basic knowledge and understanding of electricity" before starting!

and yet three days later you believe that they are going to be qualified to risk the lives of thousands of attendees at an event...?

there is no such thing as "qualified" where the 18th regs comes in.

Finally I don't think a few day day course (which is all a lot of those courses are) or simply reading the wiring regs at home and sitting a multiple choice test one afternoon necessarily "makes you safe"

If you really wanted to suggest a "standard of understanding and education" then why aren't you suggesting having sat degree courses at accredited institutes, or years of industry experience, that provide access gateways to organisations like the IET where you can actually consult on what the standards are/will be? - that's a much higher boundary to entry than your afternoon of multiple choice fun...

or maybe we should be looking for EngTech, Ieng or Ceng to design these systems?

I put James Eade (or whatever his name is) well in the cross hairs here for what I sure set out as a well meant document, but is now a bible for cretins. I personally haven’t worked with the guy, but based on that document, he would be coiling cables on my crew.

having sex priceless, you believe that your three day course and certificate for passing a multiple choice test on domestic wiring sets you up as a greater authority than the guy who spent decades in the entertainment industry and started the British Standard (now on the 4th version) which has invited advise and consultation from across the industry?

I'll agree it is a bible for cretins who want to implement what it says as rote without thinking why... but do you understand why that is? - because when someone dies, that standard will be the big stick that keeps hitting them AND deviations from that standard that they cannot explain, (and a three day course will not help them explain) is going to dictate the sort of liability fines and jail time they receive...

unless you are really really having sex qualified, (and your C&G 18th ticket is not) you should not be deviating from the standards without a good reason, that you could explain, in detail, in court. because in the event it all goes tits up, your design is going to be inspected by expert witnesses who won't side with your "it should have been ok", "it would be OK for residential wiring" or your "I don't like James" rationale.

I am not saying everyone needs to understand voltage drop, ... Just always do some sums, METER YOUR MAINS, at source and drain, if you are loosing 20V you will have a fire!!!!

Good that you're saying that you don't need to understand voltage drop as it appears painfully obvious that you do not.

The phrase “63a cable “ does my head, 63A cable is 240mm2, you may get away with smaller on a short run, but ask a grown up first…,

yeah, I just did the calcs,

250mm^2, 63A, 240v, 1600M run, voltage drop is ~ 30v. though somehow I suspect that there won't be a fire, given the amount of area that conductor runs over and the cooling that provides. - Yes there is 2Kw of heating in the wire, but that is stretched over a mile.

Funny how you started assuming that your multiple choice test pass made you better than everyone else,

criticized other professionals who _DO_ know more than you for attempting to write a "one size fits all" type of guide,

and then ended with a few of your own blanket statements which are easily proven to be false in various circumstances...

You are right about one thing though, There is a problem with forums, and that is when semi educated amateurs like yourself make everyone more dangerous by rubbishing the advice of professionals and telling people that they don't need to follow the advice in standards...

You are a fantastic example of the saying "a little knowledge can be dangerous." or in modern terms, the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Just read

one word (suitable for this forum)

PLONKER

I am sorry I forget more about electrical engineering between his post and his than he ( assuming bloke, most birds are more clued up) than he can ever hope to know!

Kinda Been there, Kinda done that, YOU COULDN'T handle my bar bill!