BCO / Part P problem

Great idea about the rulers - thanks.

I'm almost upset that no one will come around to see how neat my first fix is! Various cables wouldn't have needed as many clips if the plaster / board / filler had been going straight on top (as it would have done if no inspection was expected).

Anyway, it's all new and compliant with 17th edition, so unless one of the trades has put a nail through a cable somewhere, all should be fine.

Cheers, David.

Reply to
David Robinson
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When I sold up I just answered the questions truthfully, including declaring the unapproved hall window and 'various alterations to the electrical installation in recent years' or some such wording. Re the self installed gas boiler, I provided a Landlords safety check certificate. No query at all from the buyer.

Reply to
Tony Bryer

Bad day + Fire doors missing + Incompetent staff / customers / traffic :-) That he backed down when you showed proof is very commendable, obviously not Manchester :-)) (who are infamous and not just re Part P, pretty much anything short of sticking a statue of karl marx in the middle of every motorway).

It is as much HSE's pet as NICEIC now, it gives them "something else to expand the HSE body count over".

There is a review of the whole lot of BR - but the real change would be to stop parliament passing one line, leaving business to write the detail and mere rubber stamp by civil servants if they just file a piece of paper.

Part P does nothing to address portable appliance deaths & injuries, it is fixed wiring. The Part P system permits a business to be registered with people far less competent than a DIYer, with the vain hope that they are supposedly monitored by a work overloaded QA spark who never gets to see stuff much less test it. It is nonsense that a C&G or EE qualified non-competent-scheme member can not fit a socket in their kitchen, but someone without can as long as the company they are under is registered. Just ask the MP to explain why portable appliance deaths & injuries are included with fixed wiring - it may be enough of a domino to kick things off, or a FOI request. Once the statistics are found to be fake and not substantiated (which they are not either by NICEIC or ECA or ROSPA or HSE) by a person high enough things will begin to unwind. One last straw will be if the next wiring reg amendment removes the defacto "RCD everything" which is at present a proposal, if it does it blows a hole right through any safety argument.

Reply to
js.b1

The daft thing was they fessed up to not understanding their own stats re appliance vs fixed wiring injuries during the consultation period, and then said words to the effect of "yes we know that undermines the whole (presented) argument, but never mind, we will carry on regardless!". The implication being the spoken justification had nothing to do with the real motivation.

More quangos on the gravy train. Read the "Welcome" section here:

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reg amendment removes the defacto "RCD everything" which is at present

Reply to
John Rumm

Re ii), When I was a BCO 30 years back I would always have Osma drainage catalogues in the car and once a week or so would draw a little diagram of some bit of drainage for a builder with all the fitting numbers. One of my colleagues, out with me, upbraided me saying this wasn't my job. I did for one reason, to turn the next visit into a two minute OK rather than a ten minute argument as why what had been done wasn't. I don't know about you, but I was never out to find fault; rather to try and get a good - acceptable, anyway - job done with the minimum of hassle.

I had my own [very short] list of builders who I would unofficially recommend if asked. Money changing hands, never - just a hint of this would have meant that they were never suggested. The good ones didn't need work; it just came to them. MalcolmC ran an 18-month waiting list for extensions; it was like trying to get your child into a posh nursery - he decided whether he liked you and if he did you got a place on the list. But he was very good, and cheap too, which is why people were willing to wait so long.

Reply to
Tony Bryer

Its not so good nowadays . My Bro in law used to have around a year to

18 months work stacked up since around 1974 when he married my sister but now their scrapping around for work, decent work that is, and everyone wants them to quote lower than the other firm;(....
Reply to
tony sayer

Does that mean they could dig out some old "16th edition" regs, paste "18th edition" on them, and sell them as new? ;-)

I can see the point of RCD everything - but unless you use RCBOs (too expensive for now - I reckon we're being ripped off in the UK), you end up with a 2-way or 3-way split solution that is only marginally better than the old "whole house RCD" disaster - i.e. in combined safety terms / nuisance terms, it may cause more accidents than it prevents.

I started the re-wire with high minded ideas of a separate RCBO circuit for the fridge, freezer, etc - but then thought about the number of RCD trips we get (none for five years), the number we get when we're not in the house (none, ever), the cost of the food in the fridge (less than the cost of an RCBO!), and the length of time the freezer needs to be off before the food starts to defrost (days), and decided not to bother.

Cheers, David.

Reply to
David Robinson

I do not expect any amendment to the 17th edition to do away with RCD protection on installations. It may allow minor works (such as moving a light switch) without the need to RCD the circuit.

I know many people live in houses with RCD main switches who have never had a nuisance trip. Those that have had a nuisance trip have cursed the thing. The most common causes of nuisance trips are IME CH pumps and fridge freezers.

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Hardly. Firstly any amendment won't make a substantial change to the spirit of using RCDs far more frequently - it may however relax rules on extending existing circuits in low risk circumstances.

RCBOs have cone down in price significantly. (MCBs have as well mind you, which maintains some of the difference)

No, even a two way split is a massive improvement on a whole house RCD and eliminates most of the dangerous aspect of having just the one. The only real danger for a whole house RCD is that of losing lighting unexpectedly. A two way split fixes that. Additional splits add more convenience and reduce the irritation of trips (genuine or nuisance) - although in the case of nuisance trips one might argue that its better fix the cause rather than live with the irritation.

Indeed - many houses work reliably with a traditional split load board - one RCD for all socket circuits etc, and never get a trip. Unless you have a genuinely faulty appliance, then the most common trip many people see (or not!) is on a lighting circuit when a bulb blows.

Reply to
John Rumm

Though nuisance trips that only happen once every couple of years are not so simple to fix ... thankfully I've been at home both times it has happened, rather than arriving home to a soggy freezer (on kitchen ring, not separate circuit).

Reply to
Andy Burns

The most common cause of a nuisance trip in my whole-house RCD system was me shorting neutral to earth when working on a (disconnected) power circuit. That always turned the lights off. It was a rural house, and ~20 years ago, so earth may have been a spike in the ground somewhere.

Reply to
Martin Bonner

Yep, always a good idea to have a surface wired non-RCD light in the meter cupboard on its own circuit (or an emergency rechargeable light in there). Simon.

Reply to
sm_jamieson

Yup. bi-annual trips are harder to pin down. Assuming the kitchen has its own ring circuit, then moving it to the non RCD side of a CU and sticking a RCBO on it that would probably fix it.

A freezer will normally keep stuff frozen for a day or more if not being opened.

Reply to
John Rumm

A couple of years ago my parents phoned to say their RCD had tripped and would not reset. I got them to unplug everything, reset the RCD and start plugging stuff in. The fault turned out to be on the freezer.

I suggested that my dad should remove the earth from the freezers plug to keep the frezer working until the next day. That is not advice that I would ever give out again. When he plugged it back in lots of black smoke started pouring out from behind it.

Reply to
ARWadsworth

Not a significant difference when an RCBO is eight times the price of an MCB.

TLC £2.99 + VAT for a Hager MCB; £23.75 + VAT for an RCBO.

In fact, given that you can buy a 63A/30mA Hager RCD for £15.70 + VAT, it would be cheaper to buy a fully-loaded consumer unit (loaded with MCBs, natch) and add an additional DIN rail enclosure (i.e. empty consumer unit) with just a row of 2-module RCDs in it.

Go figure. DaveyOz

Reply to
Dave Osborne

Interesting to see Atlas Kablo has lost its BASEC licence re insufficient copper (p14).

The cables I had issues with were...

- Demes Kablo - notified BASEC 12-Aug-2009 - insufficient insulation meant copper literally "grinned" through along its length on 3 different cables (5c 1.5mm, 3c 4.0mm, 4c 6.0mm SWA).

- Atlas Kablo - in 2009, not 2010, every spec too small re conductor diameter, armour wire diameter 0.52mm (!), cable diameter (3c 1.5mm SWA).

- Atom Kablo - in 2008 2010, same problem as Atlas Kablo, 1.5mm CSA was actually 1.02mm.

Got to love quality control and introducing Turkey into the EU...

Re emergency lighting not tried the "new" LED type, but the Maglite 4D torch has a really bright beam. It might still be on offer at Screwfix, it is about 4x brighter than the 2AA maglite and much brighter than the 2D maglite. There are brighter torches out there, but for the money it is pretty good. Just wish there were Lithium D batteries (then again, their price might be pretty amusing if there were).

Reply to
js.b1

Basically a 13A fuse handles 1.6x rating continuously or 20A, thus you could in theory run two 2kW fan heaters off a 4-way strip on max temp (no thermostat) and eventually cook the plug contacts.

All the recent "moulded on" BS1363 plugs I have used with 2100W &

3120W loads (measured) have run very hot indeed on the live pin. Hot enough to scald my finger after removing the plug, replacing with MK rubber or toughplugs saw a marked drop in temperature. Not taken them apart, the problem used to be where the fuse-U was rivetted to the top of the plug, the resulting connection was relatively high resistance due to limited contact area.

Considering how cheap a type-b circuit breaker is, it should be possible to create a 4-way extension lead with the same functionality integrated. Alternatively breaking 32A rings into two 16A radials is not such a mad idea after all as it would mandatory avoid the problem.

Reply to
js.b1

There are some cheap and nasty extension leads out there - you can tell the moment you pick them up that they are too light and made from thermoplastic. I buy them for IT kit or other small loads, but would think twice using one for anything substantial.

You would probably have to protect it with a 10A MCB to have a hope at limiting the long term current low enough.

It would be a big pain in normal operation though - very easy to trip by accident, and also you may find some appliances you would have rouble switching on at all (inrush current being too much)

Reply to
John Rumm

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