Awful DIY advice

Alexander Lamaison · 2013-03-03T15:33:38+00:00

Was just leafing through the Dorling Kindersley DIY bible, "DIY Know-How With Show-How", and came across this item [1] on taking power to an outbuilding. Am I losing the plot or is this terrible advice? 2.5mm radial on a 30A MCB? And what is with "Do not connect the circuit cable's earth core to the consumer unit earth terminal. Instead run a 6mm single-core earth cable from this earth terminal to an earth electrode driven into the ground." Do they want us to convert the outbuild to a TT supply, with all the complications that entails, just for the hell of it? Time to share your horror stories. What is the worst DIY advice you've ever seen published? [1] (sorry about the sideways photo).

Awful DIY advice

Mar 03, 2013 23 Replies

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John Rumm 13 years ago

So you would consider what could be over a hundred £Ks worth of damage caused by a half arsed electrical installation as "relatively minor"?

Its not a crisis, but its a plausible result of a poor installation, so why encourage it? Its not like it would make much difference to the cost to actually work out the size of cable required and use it.

Even a numpty guideline in a DIY book could have a table of cable sizes against maximum load.

Personally I really can't get into that "any old crap that is not immediately and obviously lethal will do" mentality...

YMMV

Which helps, but its not a substitute for earthing.

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meow2222 13 years ago

no, I consider the level of risk relatively minor, and the amount of potent ial damage dramatically lower than that. To propose a leak causing over 100 k of damage seems unrealistic - if someone really had that much of value ar e they really likely to be diying a wonky install based on having read some thing in a book?

ooking. Crisis.

is it? Fridge compressors cut out due to overheating as a matter of routine , and they don't seem to have any significant reliability problem resulting from it. Sometimes its good to bring these issues back to realistic propor tions.

I don't recall anyone encouraging it

Yes - the writer presumably lacks expertise, thus can't.

I don't think I've ever seen anyone on this newsgroup promoting that attitu de.

If one's earth is disconnected to due darwinian stupidity, then yes it is. Insulation, earthing and RCD are all simply layers of protection against sh ock injury.

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geoff 13 years ago

In message , snipped-for-privacy@care2.com writes

Nothing to do with solar cells and FIT ?

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Jules Richardson 13 years ago

Or to give that stuff its proper title: No, more nails!

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