"Back in May, as the election was at the forefront of everybody?s thoughts, NICEIC emailed 18,000 of its registered contractors for the main issues they would like to see NICEIC lobbying government on.
The response was fantastic, and the key themes that emerged were:
The ability for electricians to refit/ remove cut-outs from main power companies * Stop DIY outlets selling electrical goods to the general public * Make it law for landlords to have a PIR before a tenant moves in * Make it compulsory to be registered with an electrical scheme"
1 I can understand. The rest seem to be "can we have a 21st century closed shop please?"
It's well know that the NIC have considerably less interest in public safety than the livelihoods of their members. Which is to be expected, provided of course that the government understand this, if taking their recommendations.
Ah yes, forcing people to buy cable, sockets etc from car boot sales, a bloke down the pub or over the internet from overseas will really drive up safety standards.
*The ability for electricians to refit/ remove cut-outs from main power companies
Well electricians already do that. I have been caut doing it several times by meter readers and only one of them reported me.
Stop DIY outlets selling electrical goods to the general public
I have always said that part P should operate like the gas laws. If someone is getting paid for the work then they should be registered but if DIYing then they need not be part of the club
Make it law for landlords to have a PIR before a tenant moves in
That is one that I agree with, but not on each change of tennant. A 10 year inspection with a visual inspection on a change of tenant would be fine.
Make it compulsory to be registered with an electrical scheme"
Well I assume that they want to stop the likes of Tim Watts doing a DIY job, doing his own testing and certificate and the BCO allowing him to do so. Complete and utter c*ck IMHO.
That would cut out business's like mine of course and maybe lead to more DIY bodges? To be fair, most of the eletrical work I do, an electricain couldn't be bothered with. - they would consider the job too small.
I quite like Part P the way it is. It gives me a clear (ish) definition of what I can & cannot do. I'm not a lecky, but perfectly able to do minor 'like for like' replacements in a safe & competent manner. I wouldn't go near a CU or wire in a shower though.
I wouldn't mind that either - as long as it wasn't too expensive. A basic qualification in doing simple jobs would be a good thing.
I have no concrete figures as to how many people are killed in the UK every year by faulty mains installations. I have found figures that suggest it is about 10 people a year. If 1/10th of the housing stock is rented then it is
1 person a year. That is one person a year two many.
I would suspect that you and I would be paying. The rented houses that I have worked in with the worst electrics have tenants who are on benefits and the tenant pays no rent.
Of course they can do it now if they want to. But they won't.
The biggest problem is finding the bad landlords. I can name over 50 addresses where I know there is no gas certificate and they are supposed to be issued every year by law.
Its the one I have most sympathy for - and as is commonly known - what most sparks do anyway.
Completely unworkable anyway - still it would make a nice trade for some on ebay
You can see it as a push for "money for old rope" when talking about short term lets like student accommodation. A 5 or ten yearly inspection would be ok I suppose.
which would put the consumer in an impossible position - can't do it themselves, can't get a handyman to do it, and the job is too small for a full time sparks to consider.
Its kind of pointless though. Given the choice of not having to break the law every time I improve my electrical system or not breaking the law, I would opt for the latter. However I am not about to stick £x hundred quid onto every job to involve the local BA etc.
A basic competence test for DIYers would possibly be tenable if cheap enough to take etc.
However you are never going to be able to police what people do in their own homes, so what bother filling statue books with wasted verbage that gets universally ignored and no one can be arsed to enforce?
Creating a policing capability re main fuse removal & lockoff.
Against SI2006, returning to "SI2004 as NICEIC penned".
Conflict of Interest in that PIR-Writer is Remedial-Banker.
Compulsory profit?!
They intentionally miss-led parliament with false statistics re SI2004, combining portable appliance deaths & accidents in fixed wiring deaths & accidents knowing *full well* that Part P was fixed- wiring in scope.
Want real improvements?
GAS Transco must perform basic inspections of every house with a gas meter. Flat fee of =A320-50, =A310 if over 75.
- 20M houses, over 1000 days, 8 per day (walk down the street).
- 2yr interval =3D 5,000 inspectors.
- 3yr interval =3D 2,500 inspectors.
- Severe fault means you must call an independent tradesman
Safety first, no conflict of interest, no membership fees, employees in-house re economy of scale training and accountability. Deaths & accidents fall.
ELECTRICITY.
- DNO must perform basic inspections every 3yr re RCD operation. If no RCD present offer to fit RCD & EmLight in hall for flat fee of =A350 (parts) in place of usual DNO isolator.
- DNO must 1) connect a new final circuit (re existing MEB in place re ESQW responsibility, re capability of supply), must 2) connect any new circuit supplying outside (re export of PME by DNO), must 3) connect any new CU (re MEB, supply, no NE link other than the cutout if PME, RCD present & operational) no matter WHO does the work.
- Fees range from =A320 re new final circuit, =A325 for outdoor circuit or =A335 if TT, =A350 for CU. DNO also checks their Ze is in spec too. DNO logs what circuits present on each visit. Anyone can maintain. Part P torn up. No matter WHO does the work it must be to BS7671 or equivalent named EU standard and "reasonable standard" nonsense removed.
- Severe fault means you must call an independent tradesman
Safety first, no conflict of interest, no membership fees, employees in-house re economy of scale training and accountability. Deaths & accidents fall.
BCO goes back to foundations & fire doors.
Domestic Sparks just have C&G or B/M.Eng. Electrical membership bodies scrapped, they become *educational-only charities*.
WTF are electricians paying membership fees to work in domestic when they have *already* been tested to C&G or B/M.Eng? HTF did this nonsense happen? HTF did we engineer *OUT* industry-vetted industrial time-served sparks from domestic and instead *REPLACE* them by a jobs- for-the-boys club of inferior "NICEIC DI" nonsense?
ALL works must have DNO connection re new f.c., new outside circuit, replacement cu AND regular RCD checking.
It puts safety first and makes charitable status MEAN something.
There already aren't enough though. Now lose several tens of thousands more lettings because of the extra overhead. How many extra homeless people will die? More than one. When you do a proper risk analysis, it will work out worse.
Same with Part P, because incomplete risk analysis didn't look at cause of deaths, and incorrectly assumed they were due to work by non-registered electricians. If you look at them, they are mostly due to nothing having been done at all when it should have been, and Part P made that situation worse. Another incorrect risk analysis, resulting in opposite effect.
Some figures may help. In England there are around 2.7m private rented households [1] [2]. Suppose each is required to have a PIR every 10 years. That's 270,000 a year. Assume that half will have PIRs or the equivalent for other reasons (eg major works). Assume also that each PIR can be done for £200 (by buying in bulk and not employing people as able as you guys). So that's an *extra* cost of £27m a year [3]. In return we save perhaps 1 life a year directly. That is a *very* poor return compared with - for example - spending on
a. road safety where the cost-benefit appraisal of eg lighting roads at night values a life at around £1.25m so £27m would save around 20; b. drugs where a year of life is worth around £30,000
The return would of course be better than just the lives saved because the PIRs would save some injuries and also some property loss/damage. But I bet we won't see NICEIC come up with a proper appraisal.
Sadly I doubt we shall see Ministers call for one either. The days are long gone when Ministers knew better than to say "you can't put a price on a human life" or "we shall make sure this never happens again".
[1]
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I don't know the figures for the rest of the UK [2] I've no idea if social housing is better or worse on average than the private sector so let's leave them aside [3] this leaves aside other possible costs of all these PIRs - eg the landlords or tenants taking time of work to provide access? the electricians who try to carry out a PIR at the local marijuana farm and get killed for their trouble?
Indeed, I was not suggesting it was a good or worthwhile return on the investment. Given the millions it would cost, there is so much low hanging fruit elsewhere to be had. How many hospitals could you keep clean for that?
If that person wasn't electrocuted he would be far more likely to have a slow lingering death or disability due to a road accident. That's if he didn't die falling down stairs in the dark because he couldn't afford to pay a spark to fix a faulty light.
I remember seeing a programme - I think it was back in the days when Watchdog was part of Nationwide - where someone had made their own batten lampholder. Out of a coffee jar lid. And this was in the UK.
Electrical fittings and installations are safer than ever because of better materials, RCDs etc, but through lack of practical education and restrictive practices (trade and legal) anyone unable to afford to pay an electrician is now less able to use electricity safely.
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