Death through dodgy wiring

So is everyone buying up reels of T&E in the old colours so we can avoid paying a "professional" electrician for the next few years at least?

Bob

I understood that when the regs come in, the wiring colours would be changing, enabling inspectors to identify new work.

It's not quite as deliberately coordinated as that, I don't think, but it is suggestive/indicative, since the changes occur within a year of each other. "The New Colours" meaning for ornery T&E a change to brown & blue for L and N respectively, to match the much-loved code for flexes. You remember - the one the wags tried to make us remember as "ah, well, that dark brown's the same colour as the earth, so it must be for E; the bright blue's electric-blue, innit, so that'll be L where all the electrickery comes from; and the stripey one can't make up its mind what colour to be, so it's a middle-of-the-road thing, which must mean Neutral'. [No, that's NOT what the colours really mean. It's a *joke*, alright?]

Stefek

Andy Hall will be along in a little while with chapter and verse; but if I remember the posts around the time the "Part P" stuff was being mooted, he tracked down the UK figures. Deaths from fixed wiring were in the low single-digits; total electrocutions - mainly from faulty appliances - were in the tens.

OK, you made me do it (fx: googling). Over at

Stefek

On Saturday - 9 Oct - I needed to buy a reel of T&E; the trade-counter distributor said 'we haven't _had_ any new colour cable yet': presumably all installations in the area are red/black!

More sensible to have plastic screws. ;-)

Only a fool would run cables diagonally across a wall. I can't think of any real reason ever to do it - apart from to 'save' cable.

In article , Dave Plowman (News) writes

No it shouldn't, not if they are working as they should, and its a useful early warning device if they aren't.....

In article , Dave Plowman (News) writes

Yes but if their leaking there more likely than not going to fail before much longer, unless its a point close to the neutral end of the element. And if that's the case more current is leaking via the safety earth where it didnae oughta!...

I wonder just how "meandering" it was actually. Nobody deliberately does that - it uses more cable and takes longer to plaster over to start with.

???

Perhaps the kitchen appliance causes problem with the RCD but I would say that's the appliance that's out of spec. I've always had everything on an RCD and never had more than a couple of annoying trips. Last one was the washing machine literally exploding inside (a triac had had enough of life) and as we were out I'm glad it was fully protected as the 30A kitchen trip didn't cutout.

Quite true; but penny-pinching fools do exist. A previous boss of mine was surprised to find 2.5mmsq for the kitchen ring as he drilled a largish hole for a tumble dryer vent; the cable ran diagonally. This was a new build on a not-that-cheap estate. A bit of popping round a couple of neighbours with a cable detector he'd bought (after the fact!) established that the electrical contractor had decided the savings in cable in this design of house was worthwhile - so while one of us doing one job at home (or an honest local jobbing sparks doing a one-off) wouldn't be tempted to cut corners [sic] this way, the economics look different when you're planning wiring runs for tens of "carbon copy" houses on a new estate. And for all I know the diagonal run may've been regs-compliant anyway, if the cable were reliably held in place at a depth of over 5cm...

Stefek

A few get electrocuted but mostly by cuting through mower cables and suchlike. The OPDM report did sort of admit that these changes in regs may not save any lives on an average year.

I spot a market opportunity for a 3D cable wiring sensing system :-)

At about the same time the gummint proposed a new "safety scheme" for boats. It based this scheme upon "research" which proved that the number of deaths of recreational sailors around the coast was increasing rapidly.

An examination of the data by the RYA showed that the number of deaths due to recreational boating was in single figures. The figures were growing because the gummint was now adding in (for example) the case of someone who decides to drown themselves by jumping into the sea as "a recreational boating accident".

Part P seems to have been drafted on the same firm basis of knowledge.

Some of them should be exposed to an electric chair at least once during their education.

Steve

Sadly, I think we are no longer in a commom sense time.

Todays Idiocy was being told that the local primary can no longer display school photos on the internal notice board in the school hall.

Every parent is required to agree to their childs image being included in any photo. Half a dozen always refuse, so the school photo is ended.

snip

Don't know the veracity of this ... told it by a man that knew a man ... Schools have a requirement to have a photograph of each child on its file ... this costs money ... so;- photographers come into school and produce the 'file' photo for free ... then recoup the money by selling copies to parents, grand-parents plus the siblings' photos, plus the school photos ...funny old world!