RIP DIY - longish rant

[Kevin Chambers]

I've been (mostly) reading this group for over a year whilst renovating my house and during that time have got some usefull information from it.

However, it has struck me recently that a lot of people who post here have an incredibly self righteous outlook, considering this is a DIY forum. Particularly following the post on legality of electrical wiring it was quite depressing how many of the replies took the stance that either you "shouldn't do it without a qualification" or "you can't legally do it without a qualification, and maybee that's OK".

Maybee It's just me getting depressed about how hard it seems to be to do things legally without employing some semi-competent "insert trade here" who has absolutely no interest in doing the job I want done (or even returning a phone call usually). At the same time as not wanting my custom most tradespeople seem to think it is their god given right to be offered it at any price they choose and DIYers are taking the bread from their childrens mouths. I'm mostly thinking of plumbers here admitedly, but god forbid that regulations extend their powers to other trades.

I can see the benefit of getting major work checked by a certified person once it's complete but only if there was a fixed (reasonable) charging scale and a guarantee that there will be someone willing to do it.

I couldn't even find a plumber who'd run a gas pipe to a new boiler and do the certification, I'd even have let someone hang it on the wall. The greedy bastards knew there was a bit of simple plumbing required which they could charge £500 a day for (plus overcharging for the parts obviously) and that I couldn't legally do anything unless I found someone to do the gas and certification.

[Christian McArdle]

Actually, working in your own home, you could have done that yourself if you were willing to defend your competence to do the work in a court of law (if required) and satisfy the building control department (as you wouldn't be covered by the CORGI exemption from building control).

Christian.

[Christian McArdle]

You'll find that the answers to questions about dangerous subjects such as electrical wiring depend very much on the OP's wording of the question. It is often obvious that the OP really isn't at all competent in the field and that it is far more appropriate to advise them to contract a professional to do the work than encourage them to perform a task that they are clearly too inexperienced but gung ho to complete safely.

On the other hand, some questions are clearly about specific technical issues by people who do appear to understand the basic principles. They tend to get the technical help needed to fill in the little gaps required to do the job.

Christian.

[Tim Mitchell]

In article , Kevin Chambers writes

It's not self righteous, it is unfortunately the way you have to think in our increasingly litigious society (how do you spell that?).

You can carry on d-i-y-ing as much as you want, but you need to think about the possible consequences of what you do, and the post you reference above was all about that. It is not good advice to say "carry on regardless" when there might be a liability claim waiting for you round the next corner.

[BigWallop]

(for space saving purposes)

The trades are setting new standards all the time, and equipment suppliers and manufacturers are constantly changing designs and styles to comply with these new standards. But the DIYer is not changing with the times as fast as the trades are, so problems are now starting to arise from this gap in knowledge. Any reputable tradesperson will be constantly updating their techniques to allow for new things coming to the market and, in most cases, this is long before the DIYer is even aware of what is happening. So new found dangers and changes to the codes of practice can arise due to faults that were found with older techniques and newer methods must then be introduced to compensate for them.

The average DIYer still has the "That'll do it for me" way of thinking when they carry out an unfamiliar job. Fact. But, if the work they are carrying out can be dangerous to people and / or even the environment, then the work is deemed, and rightly so, to be unsuitable for safe use. This is where new certification schemes would come into play.

Scenario 1;

The work carried out on a service installation by the DIYer in their own home isn't perfectly done. The house is then sold on, but still has the defect in the work carried out by the last DIY owner. The new occupier is lying in bed one night and suddenly BLAM !!! the cooker pipework, or the shower wiring have burst into flames due to the defect left by the last owner.

Who's at fault ? The new occupier because he didn't check everything ? But he works as an accountant and doesn't know anything about DIY at all.

Is it the previous owners fault ? But he had no regulations to prevent him from doing that type of work, so is he fully responsible ? He felt confident enough in doing the job to his own standard.

Scenario 2;

The installation is fully tested before the new occupier moves in. This is all done by people who know what to look for and how to test for all types of fault that might be dangerous to the new occupier. He finds the fault during his survey and warns of the impending danger. The new occupier has the defect repaired so that it isn't a danger any more. No BLAM !!! in the middle of the night. No lives lost due faulty installations.

Which of these two scenarios would you prefer to happen ?

[Lurch]

On 21 May 2004 02:52:38 -0700, in uk.d-i-y [e-mail] (Kevin Chambers) strung together this:

The problem is that as competent as someone thinks they are at diy, they're not always. I come across diy bodges on a day to day basis and the people that install them can't see what they've got wrong and why it's downright dangerous. There's a difference between telling everyone you know what you're doing and actually knowing what you're doing. If you don't know something, how do you know? I'm not saying everyone is like this, just some people are a bit over confident.

It also works the other way, I don't really want to do work for people who don't want to pay for whatever job it is they want doing and assume that the first price I come up with must be a rip-off by default. I don't have a problem doing small jobs, but the bigger contracts are more worthwile as you're generally not been hassled about knocking the price down a few quid.

How do you fix a charging scale? Make all the small firms charge the same as larger firms with more overheads so the smaller firm ends up with more profit, or the other way round? You can't fix a price, even if you did no-one would be happy. This country is obsessed with moaning and whining about everything under the sun, or even the clouds as it usually is!

[Bob Mannix]

Firstly you'll have a long search to find any ng without incredibly self-righteous people on it (they tend to be attracted by the prospect of an audience).

Secondly, yes it is depressing but that's not the fault of the posters who are telling you how it *is*, not how it should be. After all, most original posters are after information, not political debate (at least on uk.d-i-y they are). It's not the DIY posters telling you you need a paper-competent person who have made the situation - they are merely trying to help by telling you what the situation is (well, most of them, including me). Saying "you can't do x legally without a qualification" is not a stance, it's a point of information. Many will carry on and do x anyway but at least they are doing so better informed. If you aren't going to like the answer, don't ask the question!

Bob Mannix

[Mary Fisher]

There's a third scenario. The work is done by (say) a CORGI registered fitter, a sole trader. For whatever reason it goes BLAM - at any time in the future.

The fitter can't be found - moved, changed jobs, died ....

What then?

Mary

[Tony Bryer]

When it comes to central heating this does not seem to tally with the experience of people here. While members of this group are discussing the merits of various condensing boilers, control options, UFH etc, more than a few in the queue at the merchants want only to fit what they were fitting 10 or 15 years ago.

[BigWallop]

The trade organisation he/she was a member of will be able to advise on these procedures for you. If the installer has died or moved away out of the country, then the matter is taken up by the powers that regulate that particular trade. So you do have a comeback on someone if this does occur. If the installer wasn't part of any of these organisations, then they wouldn't be properly certificated and, hence, shouldn't be installing that type of equipment. So it goes back to being a DIY job.

[RichardS]

have a comeback on

installing that type

You reckon that the trade body would accept any liablilty whatsoever because one of their past members had done a shoddy job? Or that they would do anything other than fight like hell to protect their member's interest?

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[stuart noble]

As an accountant he'll know all about overcharging and putting the fear of God into people about the consequences of d-i-y. As Mary and others have said your BLAM!!! incidents are far more likely to be the result of greedy tradesmen being in too much of a hurry. Woman over the road literally had a ceiling fall on her head after a plumber forgot to connect a fitting in the bathroom. He did buy her a bunch of flowers though.

[The Natural Philosopher]

That was precisely my experience. I really had to do ALL the work on my UFH system myself - the plumber simply shook his head and wanted nothing to do with it.

Trades, by and large, do NOT want to take risks by doing something new and different. They want to do what they know exactly how to do, as profitably as possible.

I had architects, structural engineers and teh BCO scarthig their heads and muttering over what I wanted to do. In the end (and you could hear them almost muttering 'glad its his money') I ended up with somethng unique, different and mostly working correctly. Only teh bits I DIDN'T come here to ask about (and relied on so called builders and experts) had problems.

The sort of D-I-Yer who makea a balls up and a dangerous mess is NOT the sort of D-I-Yer who posts here for the most part. Its the sort who hang out in B & Q, and use a staple gun to clip cables to the wall for their new mood lighting...apart from one notable exception, those too stupid to use a computer aren't represented here.

[RichardS]

You've stated this before. Do you have any evidence to back this assertion up? Is, on average, DIY work statistically better or worse than the broad spectrum of work carried out by tradesmen (qualified or not?).

In the ODPM's "justification" for BRegs Part P ISTR that the number of fatal electrocutions in the UK is tiny (in 10s rather than 100s or 1000s), and the stats don't distinguish between fixed and portable appliances, nor unqualified as opposed to qualified installations.

Where do we stop with this obsession with qualifications and certification? Should DIY/unqualified car maintenance be banned on the grounds that you might not spot a problem with the brakes if you happen to be changing the oil filter?

Caveat Emptor. It's stunning that we don't commission electrical surveys and gas safety checks more frequently as part of the house buying process.

Of course an electrical check even on work properly and competently carried out by a fully qualified sparky 10 years ago might come back as "installation does not meet current wiring regs". What does that mean? Is it dangerous? I'd hazard a guess that the vast majority of uk housing stock doesn't meet current standards, and accident (electrocution/fire/etc) rates are not out of control.

There are probably adequate remedies at law for dangerously shoddy work, criminal negligence probably being at the top of the tree.

And if they want to feel confidently isolated from potential claims after a house sale they could always commission gas/'electric safety checks and give the buyers the reports...

We have turned into a society obsessed with fear of insurance companies, the cult of the "professional", rules and regulations, and the fear of something going wrong no matter how small the risk.

-- Richard Sampson

email me at richard at olifant d-ot co do-t uk

[BigWallop]

That being the case, is the internal workings of these controllers still the same as it was 10 or 15 years ago. Would the DIYer fitting them notice that changes to the thickness of the contacts inside the relays has had to be changed because the thinner ones don't take the new load ratings from the newer boilers which sits further down the line from them.

No they wouldn't. They'd only know that the controller looks the same and does the same job as it always did. But, on the other hand, anyone with the knowledge to know that after a certain date these controllers are not suitable for the newer boilers, because they cause problems with the new contacts burning out, and they would / should automatically change it because they know to look at the date of manufacture on the controllers. That's a properly informed tradesperson.

Being competent, as has been mentioned before, is not the same as being certified to do the work safely and securely. When I buy timber to make something, and I'm not joiner or carpenter, I wouldn't know the first thing about the grain, the species, or the workings of all the woods. I'd rely on someone telling me that, that particular wood is what I should be using for that particular job. Who would be telling me this ? Someone with a lot more experience in the job than I have. A fully qualified person in other words.

I don't think there are many DIYers who could walk in to a trade merchant and ask for a special device or fitting that needs to be fitted into a particular job, without having done some research into the job they're doing. The research being the proper procedures and equipment needed to install the job properly and to full specifications of safety and security. Who cares if the knowledge they gleaned from their research is never used by them again. At least they took time to make sure that they knew all the implications of the work they're going to carry out.

If the job then needs to be inspected by someone who is trained in the quality factor of that type of work, then the DIYer would have no hesitation in allowing this to happen, because they would know that they have learned as much as they can before, during and after doing the work. So they should then be confident enough to allow the inspector to have a look. It's the work that is not inspected that is causing dangerous circumstances. New legislations are not created from thin air. They're created due to the continually changing environments in the way equipment is being installed. And it is the final installation of this equipment which creates dangerous environments.

[Dave Plowman]

I'd encourage anyone to have a go at near anything DIY. But when you see a post that shows a lacking of even the most basic knowledge of electrics - the sort of thing you'd get in a leaflet with switches sold at B&Q etc - it begs the question as to whether that person should be attempting it without first doing a little *basic* learning.

FWIW, I'm not referring to any particular thread in the above.

[BigWallop]

If the signature on the completion or safety certificate was made by one of their members, then yes, they do have to uphold their part in the proceedings. After all, it is them who makes the rules.

[BigWallop]

"stuart noble" >perfectly done. The house is then sold on, but still has the defect in the

Just a bunch of flowers ? Why didn't his properly obtained insurance cover the damage he caused ? Was it because he didn't have a clue and the over charging was because he is an unregistered cowboy.

This is why we need regulation of the trades. If a certain job takes a certain amount of time and money, then the trades would have to knuckle down to a set amount of pay for that type of work. Many trades are held back by local situations. Rents and rates on workshops vary widely across the country, vehicle up keep and other transport situations also vary as you move from region to region. So you have to allow for a certain overhead structure on the pricing of things as well.

Accidents do occasionally happen. Yes, they do, that's why they are called accidents. But downright ignorance to the possible dangers of your actions is not an accident.

[Mary Fisher]

have a comeback on

Not if you're dead.

Mary

[Mary Fisher]

"stuart noble" >perfectly done. The house is then sold on, but still has the defect in the

Aww - that was kind.

Mary