Model Forum / General / Models / January 2007

I am only rated at city and guilds level and did appliance repair
washers, microwaves etc but one of the things i could never come t
terms with was the customers attitude. I remeber one call out to a
oven problem, i pulled the oven out from its housing and sat it on th
floor. I looked at the wiring which was cloth covered and connected b
a chocky block, i told the lady of the house that most times whe
looking at the morning news, (a family had died due to an electrica
fault), i walked out of the house, anyone would, the last thing yo
want is your name associated with that sort of job. Did i get the job
never heard from them since, Dav

--
DCree

I'm waiting for a thing that says I can't repair me own motors, without
taking to be inspected at ruinous expense.

I'm all in favour of safety, just that I don't think the Prat P regulations
are doing much to improve it.

as with most recent legislation, the underlying idea is good, but the
implementation is a pile of crap.

You obviously had lessons from my Grandad - he had a 13 amp socket wired one
phase to each pin...

The house I grew up in had three phase terminated in the garage but only one
phase taken into the house.

Steve

....but only if you can get cable that isn't to the new spec and
dated. Otherwise its a bit of a giveaway.

Regards,
Tony

The new-colour wiring was not available before the new regulations.  any
new-colour wiring must therefore have been installed afterwards.

Nothing new there then. Anybody NOT have problems with household
insurance claims :)

there again, this house has never been inspected.  There's wiring all over
the damned place, I think all that's currently in use is modern PVC
insulation, but there's no easy way of telling.

Now, I could get an electrician to come and do a megger test on it.  But
that's about all - there's no way short of pulling up all the first floor
floorboards of inspecting the actual wiring.

so here's exactly what's wrong with the regulations - the biggest risks are
not wiring that I, who know what I'm doing, install, but the old
rubber-and-cloth insulated stuff that was installed in places 50 years ago
and is still in use.  I did some work (pre-part-P) in a friend's house:
found some wiring in there with lead sheathing on the outside of it, and
lots of it was some sort of plastic-insulated (not like modern plastic stuff
though) twin conductor with no earth, and separate earth wires.

Now that sort of wiring is much more likely to give problems than anything
other than plain stupidity with modern materials.  Obviously, there are
stupid people out there - but there are a lot more of those old
installations which have never been checked.

In me grandmother's previous house, I found a twisted pair wire leading from
a ceiling rose to a lampholder.  This was originally cloth-covered rubber
insulated, but the insulation had all gone, leaving 2 bare wires looking
like a DNA double-helix.  It still worked.

I don't want to see people protected from their own stupidity(1), I want
to see people protected from somebody else's stupidity. The number of
homes that could burn down without damaging the nearest neighbour is in
the minority.

(1) As long as they don't expect me to pay for them to be patched up
etc. afterwards.

Yes it does wash, if your house burns down becaues of your DIY
electrics then quite possibly so does your neighbours. Why shouldn't
THEY be protected from your stupidity?, and why shouldn't your children
who have no say in the matter be protected?. Perhaps you believe it's
your right to put your children in any risk you choose and no one
should do anything about it?.

A statement like "I just don't think Big Brother should have any right
to control what I
do in my own home" can be used to justify anything and is fundamentally
unacceptable in any decent society, there have to be rules.

Greg