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ban-all-sheds · 19 Nov 2015

PBC_1966 said:
It is only your opinion that to do the things we're debating specifically here would be against the law. You still have not provided any citation which backs up that claim.

The law requires that people make reasonable provision in the design and installation of electrical installations in order to protect persons operating, maintaining or altering the installations from fire or injury. You are telling them to do things which do not qualify as that.

Go away.

You do not need an exemption from complying with something you are not obliged to comply with in the first place, so yes, it is up to them, so long as the result is reasonably safe.

The law requires that people make reasonable provision in the design and installation of electrical installations in order to protect persons operating, maintaining or altering the installations from fire or injury. You are telling them to do things which do not qualify as that.

Go away.

Again, that's the difference between what is regarded as reasonably safe and what they are suggesting as something more than that for new work. If they did not regard existing sockets without 30mA (or better) protection as reasonably safe, wouldn't you expect the guidance on inspections to demand a C2 or higher code?

No, that's the difference between what used to be OK to be newly installed and is considered OK enough to be left alone and what is now OK to be newly installed.

Things change.

That's the way it works.

Get over it.

I don't dispute that.

Then stop disputing that the Wiring Regulations have similar patterns.

Stop pretending that because they don't require something existing to be ripped out that they must therefore allow it to continue to be installed.

There is an offense of, say, driving a 1980 car on a road without the required outside mirror.

But not a 1970 one, even though it's not been allowed to build a new car without one for 37 years. It's considered safe enough to allow people to still use it, but not safe enough to allow new introductions of it. The fact that you are not required to add a mirror to an old car does not conflict with the fact that a new(er) one needs one.

There is no offense of having sockets in your house, whenever it was built or rewired, without 30mA RCD protection.

There is a contravention of the Wiring Regulations in ADDING new sockets without it.

But they can ignore rules which are not legally binding on them. Whether you think they should or not doesn't change that. Get over it, and stop trying to use ridiculous arguments to suggest that somebody would be breaking the law when he would not,

In the UK, the Wiring Regulations are pretty much de facto legally binding.

In the case of RCD protection, the safety aspects are such that your proposed unreasonable and gratuitous ignoring of them means that you have NOT made reasonable provision etc.

What does it matter whether it's one new socket without sleeving on the earth or the entire house?

Because it is the installation of the new socket that is under consideration, not the installation of the ones already installed.

If it's reasonably in one socket, it's reasonably safe in all of them, regardless of how, when, or why it was done that way.

It may never have been considered reasonably safe, but even if it was, things change. That's the way it works. What was allowed once may not be the same as what is allowed now, even if there's no compulsion to change what is present because it dates from a time when it was allowed. The fact that someone has existing things which pre-date a change which stopped them from being allowed to be installed does not mean that they can continue to install them.

Again, how can guidance about inspecting an existing installation for safety not be relevant?

Because P1 applies to what you add, not to [what-is-already-there + what-you-add], so the only guidance which is relevant it that which applies to what you add.

Either it's reasonably safe or it isn't, no matter when it was done.

There's a difference between what used to be OK to be newly installed and is considered OK enough to be left alone and what is now OK to be newly installed.

Things change.

That's the way it works.

Get over it.

I'm saying that it makes absolutely no sense to claim that no 30mA protection/cables not in safe zones/missing sleeving/whatever is not reasonably safe if done today when if exactly the same thing is present from some time in the past it is to be considered reasonably safe.

There's a difference between what used to be OK to be newly installed and is considered OK enough to be left alone and what is now OK to be newly installed.

Things change.

That's the way it works.

Get over it.

And on that note, I really am done

TGFT, as long as you mean you are done with telling people not to bother following the current rules because you won't accept the fact that things change.

bernardgreen · 19 Nov 2015

B A S is correct, things do change,

The ratio of good electricians to mediocre house bashing cable installers has changed for the worse ( too many house bashers and too few electrician who can think about what they are doing. Hence a set of regulations that even a house basher ought to be able to understand when installing cables are created. This is intended to ensure house bashers do not create dangerous situations.

As house bashers get progresively worse the regulations tighten up the extent that an electrician who can think can see that following the regulations will ensure an installation that is safe at the time of installation and is likely to remain safe as long as the environment of that installation doesn't change.

Once it was the rules to use the water pipe as the main earth if the local distribution system did not provide an Earth along with Neutral and Live. Many electricians would also add a ground electrode as back up should the water pipe be severed or changed to plastic. That was an electrician's way of thinking

Because the regulations are so comprehensive there is no need for house bashers to think. Electricians on the other hand can think and can do things that are perfectly safe yet may not comply 100% with the regulations that were after all written with due consideration of the lack of thinking power that house bashers so often demonstrate.

PBC_1966 · 20 Nov 2015

ban-all-sheds said:
The law requires that people make reasonable provision in the design and installation of electrical installations in order to protect persons operating, maintaining or altering the installations from fire or injury. You are telling them to do things which do not qualify as that.

In your opinion, which you will not back up with anything to support it, so there is no point in responding any further to most of your points. However, to address one specific point regarding earth sleeving:

It may never have been considered reasonably safe, but even if it was, things change.

I don't think anyone but those who are the non-thinking types to whom Bernard has referred and who seem to think that anything which deviates in the tiniest regard from BS7671 cannot be reasonably safe could believe that it isn't safe today.

But if you are querying whether it ever complied with the Wiring Regs., yes it did. It was also the norm: Look at most installations from the 1960's or earlier which haven't been altered since, and you'll find no earth sleeving anywhere. The sleeving rule was introduced as an amendment to the 14th edition, although I can't pinpoint the exact date. I know it was not present in the original 1966 edition, but is in the revised metric 1970 edition. A later amendment to the 14th edition specified green/yellow instead of plain green to be used exclusively from somewhere around 1977/1978.

By the way, bare earths are still accepted by the NEC here and are still the norm.

bernardgreen said:
Electricians on the other hand can think and can do things that are perfectly safe yet may not comply 100% with the regulations that were after all written with due consideration of the lack of thinking power that house bashers so often demonstrate.

I think it was Douglas Bader who once said that "Regulations are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools." A forceful statement, perhaps, but as you've said, the thinking man who truly understands what's going on is capable of seeing when the regulations haven't really taken a particular situation into account, or when full compliance would be unreasonably burdensome given circumstances and a slight deviation with a tiny, but acceptable, increase in potential risk is a reasonable compromise.

ban-all-sheds · 25 Nov 2015

PBC_1966 said:
In your opinion, which you will not back up with anything to support it

Other than things which would be obvious to any intelligent person possessed of common sense.

I don't think anyone but those who are the non-thinking types to whom Bernard has referred and who seem to think that anything which deviates in the tiniest regard from BS7671 cannot be reasonably safe could believe that it isn't safe today.

It is not reasonable to not install sleeving. It really is not.

It was also the norm: Look at most installations from the 1960's or earlier which haven't been altered since, and you'll find no earth sleeving anywhere. The sleeving rule was introduced as an amendment to the 14th edition, although I can't pinpoint the exact date. I know it was not present in the original 1966 edition, but is in the revised metric 1970 edition. A later amendment to the 14th edition specified green/yellow instead of plain green to be used exclusively from somewhere around 1977/1978.

So it's been a requirement for at least 45 years.

Omitting has been a contravention for at least 45 years.

And yet still you think that it's a change too far.

Terrible.

By the way, bare earths are still accepted by the NEC here and are still the norm.

Irrelevant.

I think it was Douglas Bader who once said that "Regulations are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools."

How ironic.

DB thought the rules did not apply to him and he contravened direct orders and he lost both his legs and nearly his life in a crash which happened because he ignored the regulations prohibiting what he did. In doing so he confirmed the folly of "regulations are for the guidance of wise men and the blind obedience of fools".

the thinking man who truly understands what's going on is capable of seeing when the regulations haven't really taken a particular situation into account, or when full compliance would be unreasonably burdensome given circumstances and a slight deviation with a tiny, but acceptable, increase in potential risk is a reasonable compromise.

Oh get over yourself.

You are not some kind of freedom fighter.

"Unreasonably burdensome"? FGS

PBC_1966 · 25 Nov 2015

It would benefit everybody if instead of getting so worked up and throwing insults around, you would actually address the issues in a reasoned manner, providing citations to back up your claims if you are so certain you are correct, and not simply reiterating your opinion over and over in the belief that if you state it often enough everybody will just accept that you must be right. To paraphrase something I've seen recently, that's not the way it works.

ban-all-sheds · 25 Nov 2015

The law requires reasonable provision for safety etc. No "citation" needed - it says so in black and white.
Whilst compliance with BS 7671 is not formally required, that is the British Standard which relates to electrical installations, and to deliberately refuse to implement a requirement of it which is intimately related to personal safety but instead to do something which the standard no longer regards as safe enough to be continued to be done is not reasonable. No "citation" needed - it is so blindingly obvious that anyone who refuses to accept it must be deranged, and anybody who genuinely cannot understand it must be mentally subnormal.
2 contains no insults. I feel about you, and your rabid opposition to the idea that regulations change the way I feel about people who think the US Govt blew up the WTC.

securespark · 26 Nov 2015

Surely compliance with some parts of the book is occasionally down to interpretation?

We all know the regs are badly written and some are not crystal.

I've been witness to a few situations over the years where there has literally been heated discussions with designers and building officers as to whether an installation is compliant or not.

ban-all-sheds · 26 Nov 2015

In places that is the case.

411.3.3 is not one of those places.

PBC_1966 · 26 Nov 2015

ban-all-sheds said:
I've been witness to a few situations over the years where there has literally been heated discussions with designers and building officers as to whether an installation is compliant or not.

And here we're getting way beyond that into a discussion about what is to be considered not compliant with BS7671 but merely what is reasonably safe. Obviously there is huge room for debate and a certain amount of subjectiveness involved. But I would really like to know if there can possibly be anyone else here who seriously believes that a missing piece of earth sleeving at a switch or socket could count as not "reasonably safe" (not that I believe B-A-S genuinely thinks that himself).

ban-all-sheds · 26 Nov 2015

I'd like to know who thinks they can provide a serious explanation of why it would be reasonable to deliberately leave the sleeving off.

PBC_1966 · 26 Nov 2015

ban-all-sheds said:
I'd like to know who thinks they can provide a serious explanation of why it would be reasonable to deliberately leave the sleeving off.

Emergency replacement of an accessory and no sleeving to hand, perhaps?

But you're completely missing the point: It's not about whether it's reasonable to omit it or not; it's about whether the end result is reasonably safe. If you genuinely believe that leaving off a piece of earth sleeving results in a situation which is not reasonably safe, then what risk do you believe it introduces to make it so?

ban-all-sheds · 26 Nov 2015

PBC_1966 said:
Emergency replacement of an accessory and no sleeving to hand, perhaps?

Possibly.

But you're completely missing the point: It's not about whether it's reasonable to omit it or not; it's about whether the end result is reasonably safe.

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Were your actions reasonable is what it's about.

EFLImpudence · 26 Nov 2015

Can I ask a (dumb) question after all these years?

What is the actual purpose of sleeving?

Hides behind couch again.

PBC_1966 · 26 Nov 2015

EFLImpudence said:
What is the actual purpose of sleeving?.

A very good question. Why, after decades without it, was it suddenly decided to specify earth sleeving everywhere? What purpose does it serve?

JohnW2 · 26 Nov 2015

EFLImpudence said:
Can I ask a (dumb) question after all these years? What is the actual purpose of sleeving?

Good (not dumb!) question!

I have heard of cases in which there has been a loud bang when re-energising a circuit after pushing an accessory back into a backbox when there was a generous length of unsleeved CPC behind the accessory. However, if that initial bang doesn't happen (or is avoided by appropriate dead testing before energising), then I can't see any ongoing safety issue. A bare conductor obviously (hopefully!!!) does not need sleeving to 'identify' what it is being used for.

Kind Regards, John

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