Fused Spur and BS7671

tim01 · 14 Feb 2006

Hi, hope you can help. I have read much conflicting text about when you may or may not add a fused spur to power an appliance.

I have read here that I can take more than one fused spur any one socket on the ring. Is that correct?

What if that socket outlet is already a spur itself (just one cable feeding it). Can I add aa FUSED spur to such a 'spured socket'?

Finally, I have read someone being advised to see the BS7671 definition of "competent". I'm not being lazy, I have searched for this on the Web but cannot find an answer. Could you explain whether a person who has done many such spurs in the past is classed as "Competent" to perform these "Minor Works"? The new regulations seem such muddy waters.

Many thanks in advance.

- Tim -

tim-spam · 14 Feb 2006

If the socket is already a spur, you can NOT add another spur to this of whatever type. You can, however, change the socket already on a spur into a fused connection box. You can then 'daisy chain' as many sockets off this as you like, safe in the knowledge that the 13A fuse will protect the circuit from overload.

Qedelec · 14 Feb 2006

Competent means, having experience of electrical installations, knowing how the safety of these installations are affected by your actions, Having sufficient test equipment and being able to use it. You should know how to measure, Continuity, R1 & R2, Insulation Resistance between conductors, Earth loop impedance (and know the maximum Zs for the protective device), Maximum fault current, RCD trip time @ 1/2 rated value, Full rated value and 5 times full rated value on both sides of the alternating cycle.

That is not a definitive list. So based upon that ARE YOU COMPETENT!!

JohnD · 14 Feb 2006

As any married woman will tell you, doing something many times doesn't mean you're any good at it

Qedelec · 14 Feb 2006

So your wife was telling me the night before last.

tim01 · 14 Feb 2006

It would appear then, I can connect an appliance by wiring a plug and inserting my fuse, but I cannot wire a simple fused spur (much the same thing) without...

"measuring Continuity, R1 & R2, Insulation Resistance between conductors, Earth loop impedance (and knowing the maximum Zs for the protective device), Maximum fault current, RCD trip time @ 1/2 rated value, Full rated value and 5 times full rated value on both sides of the alternating cycle"

Who makes these rules?

Qedelec · 14 Feb 2006

You might not like it but the regs are there for your safety.
From a DIYers stand point it seems like overkill but if I said I was going to remove your appendix and you had no idea about how dangerous it was, You might think the law that forbids you to assault someone, to be unessessary.

tim01 · 14 Feb 2006

Hi Qedelec

I don't deny that safety is of course important. utmost important and I support anything that genuinely improves safety for us all but it is a worthwhile point that keeping some basic electrics within the public domain is a GOOD THING and is important for public safety. Banning ALL such activity will result in complete public ignorance within just a couple of generations. I fear a dangerous state of affairs where half the population are plugging 13 appliances into one socket while the other half electrocute themselves due to a multitude of possible dangers yet NO common-knowledge of the circuits surrounding their everyday lives.

If a flex gets hot then I know I have a problem and I can investigate or think to call an electrician. In two generations I won't because4 I won't have A CLUE.

Can you imagine DIY'rs of the future connecting washing machines with a length of bell-wire because they don't have the first clue. Or the infinite dangers that will be widespread once no-body has any knowledge at all and there is no available information. Dangers to the professional electrician working in dwellings too. Do you think you have seen the worst possible? Just give it a generation or two!

They will start running basic electrics courses at schools to bring essential knowledge back. Here we gp round the roundabout. How shallow the minds of these lawmakers

Qedelec · 14 Feb 2006

I sympathise with you and wholeheartedly, and as for using bell wire, you would be horrified to see the state of some homes even now.
This was the very reason why Part P building regulations were introduced. They are by no means perfect and it will take several years to get to a position, even halfway to safety. Everyone moaned about seatbelts when we were 'ordered' to Belt Up. But would you contemplate not wearing one today.
Lets take an example.
Joe bloggs decides to add a spur to feed a 3 bar electric fire. The socket he has taken it off appears to part of the ring because there are two cable feeding it. unbeknown to him the previous owner has daisy chained sockets. Result is that the cable could be overloaded and no-one would see the cable smouldering under the floor boards. Without adequate testing this will not be discovered, measuring R1+R2 would reveal that this is a radial and not a ring. Testing is vital to Safety.

Qedelec · 14 Feb 2006

True story.
Did a CU change and rewire but when the tails were conncted to the incomer and Ze was measured there was no supply. The cause was found to be some one had partially severed the tails under the landing floor and covered the cut with insulating tape. Moving the tails had caused them to part. This together with the debris stuffed under the floor and the 2mm cut in the gas pipe were an accident waiting to happen. Testing Ze would have exposed a higher than normal resistance if the cut had not parted and prompted an investigation. Energising the installation without proper testing would have been a disaster.

dingbat · 14 Feb 2006

tim01 said:
...I fear a dangerous state of affairs where [there is no] common-knowledge of the circuits surrounding their everyday lives...
...Just give it a generation or two!

Too late. The great unwashed were never very clued up anyway, but as technology has grown ever-more complex people have generally lost any connection with the environment/infrastructure which surrounds them. Nobody cares how anything works, as long as it works.

They will start running basic electrics courses at schools to bring essential knowledge back.

No point whatsoever, until they stop trying to reach 'numeracy' and 'literacy' and concentrate instead on the hard graft of teaching maths and english. And when they've done that they can reintroduce physics... but what's the point? Our economy does not rely on the masses understanding anything; their sole job is to consume relentlessly. It may be easier in the long run to simply prevent the drones from doing anything for themselves... let's face it, they've already abandoned the notion of thinking.

tim01 · 14 Feb 2006

Staggering story Qedelec. Makes we wonder whats been done to my own home in the past.

I'm just a bit bugged by regs everywhere, specially having been told just yesterday that I couldn't climb three steps up a ladder to look closer at something until the site foremen returned to grant me Health & Safety permission.

Dingbat: I don't need to abandon the notion of thinking. The government are doing all my thinking for me now.

Moan moan groan....

tim-spam · 15 Feb 2006

My guess is that Part P will make absolutely no difference to the horror story installations, as those responsible for such things operate well outside of any regulations or common sense anyway. What Part P has done is to increase costs, and this may mean that more people will 'have a go' themselves, whether or not they are capable. In other words, those of us who already have reasonable safe electrical installations will just have to pay more, whilst those who don't give a damn will just carry on not giving a damn.

dingbat · 15 Feb 2006

tim-spam, I think you're partly right. Those have-a-go heroes who think they know it all anyway will not be stopped, neither will out-and-out cowboys. But already householders are starting to ask for registered sparks and if you do the kind of work I do - rewires on refurb grants and the like - you won't get the work unless you're registered. And many DIY-ers have signalled that they will either notify, get a spark in or carry on, but with a greater awareness of the possible issues it may raise in the future.

So, on the whole it is working quite nicely, actually.

But there is one other group it won't stop; those malcontents convinced that there's a government plot to rob them of their livelihoods/hobbies/simple pleasures etc. But they'll soon find something else to complain about!

Pensdown · 15 Feb 2006

That sums it very well Dingbat.

I can see why Part P came in and made the Kitchen, Bathroom and Garden a special location. You’ve only got to read the posts on here. The above are the most electrically hazardous place’s in the home and yet most posts on here are for works in those zones.

If people were going to use a spark anyway to work in the above zones, there should be not cost increase due to PP unless of course the contractor passes in the £ 1 or so it costs to do an online submission.

If they want to do it themselves they can, most is as before, some is just done in a bit more of a professional way.

We have some sample Building Control submission forms here. Anybody who wants to carry on with their own thing in the above zones would only need to come on here and ask the questions. There are enough “competent” people on here (except yours truly, can’t call myself a spark anymore) who are only to happy to help them with the correct design, free of charge. I think I read a post where the cost for the submission, inspection and final test was something like £ 60.00 . I know money can be tight but hey, you might not even get 3 hours for that work from one of you lot! And you certainly would not from here.

Sorry about the Kitchen Fitters, no sympathy from here. They will have to do it right now and not before time as they also charge through the nose for it

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Fused Spur and BS7671

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