- Joined
- 27 Jan 2008
- Messages
- 27,540
- Reaction score
- 3,328
- Location
- Llanfair Caereinion, Nr Welshpool
- Country
First welcome to the forum.
Here is my mole hill mountain.
Moel Famau I suppose is the mountain in question.
I would agree a short concise answer is sometimes are that is required. However in many cases people will not take any notice of an answer without some explanation of why.
To have added "As you have very little spare capacity" would have in many cases helped.
We see one poster who habitually tells people they should not, or it's not allowed, together with a list of references to wiki or other pages saying why. The answers make it clear the poster has not read the links and is not going to take no as an answer.
However spending a little more time and explaining how what they want to do is dangerous or likely to cause problems when selling the house rather than just saying no will often guide the poster to adopt better methods.
Many if not most of the jobs the DIY guy wants to do will require equipment or knowledge he will not have and we have to strike a balance to guide the poster to do the work as safely as he is likely to accept within his budget.
Tell him he needs a 17th Edition test set and £750 he will ignore the post but tell him he needs a £50 plug in tester with a series of easy to read lights you may get him to part with his hard earned cash. Clearly if he had loads of money he would not have considered DIY in the first place.
The other problem is missing something vital. In theory where there are two cables connected to a socket it is either a ring or a radial or supplied by a FCU and to spur from it would not be a problem.
However there are many reasons why that may not be the case.
First is where some one has in the past not followed the rules.
Second is where the original was wired in accordance with a previous edition of the wiring regulations.
I am sure there are more for example where the location makes it notifiable.
It's not the electrical knowledge but experience on how people read and use information on a forum.
I made some mistakes. For example I wrote out a list of instructions on how to identify the switch wire on a ceiling rose using the lamp its self to do the testing. The method worked nothing wrong with that but it was too easy for the DIY guy to miss a step and in so caused danger.
As an electrician it is hard to remember although some DIY people are very clever there are also some idiots and fools so often better to spoon feed bit at a time and wait for replies so you get some idea of what the guy is like. Also remember others will read as well as poster and they may not be as clever.
It has surprised me when doing an internet search how often an old thread on this forum will come up. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam is very true on here.
Here is my mole hill mountain.
Moel Famau I suppose is the mountain in question.
I would agree a short concise answer is sometimes are that is required. However in many cases people will not take any notice of an answer without some explanation of why.
To have added "As you have very little spare capacity" would have in many cases helped.
We see one poster who habitually tells people they should not, or it's not allowed, together with a list of references to wiki or other pages saying why. The answers make it clear the poster has not read the links and is not going to take no as an answer.
However spending a little more time and explaining how what they want to do is dangerous or likely to cause problems when selling the house rather than just saying no will often guide the poster to adopt better methods.
Many if not most of the jobs the DIY guy wants to do will require equipment or knowledge he will not have and we have to strike a balance to guide the poster to do the work as safely as he is likely to accept within his budget.
Tell him he needs a 17th Edition test set and £750 he will ignore the post but tell him he needs a £50 plug in tester with a series of easy to read lights you may get him to part with his hard earned cash. Clearly if he had loads of money he would not have considered DIY in the first place.
The other problem is missing something vital. In theory where there are two cables connected to a socket it is either a ring or a radial or supplied by a FCU and to spur from it would not be a problem.
However there are many reasons why that may not be the case.
First is where some one has in the past not followed the rules.
Second is where the original was wired in accordance with a previous edition of the wiring regulations.
I am sure there are more for example where the location makes it notifiable.
It's not the electrical knowledge but experience on how people read and use information on a forum.
I made some mistakes. For example I wrote out a list of instructions on how to identify the switch wire on a ceiling rose using the lamp its self to do the testing. The method worked nothing wrong with that but it was too easy for the DIY guy to miss a step and in so caused danger.
As an electrician it is hard to remember although some DIY people are very clever there are also some idiots and fools so often better to spoon feed bit at a time and wait for replies so you get some idea of what the guy is like. Also remember others will read as well as poster and they may not be as clever.
It has surprised me when doing an internet search how often an old thread on this forum will come up. The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam is very true on here.
).
