I think that probably the slight change to the coding system was an attempt to clear things up that was a very widely used interpretation that often existed (or was deliberately used by some to save money and not in the best intrests of safety ) . "We fix the code ones very quickly and the fix the code twos next as soon as we can reasonably afford it and when it is more convenient" I often argued that this was the wrong approach and was of an opinion like "Fix the code ones yesterday or the day before (rapid rapid rapid) and the fix the code twos today" sort of order of urgency. Basically fix all but applying a greater urgency to the ones. ... But, in practice at the time the real was that the code ones might get fixed but often the code two never were.
The idea was to prevent harm to Persons, Livestock and Property.
I don't think the problem really relates to C2s - if an inspector believes that something presents an appreciable 'potential danger' then it seems very reason to require 'urgent remedial action'. My difficulty is with the C3 - if the inspector does
NOT believe that there is a potential danger (hence not C2), then what 'improvement' would they be recommending by giving a C3, and why? You go on to write ....
There is nothing to stop any PIR/EICR having with it a list of advisory items too which are over and above the model form of the report - I sometimes used a seperate sheet or made comments on the standard model etc. .... So long as it is made absolutely clear that it is additional advice.
That's fair enough, up to a point, but the situation is very different from MOTs. With cars, most of the identified problems relate to things which will almost inevitably deteriorate with time/mileage. Hence, if something has not yet reached the stage of warranting an MOT 'fail', but is 'heading that way', it's reasonable to offer 'advisories', indicating that one needs to "keep one's eyes" on those things and have remedial action undertaken if/when required. Issues with electrical installations are very rarely things that are going to change with time - if something (e.g. a socket lying on the floor!) is going to be 'potentially dangerous' in 5 or 10 years time, it is usually going to be just as potentially dangerous today - so there is little, if any, need for 'advisories' which alert to the need to 'keep ones eyes on' something.
I think I 'get' what people are trying to do in an attempt to make the situation sensible, as was illustrated by Highway Man's comment ...
A low risk potential danger
I think that what people are trying to do (maybe largely subconsciously) is to classify things according to their estimate of the magnitude of the 'potential risk' (which will rarely be zero with any LV electrics), and to code accordingly, something like this ...
That's all fair enough, and seemingly sensible, but there are at least two issues. Firstly, I don't think those definitions of C2 and C3 really correspond exactly with what BS7671 currently 'actually says'. However, much more of a problem is in ascertaining where the boundary lies between C3 and C2, particularly given the difficulty in quantifying risk in the first place - i.e. in deciding where the dividing line comes between "risk just about low enough to be acceptable without remedial action" and "risk too high to be acceptable without remedial action". At best, that's going to be a pretty individual/subjective decision, leading to a lot of inconsistency.
A problem, of course, is that the difference between C2 and C3 can now have potentially major financial impact on private landlords.
Quantification of 'risk' is a difficult subject at the best of times, which I know only too well having spent most of my professional career attempting to minimise and/or moderate risks in one way or another. The concept of 'quantified risk' is very useful, but it's essentially a statistical concept that applies to 'populations' (large groups of individuals/items) but with much more limited meaning/usefulness to individuals. One can take measures which reduce the magnitude of a risk to a very low value, meaning that the probability of any given individual coming to harm is extremely small, but that is of little meaning, or consolation, to the ('unlucky') very small number of individuals who
do come to harm!
I know quite a few who made their advice as "part of the regs" that must be complied with. If they were good and useful recommendations then nothing wrong with making them as a good/helpful suggestion but should never pretend they were actually regs that must be complied with to attract a pass/fail sort of situation, the regs is the minimum line for "good/reasonable practice" which can be built upon if needed.
Quite. Given the (probably inevitable) lack of total explicit 'comprehensiveness' in the regs, it follows that any number of individuals and organisations will have their own ideas and advice to offer as regards how the regs can be interpreted - but they didn't really ought to try to say that there ideas indicate how the regs "should" (or even "must") be interpreted, let alone confuse people into thinking that their ideas actually
are "regs". Those who post things like this hopefully understand that it merely represent the opinion of someone else, or some organisation ...
Kind Regards, John
