electrician credentials

[denso13]

Again, that is only the OPINION of the HSE, it is not law.

And again, I know that. It completely misses the point I was making.

So, why do you claim that because I have not undergone a training & testing regime that would be disproportionate to the task of soldering copper pipe joints, I cannot be competent to make soldered joints in copper pipes ?

Because soldering the pipework is a small part of what's required. What do you need to do before you even touch the pipe? What if by doing that you reveal that the current installation is not safe? Do you know what procedures then kick in? Do you know who needs to be notified, within what timescales, and what records need to be kept? Do you know that the testing regime changed only a few months ago and what those changes mean? How would you pick any of that up by simply knowing how to solder some pipework and fittings?

So, given the above about being able to demonstrate competence in making soldered joints in copper pipe, presumably you will still stick to the "but you didn't do an irrelevant approved training course and assessment covering stuff you're not wanting to do, therefore you can't be competent" view ?

Not at all, my point is above, soldering is the least of it. Which is where training comes in.

 

[denso13]

covering stuff you're not wanting to do

I meant to mention before, but you don't need training for stuff you don't need, that's how gas assessment works. There are over 50 types of certification and you choose what you want/need to cover. You could choose, for example, only to fit natural gas cookers and that is the only training you will need (not quite, you do need a core module).

I would expect a competent person to know this, whatever they choose to do.

 

[morqthana]

IYou could choose, for example, only to fit natural gas cookers and that is the only training you will need (not quite, you do need a core module).

What if by doing that you reveal that the current installation is not safe? Do you know what procedures then kick in? Do you know who needs to be notified, within what timescales, and what records need to be kept?

So if all you do is only fit gas cookers, does your remit extend to inspecting the rest of the installation to see if it is safe?

 

[denso13]

So if all you do is only fit gas cookers, does your remit extend to inspecting the rest of the installation to see if it is safe?

Not the whole installation but testing some parts, that's where the core module comes in.

 

[ericmark]

Am I reading this correct? If you do a job and nothing goes wrong, since nothing has gone wrong, you can be regarded as competent, but if on the other hand something does go wrong, it does not matter what qualifications you have, you must be incompetent?

To my mind, making an error, or a miscalculation does not make one incompetent, it just means one is human. And to have nothing go wrong, can simply mean you are lucky.

At 75 I have lost count of the training I have done through my life, and also how many times that training is no longer seen as good enough by employers today, how many times I have been taught how to change a grinding wheel I have lost count, but the last training was too long ago, so I can't do it where I volunteer any more, so they had to buy a drill sharpener as I was it seems the only one with the skill.

Be it a cherry picker, fork lift, or any other task, we have all been retrained many times, and sometimes instructions do change, early use of cherry picker we were told to clip harness to the building if possible, but the use of inersia reel lanyards changed that, after someone forgot to unclip it before driving off, and was pulled out of the cage.

So yes sometimes we need to be retrained, but however many times someone says you don't need a certificate to show your an electrician, in real terms, someone needs to employ you to do the work, and they would be considered guilty if they employed someone not trained.

We see reports all the time, where some firm is taken to court, because they did not make it safe for the person who they employed.

This then asks the question, if I employ a builder to repair my gutters, and he takes a chance which does not pay off, as he was not trained, am I libel? And to be frank, I have no idea as to what qualifications a builder should have.

If I was to employ an electrician, would it all change, as I do know what an electrician should have, but I have never asked to see an electricians C&G 2391 certificate. Is that wrong, should I ask to see it?

If I employ a firm, then I would say it is up to the firm to decide who can do what, but what about the sole trader. I employ someone to service my boiler, who says on his web site he has some qualification, and I accept he can do the work.

For all I know, the qualification could be in paper folding. I don't know what an oil fired central heating guy must have, OK we have heard of Corgi, I thought it was a die-cast toy, maybe it is? And Gas Safe seems self explanatory. But I was taught to work on compressors, and with steam, they are also gases, so really Gas Safe means nothing.

I use to pay the IET, I was going to say member, but think you need to be a doctor for that, but I had a little badge to say I had paid my dues, but that did not allow me to work on domestic. Even if to get that grade I needed over level 3 education, and to be a scheme member you only need level 3.

So my son, who will it seems soon be chartered, still can't do some domestic work. No question he has the skill, but he is not paying some scheme provider an annual fee.

When I started we had Unions with closed shop agreements, that was stopped by Maggie, today we are getting close to returning to it. For the scheme providers to be legal, their has to be a number of them. If we every get to the point of their only being one, then it would be a closed shop, so against the law.

So we can't have just one firm issuing gas safe credentials or it would fall foul of the law. It would be classed like a union operating a closed shop.

 

[ebee]

I did the grinding wheel one, about 1974 +/- it was new in and everybody got a cert, having said that it was just a "cert" printed then your name written in, better still we were told that recently some employee of a firm went on a course and got the cert then he taught those at work he had his own cert pinned upon on the wall in his office and once he`d "taught" another employee then his name was written in pen onto the cert below the original teacher and they reckoned that was quite legal.

Whether thsat was quite legal under the first Abrahsive Wheels Regulations back then or somebodies over simplication of what theyd been instructed I do not know.
Admittedly Health and Saftety at work act etc etc were quite a new phenom in the 70s I do not know, I was only an apprentice back then , Thatcher Snatcher, Winter of Discontent and all that era. LOL.
It was only just made illegal to injure/maim/kill apprentices and a host of other everyday jollities .

Young uns/apprentices getting married where handed a collection after being forced to sing a song to their comerades and then, debagged, tied to a post and engineers blue liberally applied to the scrotum .
Pure innocent fun back then, these traditions were all normal back then

 

[denso13]

Am I reading this correct? If you do a job and nothing goes wrong, since nothing has gone wrong, you can be regarded as competent, but if on the other hand something does go wrong, it does not matter what qualifications you have, you must be incompetent?

Nothing to do with the outcome of a job, all to do with having the necessary skills and knowledge to do the job in the first place.

 

[SimonH2]

Am I reading this correct? If you do a job and nothing goes wrong, since nothing has gone wrong, you can be regarded as competent, but if on the other hand something does go wrong, it does not matter what qualifications you have, you must be incompetent?

As hinted at in my reply below, there is a significant element of that.

To my mind, making an error, or a miscalculation does not make one incompetent, it just means one is human. And to have nothing go wrong, can simply mean you are lucky.

Correct.

This then asks the question, if I employ a builder to repair my gutters, and he takes a chance which does not pay off, as he was not trained, am I libel? And to be frank, I have no idea as to what qualifications a builder should have.

in that case, the householder would usually not be liable as you point out, the average householder can't be expected to have the skills and knowledge to manage this and would expect the tradesman to use reasonable care.

If I was to employ an electrician, would it all change, as I do know what an electrician should have, but I have never asked to see an electricians C&G 2391 certificate. Is that wrong, should I ask to see it?

Probably still the same argument that the tradesman is resonsible - but a bit af a grey area. I think a lot would depend on how the contract is expressed - "fit me an X" is one thing, "fit me an X, and this is how I want things done" is different.

If I employ a firm, then I would say it is up to the firm to decide who can do what, but what about the sole trader.

No difference IMO.

I use to pay the IET, I was going to say member, but think you need to be a doctor for that, but I had a little badge to say I had paid my dues, but that did not allow me to work on domestic. Even if to get that grade I needed over level 3 education, and to be a scheme member you only need level 3.

You don't need to be a Dr for MIET, I've been MIET for decades and never went past level 6. Even FIET (fellow) doesn't need it.
In fact, you don't really need any specific qualifications if you can show sufficient skills and experience in relevant areas.
Even CEng can be had without much by way of formal.qualifications if you've enough suitable experience.

So my son, who will it seems soon be chartered, still can't do some domestic work. No question he has the skill, but he is not paying some scheme provider an annual fee.

No, assuming he is competent, he can do it - he just can't notify in the way that the scam members can. That means building control notification, which on a small job makes it expensive.

If we every get to the point of their only being one, then it would be a closed shop, so against the law.

Actually, we havecseveral of those. Gas Safe is one, and has the rule of law behind it. Then there's the likes of the General Medical Council, Solicitors Regulation Authority, and ...

So we can't have just one firm issuing gas safe credentials or it would fall foul of the law. It would be classed like a union operating a closed sshop.

Yet we have just that.

Nothing to do with the outcome of a job, all to do with having the necessary skills and knowledge to do the job in the first place.

You'd be surprised then to find that prosecutions for "lack of skills and knowledge" are rare, while prosecutions for bad outcomes even (especially ?) if you have the "skills and knowledge" are not rare ?

 

[denso13]

You'd be surprised then to find that prosecutions for "lack of skills and knowledge" are rare, while prosecutions for bad outcomes even (especially ?) if you have the "skills and knowledge" are not rare ?

I'm not surprised at all to be honest, hopefully people are heeding the warnings and not doing gas work themselves. A very small number of big accidents from a very small number of DIY attempts won't amount to much.

 

[ericmark]

There was one in South Wales, it was over an EICR, and it was because he charged for work not done, not that the work done was sub standard, he pleaded guilty, I think had he fought it, it may have failed.

But as to if rare, not a clue, we only see cases which hit the news.

Be it the Emma Shaw case, or any other, we know there must be loads which simply don't come to court, only when it comes to court, do we know a bit of what when on.

The electricians mate clearly did not have the electrical qualifications required to complete the installation certificate. And to put his name on the certificate was clearly wrong.

However, to plug in a tester, press the button marked test, and to write down what the meter said is not rocket science, and had he done that, it would have likely said something like OL, at which the foreman would have realised there was a fault.

It was the electricians mate talking in the canteen and making up some likely reading when it did not work, that caused the problem to be missed.

The IET forum did have quite a write up at the time, but still some reported facts, are a little vague, mainly down to when things were done, we know a loop of wire was damaged by the plasterer which damaged the earth wire, and that there had been signs of arcing, which tripped the overload, which was then reset, but us the reader has no idea who made it live to start with? As it seems likely there would have been a large bang, which should have alerted there was a fault.

There was so much missing in the report, likely it did come out in court, but we were not told what had happened. Net result was after that we saw very few electricians mates. Firms did not want to take the chance. We are looking back some 20 odd years, the 2008 version of BS 7671 in essence stopped a repeat, with the new rules on RCD use. more on the case here but it shows how hard it is to work out if someone is qualified, "he had 30 years of practical experience working as an electricians mate, and suggested that there was no way to accurately measure his true ability."

 

[ebee]

My scheme assessor on his annual "Snake and Mongoose Event" with me made the comment that I could legally self notify under Part P for another year now because I had been assessed by him yet he could not do that because he had not been assessed.
Its a chuckle innit?

 

[SimonH2]

Forgot to answer this one :

Because soldering the pipework is a small part of what's required. ... What if by doing that you reveal that the current installation is not safe?

That's simple, I then call in someone. If anyone tries to claim that they don't have any boundaries where they need to get help, then I get suspicious.
Everyone has their boundaries, and part of being professional is knowing where those boundaries are. From observation, "a proportion" of Gas Safe people fail on that.

 

[ebee]

"Everyone has their boundaries, and part of being professional is knowing where those boundaries are. From observation, "a proportion" of Gas Safe people fail on that."

Each man should know his limitations (I think that Clint once said something like that)

 

[denso13]

That's simple, I then call in someone. If anyone tries to claim that they don't have any boundaries where they need to get help, then I get suspicious

Quite, but it's the unknown unknowns that catch people out. Someone might think the could work on a gas pipe because their soldering is top notch and not even be aware of the important bits.

Everyone has their boundaries, and part of being professional is knowing where those boundaries are. From observation, "a proportion" of Gas Safe people fail on that.

Sadly, some tradespeople are cowboys.

 

[ebee]

Sadly, some tradespeople are cowboys.

Spur on a ring final?