Garage Electrics

[TrueBlue]

I don't doubt it.

 

[Adam_151]

Agree with trueblue, except for his point about not needing to worry about volt drop...

Rules aren't the be all and end all. Safety IS! Rules and safety don't necessarily go hand in hand.

Spot on, I'd much rather see a competant DIYer do a good job but not notify, than get the kitchen fitter who can self cert to change a CU for him in his lunch hour...

Before you buy a house you have to get a survey done to get the loan. If the wiring is not up to scratch, it's not the end of the world, it just means the buyer has got more ammo to knock the price down. Next year the house information packs are being introduced and buyers and lenders will want to see test certs for the installation before they agree a price. So yes, in the short term who will know when it was done but in the longer term, it may end up hitting you in the wallet

That has always been the case. The legislation hasn't changed this. Nor has it changed the fact that surveyors generally couldn't tell their a**e from their elbow when 'surveying' the electrical installation.

Indeed, which leads onto...

Take my word for it, once 2 jags introduces the home information packs next year

I expect you have heard how 'watered down' they are going to be compared to what was originally proposed?

 

[Spark123]

Sticking to the facts, part p is here, no shrugging shoulders, denying its existence or making excuses is going to make it go away.

Can you tell me how exactly they are going to determine if the work was carried out before or after January 1st 2005?

Are you are now providing workarounds to cloud the fact that I feel it is necessary to inform people of the fact they can be prosecuted for what they are doing in contravening the building regs?

Being of an industrial background Trueblue I am surprised that you have such a lack or respect for the rules,

If you think all (in fact ANY) major contracting firms adhere strictly to ALL the rules, then you are very naive. Rules aren't the be all and end all. Safety IS! Rules and safety don't necessarily go hand in hand.

Yes, I believe safety is more important than rules, although I stand by what I say in that if someone is about to break one of the rules they should be aware of the consequences. It is no skin off my nose if someone goes ahead and carries out the work without notifying LABC, to me it is more important it is done safely. As far as industry goes, a lot of the time safety is implemented by means of the introduction of rules, wether or not they are broken and the consequence of breaking them is another matter. Where I work the rules are such that breaking them can quite easily result in death, hence to just ignore the rules just because I believe I can is simply not an option.

Also, the legislation does not apply in Scotland. Guess that makes us unsafe then? icon_rolleyes.gif

Part P applies here (in Cumbria) in England, and also applies in Wales. The fact the Scottish system works differently to the England/Wales system does not make it unsafe.

 

[TrueBlue]

Agree with trueblue, except for his point about not needing to worry about volt drop...

I'm not saying volt drop isn't a legitimate issue, but I seriously doubt it will be in this case. Many circuits in large industrial building are over 50 metres to their first point with no volt drop issues. Indeed, I recently wired a circuit which was over 300 metres long for supply to destination. It was supplying volt sensitive components such as volt sensing relays, relays and a PLC amongst other things and it had no problems operating.

I doubt the original poster is going to have much to worry about running a 10mm/2 armour to his garage with a run of probably no more than 20 metres.

 

[TrueBlue]

Are you are now providing workarounds to cloud the fact that I feel it is necessary to inform people of the fact they can be prosecuted for what they are doing in contravening the building regs?

Yes. That's right

 

[sqongo]

=Trueblue"The initial post in this thread was a very simple question and somehow it managed to bring up issues like disconnection times and exportation of non PME systems. Get a grip! It's not b****y rocket science, don't make it out to be. How many homes have you been in which suffer from significant volt drop issues attributed to the wiring in the premises? Also, as you should know, the iee regulations are only there for a guide. They are no longer legally binding, and haven't been for some time.

I'm with you, I don't know why this post became so complex and abusive with such a simple question but if you look at some of the past posts then it does become a bit clearer. I think a clash of personalities is the PC term.

Although I agree that wiring a house is far from rocket science, thats still no reason why it should be done by DIYers to a lower standard than BS-7671, however, within the regs i agree, there is no reason to over complicated it.

The IEE regulations were a guideline, however, they were changed to BS-7671 to give them more weight in court. Although I cant see any DIYer coming to any harm, I have read about companies being prosecuted, check the ECA monthly HAZCOM newletter, maybe I should post a few.

I have been reading the posts for a while before i put my post in and had noticed ban-all -sheds being a know it all on a lot of posts,treating people like kids when all they want is advice.I've been a JIB approved sparks for 20years for the past 7+years have been testing only,so was a bit rusty on new regs for outside supplies.
So anyway i put my post up for little bit of advice to make sure i hadnt forgotten too much and BANG!!!ban-all-sheds straight in with his condescending remarks as if i was 16yrs old!!
I knew what he was like so thats why i re-acted,i only wanted advice!Damn.Jobs done now,all perfect,all legal,all tested.
Thanks everyone for advice and back up,and ban-all-sheds carry on the crap advice!!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

OK - let's look again at exactly what you wrote:

"Hello,newbie here.A couple of questions,when feeding a garage with 10mmswa from house should i put an rcd board in the garage or a main rcd switch fed from the house cu and an ordinary cu in garage?Where do i put rcd???Anyone,thanks a lot."

No mention there about you being a JIB approved sparks for 20 years. But from the question, a reasonable indication that you didn't know some pretty basic stuff about installing a supply to an outbuilding.

Do you think it reasonable that someone should be encouraged to install such a circuit without knowing about voltage drop, disconnection times, how to install SWA, rules for buried cables, exporting or not of PME earths if applicable (that one, as you know, could kill you if you get it wrong), testing the circuit and the requirements of the Building Regulations?

I don't and that's why I asked, and the fact that I did not need to ask, and only did so because I'm not a mind reader and you didn't volunteer the information about what you knew does not justify you saying things like this:

"WTF??????Damn,get a job you net anorak!!"

"Yeah,check out his posts,all through the day!!Sitting in front of a pc with Electrical regs in front of him!! How embarrassing,probably an unemployed binman "

"Thanks Andy and Racket for the info,ban_all_shedhead have a good life sitting in your bedsit with the regs open on mcb's and rcd's,typing on your 1993 Dell pc,giving it large!!I'm having a nice Valentines meal with my mrs,Shedboy have a good one with your transsexual mags and a cup of Horlicks,cya!! "

"Thank you,ban all sheds,glad i came back,you not nice person!"

"ban-all-sheds carry on the rubbish advice!!"

 

[TrueBlue]

Whith all that 'knowledge' you think you would be able to answer his original post better than "me too"



So how did you get on with all that volt drop sqongo?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

[shrug]He asked where he should have the RCD, Andy said he'd have it at the garage end, and I said "me too"...[/shrug]

 

[TrueBlue]

Would have been helpful if you could give reasoning to your answer instead of being more interested in throwing him more problems.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Not much point in launching into a great long explanation of why all those other things were important if he already knew them, which was why I asked.

 

[Softus]

Volt drop however is something that should be taken into account, especially on a submain, otherwise you might switch on an electric heater, the supply drops 25v, the lights dim noticeably, computers reboot, etc, not to mention the loss of engery in cable losses

Adam_151 - apologies if it's sordid to drag up something this old, but I'm intrigued about this principle of voltage drop.

I infer from your post that the drop occurs where they are (or might be) computers - does this mean that you think sqongo would have a computer in the garage?

Or is it that the effect of the long cable would be to drop the voltage at the CU end of the SWA cable?

 

[Adam_151]

Any load will cause the voltage to drop, its important to keep it in allowed range because it can have adverse effects if its too great, I know the likelyhood of him having a computer in the garage is quite low (do know people that do though), it was merely an example.

Significant volt drop could cause lights to dim, I suppose it could play havoc with a microcontroller controlled automatic door opener, etc

I just happened to mention computers becuase they are the obvious first thing that springs to mind when you are thinking of equipment that might throw a complete 'wobby' when presented with excess volt drop

Hope this helps

 

[plugwash]

I just happened to mention computers becuase they are the obvious first thing that springs to mind when you are thinking of equipment that might throw a complete 'wobby' when presented with excess volt drop

on the other hand my laptop power supply claims to be good all the way down to 100V!

also you can generally get away with far more volt drop than the IEE regs allow because the voltage at the intake point is rarely anywhere near the bottom of the allowed range

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I just happened to mention computers becuase they are the obvious first thing that springs to mind when you are thinking of equipment that might throw a complete 'wobby' when presented with excess volt drop

I'm afraid it's the complete opposite - computers (at least, domestic ones) are amongst the most tolerant devices there are because of the design of their switch-mode power supplies.