House rewire - use wireless lights?

[winston1]

Thanks.

 

[EFLImpudence]

and have made no effort to keep up to date with the market since then.

I'm not sure your objection is justified.

You seem to misunderstand the role and/or scope of an 'electrician'; whether (just) domestic or commercial. It is to supply a safe installation for the requirements of the customer's equipment.
I don't think it is to keep abreast of every little new product and review them. Obviously. as you say, if we have come across a product and several customers say it is rubbish, then we would convey that to new customers but recommending certain products is a slippery slope.
Presumably Winston has not had experience of the item in question, so your response to his "How does that work?" is most inappropriate.
Obviously we learn about things we have dealt with but not all of them - just in case.

That's why there are specialists - lighting consultants, fire alarm installers, burglar alarm installers, lift engineers, heating engineers etc. etc.
We could install the wiring for any of them given the requirements but knowledge of the machines is not our concern.

Would you ask an electrician which model of television set or cooker you should buy?

 

[James Carmichael]

I'm not sure your objection is justified.

You're at liberty to think my response to Winston was inappropriate, but please do recall that I was at pains to point out that I wasn't criticising him personally. Please also note that he hasn't (yet) responded in a manner that indicates he was offended. While I am sure he appreciates you jumping to his defence, I suspect he is a big enough boy to fight his own battles.

However, if he was offended I apologise to him. Such was not my intent.

My general observation, though, stands. You may feel my expectations are unreasonable. That just indicates that you are not the right electrician for me, or that I am not the right customer for you. No matter. Other electricians and customers are, I am sure, available.

Enjoy your Portuguese evening ...

 

[stillp]

Do you expect electricians to understand the inner workings of products?

 

[JohnW2]

My general observation, though, stands. You may feel my expectations are unreasonable. That just indicates that you are not the right electrician for me, or that I am not the right customer for you. No matter. Other electricians and customers are, I am sure, available.

I'm not an electrician, and I'm not going to comment on whether your expectations are 'unreasonable' (since that is essentially an individual opinion), but I do think that your expectations are unrealistic, at least in relation to a product as relatively unusual and uncommon as you have been talking about. I agree with everything that EFLI (a fairly recently retired electrician, as I understand) said.

If you want analogies, I suppose one might think it terms of what one could realistically expect if one took an electric car to a traditional "car mechanic" (or "automotive engineer"), or to what one could realistically expect a GP to know about a pretty rare disease.

Kind Regards, John

 

[James Carmichael]

Do you expect electricians to understand the inner workings of products?

Nope, apart from the obvious like "I would expect an electrician to understand the inner workings of a consumer unit" to an appropriate level (i.e. to ensure a safe install).

Continuing the CU theme, I would expect an electrician - even without the regs forcing her to know - to be aware that consumer units come in various forms ...

 

[JohnW2]

Continuing the CU theme, I would expect an electrician - even without the regs forcing her to know - to be aware that consumer units come in various forms ...

That's fair enough, up to a point, but would you really expect all electricians to necessarily know about types of CUs which were as rare in the marketplace and in UK installations as the products we are talking about?

Kind Regards, John

 

[James Carmichael]

but I do think that your expectations are unrealistic

I'm keen not to get embroiled in a fight with the forum here but my expectations are not unrealistic. I have met plenty of electricians who are broadly aware of the range of products that are available. Note I'm not expecting them to have specialist or detailed knowledge. I'm not objecting to people who are not experts in every widget. I am objecting to the reasonable proportion I have met who, in answer to the question "Can we use wireless switches to avoid ploughing up the frieze in that room?" reply "Dunno if wireless switches exist, sorry. I only know Crabtree like what they sell in Screwfix".

Let's depersonalise. Would you employ a CH system installer (or whatever you'd like to call that trade) who had no idea whether it was possible to split a heating system into three zones, each with a separate zone control valve, as they'd only ever done - and only ever shown interest in - one zone for radiators and one for hot water?

 

[JohnW2]

I'm keen not to get embroiled in a fight with the forum here but my expectations are not unrealistic. I have met plenty of electricians who are broadly aware of the range of products that are available.

I'm getting a bit confused here, since all your observations have been about the product knowledge of electricians (which we could debate for ever), despite the fact that, as far as I can make out, the only person here who has made statements and asked questions which have indicated little/no knowledge of the products which interest you has told you that he is not a domestic electrician.

Kind Regards, John

 

[James Carmichael]

I'm getting a bit confused here, since all your observations have been about the product knowledge of electricians (which we could debate for ever), despite the fact that, as far as I can make out, the only person here who has made statements and asked questions which have indicated little/no knowledge of the products which interest you has told you that he is not a domestic electrician.

Kind Regards, John

As I hope I made clear in my initial reply to Winston, and in my reply to EFLI above, I am not advancing any criticism of Winston. It would be entirely unjustifiable for me to do so.

I am making a general observation - admittedly one that Winston's comment raised in my brain - about "professionals" who fail to stay generally abreast of change.

 

[mwatsonxx]

I work in IT cyber security

So if a spark connects up your latest piece of high security equipment you expect him to know all its capabilities? And what would you tell him when he asked how does this work? and what does it do?

You are talking complete nonsense.

 

[James Carmichael]

So if a spark connects up your latest piece of high security equipment you expect him to know all its capabilities?

No, and neither have I anywhere implied that, either about high security equipment, wireless lightswitches, or anything else.

And what would you tell him when he asked how does this work? and what does it do?

I'd aim to tell them as much as I knew. I am not sure how these questions of yours relate to the thread thus far?

Alternatively, you might ask: If a spark came to me and said "I keep getting viruses on my PC. You work in that industry, any ideas?" would you expect me to answer "Look into getting anti-virus software" or would you expect me to answer "dunno, I only do email spam protection". That is the distinction I am drawing, no more, no less.

You are talking complete nonsense.

You are welcome to that opinion.

 

[JohnW2]

I am making a general observation - admittedly one that Winston's comment raised in my brain - about "professionals" who fail to stay generally abreast of change.

Even changes that so far have probably not found their way into more than a tiny percentage of UK electrical installations? If so, that's the bit that seems a little unrealistic to me.

I would remind you that it is not things being said about wireless light switching, per se, (about which most electricians would probably have at least some knowledge) that caused you to start making these observations but, rather, comments about the 'battery-less' ('energy harvesting') technology, which I suspect is something that a high proportion of practising electrics have not even heard of, and which probably engenders at least some doubts/scepticism in many electrician's minds if/when they first hear about it. Don't forget that they are not unfamiliar with the regular appearance of various flavours of electrical 'snake oil'.

Kind Regards, John

 

[John D v2.0]

I think the mistake you're making is hoping that building trades have the same attitude to the industry as it specialists. Actually that's not necessary to do the job.
For it security in particular that's a job requirement, for electricians the regs are the Bible and keeping the majority of customers happy enough is how you carry on.
I suspect if you were an electrician, your personality would encourage you to keep abreast of everything, but maybe that's why you're an it security professional. Or consider a career change but it may not meet your expectations

 

[ericmark]

I would ask one question, if you get a power cut for even a few seconds with the switches remain as set? I have fitted a remote controlled socket and a remote controlled light switch, the sockets were fitted to power some internal alarms, by using these sockets we can turn off the alarm without the need to go upstairs, however there have been a few times when it was found not running when it should have been. Then I realised if there is a power cut for only a second the sockets turn off.

If the same happens to one light then not so bad, but all lights it would mean being plunged into darkness, now normal thing with a power cut turn on lights and you know when power is back.

With LED lights not too much of a problem but with tungsten lights you want to turn off the light to change the bulb, with any press on, press off light you can't see from switch if on or off, which means turning off at consumer unit to change a bulb.

ceiling rose shown will likely have enough room for the relay and will allow you to remove light to change the bulb however I think they look too commercial, and although I have used the one with a hook

these do not have room to fit anything in the box, there is no box, and it is expensive so only used in a room with heavy lamp.

These wireless switches have been out for years, not cheap but a way around the problem when two way wiring has been done non compliment by borrowing a neutral and until time for next decoration saves cutting channels for new cable. However on a re-wire there will be channels for sockets anyway so having them for lights is not really a problem.

I have to say guy rewiring mothers house did very well at using existing tubes and capping and kept the re-plastering required to a minimum.

As a commercial electrician I used products which would never be considered with domestic, simply because of price, health and safety has resulted in what was an easy job becoming a problem, I was not permitted to change a fluorescent bulb without turning it off, and if I turned off the lights no one could work so having pre-wired plug in lights allowed me to change one lamp without turning off whole room. Before all the rules I would have changed tube with power on. It also had a second reason in that the glass tube was inside a plastic cover so no risk of broken glass in the work area. The clean up procedure for broken glass was really expensive.

Even without wireless we have problems with interference, cordless phones were allowed, but mobiles were banned as they used frequencies known to cause problems.

433.92MHz and 430 ~ 440 Mhz is ham band and after 432 Mhz they can use 400 watt now except within 100 km of Charing Cross the 70 cm band as it is know is used a lot with mobile stations i.e. cars, so one has to expect from time to time any domestic used of equipment using same frequency will fail. Have the odd light flashing on and off although with a proper designed system it is more likely to just stop working is not really a problem, loosing every light in the house is.

Using remote for specials is one thing, using for all lights is very different, I used my handie while walking the dog, the number of security lights which would switch on and off as I talked was quite enlightening, what it did inside houses I passed I don't know. I know it would ring one door bell, and I was using 2 meters not 70 cm. Also only 5W not 400W what you need to remember ham bands are split into regions and I know in Hong Kong I was not permitted the 70 cm band so likely the same with rest of china so items tested in china and shown to work A1 may not work in the UK

All best VR2ZEP