One for BAS

[bernardgreen]

http://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/news-and-campaigns/campaigns/awkward-britain/

 

[ericmark]

When I see a site giving half truths I worry. There is nothing illegal about electricians or any one else doing electrical work in the home. OK it would be costly but not in any way illegal. Using wording like "registered tradespeople" is very misleading as there are now many advertising agencies who have names like "rated people" who make the general public think they are using "registered tradespeople" we in real terms they are "registered tradespeople" but not necessary with a licensed scheme operator.

It does seem there is a language problem. Being registered with the JIB is clear to us electricians not the same as being registered with NICEIC.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I have always advised here that being registered is not sufficient. It might cost more (staying legal), but who would you rather have - a fully C&G'd-up experienced but unregistered electrician, or a newly registered 5DW?

Interestingly, I saw in the paper last week that NICEIC (sorry - the Electrical Safety First charity - my bad) were saying that it was 1 in 5 people who were too embarrassed to ask the question, not 37%.

Mind you, the same report also carried a claim from them that around 350,000 people a year are seriously injured "because of electricity".

 

[ban-all-sheds]

When I see a site giving half truths I worry.

It's NICEIC - what do you expect?

 

[ericmark]

In 2013 in the USA alone 80 people died due to electrocution or lethal injection and that was not by accident. If one looks world wide the amount of people sentenced to death by electrocution must be quite high and we have not included any accidents.

Only if you have some limits to the data like 1st April to 31 Dec 2014 176 deaths reported in total to HSE. So with a total of 176 clearly those killed by electrocution must be a small fraction of that. So in real terms I have four deaths over last 10 years which I am told I keep quoting. So all in all electricity is not that dangerous.

As to an electric shock I can get one of them sticking my tongue on a 9 volt battery. Unless qualified by some thing like "Which caused more than 3 working days lost" it is rather pointless.

It's simply scare tactics to drum up more business. They call themselves "Safety" yet say with class II fittings and notice on the consumer unit we can still have no earth to lights even though it was in the 1960's when this was changed so clearly has never been permitted by BS7671 of any date.

 

[Risteard]

who would you rather have - a fully C&G'd-up experienced but unregistered electrician, or a newly registered 5DW?

Completely agree.

 

[Risteard]

If one looks world wide the amount of people sentenced to death by electrocution must be quite high

I would suspect that the number of people under sentence of death by electrocution would be remarkably low, actually.

Other than the United States I am not aware of any jurisdiction practising electrocution. (And even in the States it is simply legacy cases, and not new cases.)

The last time the electric chair was used was in early 2013, and to his credit the prisoner spoke in Irish for his last words. They were "Póg mo thóin".