professional v amateur

[SparkyTris]

Between ships at the moment and loafing around on the old homestead, I was asked to look at a neighbours fusebox that kept tripping.

a refurbished old croft: the owner, not being wise to the ways of the outer isles, had hired in a "professional" electrician from one of Scotland's major cities who had apparently fleeced her and then when the money ran out, had left her with:
6 outside lights with no lights, just bare T&E flapping in the breeze.
smoke & heat heads fitted & interconnected but not connected to consumer unit

new CU (2 x RCD split load) completely unlabelled, and with 1 non-RCD MCB to a submain installed inverted (not the same type so presume he had to put it in upside-down to make the cover fit)

The wiring to the outside lights had started to touch other Lives in a back-box and was tripping RCDs in heavy rain. we fitted all new bulkhead lights. and finished that circuit.

the smoke/heats - I put a tone tracer on the L & N and couldnt find any trace of it back at the CU.
unplugged all heads, meggered L&N to ensure no resistance and then fed the heads from the internal lights permanent supply. not very good, but at least the owner has some fire protection now.

upstairs and downstairs lights were all on 1 MCB.

When the owner moved here I had offered, as neighbour, to upgrade the place to owner's specification and made it quite clear that none of my work would be "legal", but would all be practical and safe. I also told the owner my humble opinion - from experience - that being out on the edge of "civilisation" we are practically and functionally exempt from the requirement for periodic inspection reports, building warrants, completion certificates etc. Owner's big-city pro electrician told owner quite a different story, with scare stories of redneck lash-up jobs.

I think the above rather vindicates my somewhat anarchic approach.

 

[JohnW2]

a refurbished old croft: the owner, not being wise to the ways of the outer isles, had hired in a "professional" electrician from one of Scotland's major cities who had apparently fleeced her and then when the money ran out, had left her with: <several 'issues'> When the owner moved here I had offered, as neighbour, to upgrade the place to owner's specification and made it quite clear that none of my work would be "legal", but would all be practical and safe. I also told the owner my humble opinion - from experience - that being out on the edge of "civilisation" we are practically and functionally exempt from the requirement for periodic inspection reports, building warrants, completion certificates etc. Owner's big-city pro electrician told owner quite a different story, with scare stories of redneck lash-up jobs. ... I think the above rather vindicates my somewhat anarchic approach.

I don't think you're saying anything that we don't all already know. 'Professional' or 'qualified' certainly doesn't necessarily mean competent, and 'amateur' or 'unqualified' does not necessarily mean incompetent. The difficulty for a customer (and, indeed, for any regulatory process) is in finding a way of determining who is competent. Unfortunately, looking for the appropriate 'bits of paper' (qualifications) is the 'easy' approach - but, as you illustrate, by no means foolproof. As you imply, some people take 'pragmatic' approaches, but they are outside of the law, and not things we really should talk about

This obviously applies in virtually all trades and professions, and is by no means restricted to electrical work.

Kind Regards, John

 

[SparkyTris]

of course you are right, I was on a bit of a self righteous charge there; embarrassed myself a bit in retrospect

 

[JohnW2]

of course you are right, I was on a bit of a self righteous charge there; embarrassed myself a bit in retrospect

I don't think there is any need for embarrassment. It's a very real problem (in many walks of life) - just one with no real solution. Particularly when legal/regulatory issues are involved, there is no obvious way in which someone's competence can be assessed other than by looking for/at 'qualifications' etc. and, as you've pointed out, even that is far from foolproof.

The only (obviously totally impractical) solution would be for work undertaken by anyone (professional or amateur, qualified or unqualified) to be fully inspected by an independent third party.

Kind Regards, John

 

[stillp]

But who would judge the competence/capability of the independent third party?

 

[securespark]

We've had the same.

A few years ago, me and a colleague went to an old house on a maintenance visit to find old rubber and bits of lead cable. My colleague priced for a rewire, but the price was obviously too high.

But, a couple of weeks later, we got another call, "Can you go back to Mrs Jones?"

Got over there to find a team of "sparks" scratching their heads because their newly installed twin- RCD board was tripping out and could we please help?

We politely declined.

 

[JohnW2]

But who would judge the competence/capability of the independent third party?

Quite so. There is clearly could be no total solution (and, as I said, even the one level of 'universal third-party inspection' would, itself, be impractical). 'Inspectors of inspectors' could obviously be extended for ever!

Despite the imperfections, I fear that, in most walks of life, we are stuck with the concept that 'competence' is judged largely on the basis of qualifications and, where appropriate, whatever 're-assessments' and 'references' etc. may exist. The person who is very compenent, but has no formal/documentary way of attempting to 'prove' that (s)he is, will unfortunately probably always 'have a problem'.

Kind Regards, John