Reworded RCD Poll

[PBC_1966]

Again, it is only your opinion that the standard regards it as no longer "safe enough."

B is safer than A.

Version N of a standard says "You must do A".

Version N+1 says "You must do B".

No sane person would think that that is not because the standard no longer regards A as safe enough.

Any sane person who recognizes that sometimes a safety standard goes beyond what it just "safe enough" to be considered reasonably safe in an attempt to achieve something which exceeds that minimum safety standard might.

More than that, I think ... AIUI, the English legal system is such that a court cannot go against a precedent set in the past by a ruling of a court of the same 'level'. {.....} I don't think a 'same level' court would have any choice but to comply with the existing precedent - so, if anyone were excited enough to want to get a 'changed ruling', that would presumably have to be attempted on appeal to a higher court.

That's a good point, and I'm sure I've certainly seen something along those lines before. I believe there may be a caveat to that in cases in which a judge feels it appropriate to rule a particular way in that specific case but feels that the case has some exceptional elements to it which would be unlikely to apply in other cases and therefore rules with an added clause that it's not to be considered as setting a precedent. Does that sound familiar?

 

[PBC_1966]

Yes. The approach seems to vary according to what suits him - all based on his opinions as regards interpretation of BS7671 and/or the law.

Thank you - I'm glad it's not just me!

 

[JohnW2]

That's a good point, and I'm sure I've certainly seen something along those lines before. I believe there may be a caveat to that in cases in which a judge feels it appropriate to rule a particular way in that specific case but feels that the case has some exceptional elements to it which would be unlikely to apply in other cases and therefore rules with an added clause that it's not to be considered as setting a precedent. Does that sound familiar?

Yes, AIUI a court only has to abide by a precedent if the circumstances of the case which set the precedent were the same, and an awful lot of the legal arguments one sees going on in courts are about whether or not that were the case. However, if a courted decided that there were sufficient differences to mean that the precedent didn't apply, that would almost certainly be a contentious view, which could therefore be appealed.

However, I think that, to avoid being bound by the precedent, the court would have to be satisfied that there was a significant difference in the circumstances of the two cases. Given that the law does not reference BS7671, I am far from sure that the fact that BS7671 had changed in the meantime would be regarded as a relevant reason for not being bound by the precedent.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

As has been said, you may "assume" if you wish, and base your personal opinion on your assumptions, but assumptions and opinions are not the same as facts.

OK - what I was doing was asking for confirmation of the implied opposite - i.e. if you say "You cannot assume <something>", I would ask "Can you assume <not something>?"

So let's try again, and this time I won't ask a question, I'll make an assertion which is in keeping with what you said.

one cannot assume that the view of law as to what constitutes "making reasonable provision for safety" necessarily has to change because the (not referred to) requirements of BS7671 have changed.

One cannot assume that the view of law as to what constitutes "making reasonable provision for safety" necessarily has to not change because the (not referred to) requirements of BS7671 have changed.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Whilst compliance with BS 7671 is not formally required, that is the British Standard which relates to electrical installations, and to deliberately refuse to implement a requirement of it which is intimately related to personal safety but instead to do something which the standard no longer regards as safe enough to be continued to be done is not reasonable.

Your personal opinion about this matter has been noted (many times).

Instructive that you feel the need to stress that what I say is my "personal opinion", as a way to dismiss it, but you do nothing of the sort when PBC expresses his opinion, or JohnD his.

Instructive, but not surprising.

 

[JohnD]

I have not attempted to bully anyone into obeying my opinion, nor abused and insulted them to the extent that you have for not sharing your opinion.

Among other things, you have accused people who disagree with you of not being sane, and of being unable to read, and of disagreeing with you because of a cynical disregard for the regulations and a deranged hatred of the fact that they change. You have said that your opinion is different because you "actually think about things, rather than put forward a simulacrum of real thinking which is actually nothing more than cynical rationalisation of decisions driven by a pathological aversion to complying with regulations," and you have accused people who disagree with you of "exercising immoral and cynical rationalisation of a decision made because he cannot be bothered, does not accept that things change, and does not like complying with regulations."

 

[JohnW2]

Instructive that you feel the need to stress that what I say is my "personal opinion", as a way to dismiss it, but you do nothing of the sort when PBC expresses his opinion, or JohnD his.

I'm not dismissing anything. What I'm am witnessing are endless repetitions of differing "personal opinions" of people who can only speculate about what the ruling of a court might be. If there are differences, it is that you seem to have a way of making your personal opinions sound like "assertions of facts" (sometimes underlined by the fact that your repetitions of those opinions sometimes come with added emboldening and progressively increasing font size!) in a way that others generally don't.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

But as the law regarding making reasonable provision for safety makes no reference to BS7671, why should anybody merely reading the law to understand what his legal obligations are have any reason to believe that what the law would require does actually change when some standard the law does not refer to changes?

The Building Regulations are full of requirements which are not prescribed solutions. If a person is not competent enough to know what to do then he has to do more research, or engage a professional.

The standard set out by BS7671, yes (with possible exemptions, as noted already). That is not necessarily the legal standard of "reasonable provision for safety."

Whilst compliance with BS 7671 is not formally required, that is the British Standard which relates to electrical installations, and to deliberately refuse to implement a requirement of it which is intimately related to personal safety but instead to do something which the standard no longer regards as safe enough to be continued to be done is not reasonable.

Unless using the exemption for a socket intended for a specific piece of equipment and so labeled, I've never claimed that adding a socket without RCD protection would not be non-compliant with the regulations in today's version of BS7671. What I dispute is your claim that such makes it illegal

You could dispute that the world is round - it would not make it flat.

Of course it makes it illegal, because although compliance with BS 7671 is not formally required, that is the British Standard which relates to electrical installations, and to deliberately refuse to implement a requirement of it which is intimately related to personal safety but instead to do something which the standard no longer regards as safe enough to be continued to be done is not reasonable.

(and that anybody doing it is immoral, indecent,etc.).

Feel free to either show where I have said that or to fail to show it and have that comment chalked up as yet another example of you being wrong. Again.

So when the committee responsible for the regulations says that non-RCD sockets do not warrant a code which indicates they are not reasonably safe (merely "improvement recommended"), they are judging that based on today's standard of what they consider to be reasonably safe.

Are you truly not familiar with the well established, widely encountered principle that when things change, and what was considered OK to be newly done yesterday is no longer considered OK to be newly done today, what was considered OK to be newly done yesterday is not required to be updated or removed and replaced today, it just has to be no longer newly done?

If they say "this should be improved", what makes it reasonable to deliberately install something which they say you must not install and which immediately should be improved?

If every time something in BS7671 changed to impose stricter requirements the committee felt that it made the previous standard no longer reasonably safe, then there would be no need for the C3 code on an inspection (or the code 4 under the previous system), since everything non-compliant with the new version would have to be considered unsafe and thus get some sort of danger code.

Are you truly not familiar with the well established, widely encountered principle that when things change, and what was considered OK to be newly done yesterday is no longer considered OK to be newly done today, what was considered OK to be newly done yesterday is not required to be updated or removed and replaced today, it just has to be no longer newly done?

I'll make you an offer:

I will stop telling you that there is a difference between assessing what is already installed and installing something new shortly after you stop pretending that there isn't.

I thought it was a simple enough question based upon your earlier comments.

You need to get better at thinking.

How simple can we make this?

And you need to come to realise that not everybody fails to see the difference between "simple" and "simplistic.

"Mr. Sheds, I'd like you to inspect and test the electrical installation in my house and tell me if, in your opinion, it is reasonably safe."

You find sockets in the living rooms, bedrooms, etc. which are not RCD protected, ditto for buried cables, in fact a standard sort of installation on a TN-S or TN-C-S system of a few years ago. Nothing else is in any way questionable.

What will your verdict be?

My opinion is that it is not reasonably safe.

 

[JohnD]

You need more BIG BOLD and BRIGHTLY COLORED words to make your posts look more ludicrous.

And for best results you should repeat yourself.

And for best results you should repeat yourself

And for best results you should repeat yourself

 

[ban-all-sheds]

It seemed to be what you were suggesting I believe when you wrote this:

I wonder how many times it has to be explained to you that the requirement for making reasonable provision for safety applies to what you do, not to [what-is-already-there + what-you-add] before you understand it?

What I was trying to get you to see is that [what-is-already-there] is irrelevant. [what-is-already-there + what-you-add] is not what is relevant to [what-you-add]. The fact that you have 99 non-RCD sockets is of no consequence when you are adding the 100th. The fact that you would end up with only a tiny percentage of the overall installation protected is of no consequence, and the argument "well it's such a tiny increase in overall safety that it would be quite reasonable to not bother with it" does not work. You are adding a socket, and the requirements for safety affect 100% of that.

You cannot use the existence of something which is no longer allowed to be done as a justification for continuing to do it.

I never said you could. My justification in this case is the belief that it still meets the standard of making reasonable provision for safety.

I agree that if adding a cable drop and a new socket to an existing installation where there's no RCD protection on everything already there it's still what we would regard as reasonably safe.

You certainly give the impression of feeling that by far the majority of its requirements are legally binding because of your interpretation of "reasonable provision for safety."

So even though, dozens of times, I wrote about A requirement, and one intimately related to personal safety, you think I am giving the impression that I'm talking about by far the majority of its requirements?

I wonder how I can express what I think that says about your ability and/or willingness to read and pay attention and think without triggering a deceitful and foolish whine from JohnD?

A while ago you claimed that in your opinion it would be illegal to install a new socket or switch without sleeving on the earth wire. Perhaps you'd care to tell us all how you think that's a requirement which is
"intimately related to personal safety."

Perhaps you would care to tell us why you think I think it is so related?

The point about sleeving is that it is such a trivially, quick, simple, cheap and easy thing to apply that you could not possibly have any threshold of reasonableness when it comes to deliberately omitting it for no reason.

But I do confess to being confused by your approach to BS7671 sometimes. In the thread about smoke detectors you'll happily say that table 52.3 relating to minimum cable sizes for "lighting" vs. "power" circuits is nonsense, so just ignore it (with which sentiment I agree, by the way). You'll explain how in your opinion it's wrong to extend an installation with red/black wiring using new brown/blue if you have red/black available for the addition, even though BS7671 quite clearly states that brown/blue are now the only acceptable colors and that using the new brown/blue would result in an addition compliant with BS7671. Then you turn around and try to tell us you think it would be illegal to omit a piece of earth sleeving because BS7671 requires it.

Does anyone else find this rather divided, selective approach to compliance with BS7671 B-A-S has rather odd?

I suppose that anyone else who also is unable to grasp the difference between what is a safety issue and what is not, and what is reasonable and what is not might find it odd. As would anyone else who also is unable to prevent themselves assuming that when I talk about A requirement of BS 7671 which is intimately related to personal safety I am actually saying that the law requires compliance with BS 7671.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

If there are differences, it is that you seem to have a way of making your personal opinions sound like "assertions of facts" (sometimes underlined by the fact that your repetitions of those opinions sometimes come with added emboldening and progressively increasing font size!) in a way that others generally don't.

Maybe others are not faced with people who, having read the same very clear thing repeated dozens of times, persist in "thinking" that they have actually read something else.

None of my repetitions are gratuitous - they are all a result of other people repeating their mistakes. For example, how many times has PBC tried to pretend that there is no difference between assessing what is already installed and installing something new? Each time I offer to stop telling him he is wrong it's because he has tried to pretend it again.

 

[JohnW2]

None of my repetitions are gratuitous - ...

"Gratuitous" or not, they are unnecessary and achieve nothing. Once two people with differing opinions have expressed those differing opinions, nothing is to be gained by either of them repeating those opinions - even once, let alone many times. If you believe that endlessly repeating your opinions will change the opinions of others, you are sadly mistaken.

Kind Regards, John

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Yes. The approach seems to vary according to what suits him

First of all that is not so. My "approach" does not vary according to what "suits" me.

I would ask you to provide proof of that allegation, were it not for the sure and certain knowledge that you would ignore that request, as you so often do when asked to prove your wild and baseless accusations directed at me.

- all based on his opinions as regardsinterpretation of BS7671 and/or the law.

Secondly - there you go again.

Why is it that according to you it is only I who is saying things here which are "opinions", and therefore to be regarded as less important/valuable/whatever than what other people are saying? Why do you not make exactly the same "observation" wrt what others say?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

"Gratuitous" or not, they are unnecessary and achieve nothing. Once two people with differing opinions have expressed those differing opinions, nothing is to be gained by either of them repeating those opinions - even once, let alone many times. If you believe that endlessly repeating your opinions will change the opinions of others, you are sadly mistaken.

So why do you only criticise me for doing it?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Yes. The approach seems to vary according to what suits him - all based on his opinions as regards interpretation of BS7671 and/or the law.

Thank you - I'm glad it's not just me!

No, it is not - you and JW2 are not the only ones consumed and blinded by petty, pathetic, and unbelievably childish urges.