Sticky Thread on 'Electrics Safety'

[ericmark]

Indeed. However, another issue is that the moment one starts offering advice on safety, one acquires certainly a moral, and possibly/probably also a legal, duty to give adequate advice - so it may sometimes be 'safer' to offer no such advice all than to offer a little, which could be possibly be regarded as 'inadequate'. It's like the snow on the pavement outside your house - leave it there, then if anyone falls over, it's "their problem". Sweep it up, but not 'adequately', and you could end up getting sued if they fall and injure themselves!

That is a good point but although there is no good Samaritan act in the UK there have been moves so that people trying to help are not taken to court to defend there action unless grossly disproportionation.

BAS makes a good point about people reading Wiki however I will admit I rarely review what I have written and when changes occur any sticky or Wiki can end up out of date without anyone picking up the fact.

But the idea of wiki must be better than a sticky I was banned from a forum for giving unsafe advice. Basic problem was my English could be miss read too easy resulting in errors. I was explaining how to test wires in a ceiling rose to find the switch return wire. Although an electrician would have followed it without a problem it would seem a DIY person was likely to make errors following the step by step instructions.

So maybe we need someone like a Plumber to proof read the Wiki?

 

[bernardgreen]

So maybe we need someone like a Plumber to proof read the Wiki?

Plumber read

Seriously writing a manual or a list of instructions is a skill in itself. When working we do many things automatically without realising we are doing them and so we would not include those things when we write a list of things that we do.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Maybe. I'll leave others to decided about the 'forum mechanics'!

Or how about these at the top

Wiki: ELECTRICAL SAFETY

Wiki: GENERAL ADVICE - Please see if the answer to your query is already here

 

[ericmark]

I do remember from school days having to write instructions to make a cup of tea and how we all missed vital things out.

As to how basic is really the problem. Do we take kettle to tap then turn on tap until kettle water level reaches the MAX mark or do we simply fill the kettle?

This is why to right an instruction set it needs proof reading by the typical user of the instructions. We refer to using a RCD and we assume the reader knows what it is. Refer to FCU we may include (Fused Connection Unit) but with the humble RCD having been given so many names from RCCD, ELCB-c, ALCI, to GFCI and even if we say residual-current device how many DIY people will understand what we are referring to.

Maybe that is the next job. A definitions list but it would need to be full of anchors so it would go direct to the word required. Here is an example clicking on link would take one direct to Bryophytes not to top of page. But since the anchor is only visible in code form just don't know how this could be done with the Wiki.

Ideas please.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

But since the anchor is only visible in code form just don't know how this could be done with the Wiki.

See here: //www.diynot.com/wiki/wiki:syntax#external

 

[JohnW2]

That is a good point but although there is no good Samaritan act in the UK there have been moves so that people trying to help are not taken to court to defend there action unless grossly disproportionation.

That's true - but, IMO, quite apart from the legal aspects, the 'moral' duty is fairly clear. IMO, it would probably be (morally) better to give no 'safety advice' at all than to give enough such advice as to provide some (possibly false) 'reassurance' to readers, but not enough advice to give them a reasonable chance of doing things safely.

BAS makes a good point about people reading Wiki however I will admit I rarely review what I have written and when changes occur any sticky or Wiki can end up out of date without anyone picking up the fact.

That's why I've started reviewing what's in the wiki!

But the idea of wiki must be better than a sticky

Those of us who have commented seem agreed about that.

So maybe we need someone like a Plumber to proof read the Wiki?

Ideally not even a plumber - just a random Joe Public who might one day consider undertaking DIY electrical work. This is the point I was making to stillp about "field testing" in the thread about BS7671's 'imperfections'. In mamy fields I've worked in, some variant of that is 'standard practice' - even if only asking someone in a different department of the same organisation to read a document with 'lay' eyes.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

Seriously writing a manual or a list of instructions is a skill in itself. When working we do many things automatically without realising we are doing them and so we would not include those things when we write a list of things that we do.

Exactly - which is why I am so used to seeing such documents 'field tested' on the sort of people for whom they are designed. Those who write such things are often the last people to be able to recognise the inadequacies in terms of the intended purpose.

Kind Regards, John

 

[JohnW2]

I do remember from school days having to write instructions to make a cup of tea and how we all missed vital things out.

Indeed, we did the same. And I remember having to give verbal instructions on how to tie a tie to someone standing behind a screen (who was instruscted to obey the instructions as literally as possible).

This is why to right an instruction set it needs proof reading by the typical user of the instructions

Exactly - and, as I've just written, ideally not even a plumber.

Maybe that is the next job. A definitions list but it would need to be full of anchors so it would go direct to the word required.

Definitely worth considering - but I suggest we take these exercises one step at a time

Kind Regards, John

 

[securespark]

However, if ‘we’ were not happy with SP isolation, maybe that would need to be mentioned?

Have taken a chance here. If someone else has covered this, no worries.

DP isolation must be achieved on TT systems.

However, identifying TT systems may be tricky for some DIY'ers.

 

[JohnW2]

However, if ‘we’ were not happy with SP isolation, maybe that would need to be mentioned?

Have taken a chance here. If someone else has covered this, no worries. DP isolation must be achieved on TT systems. However, identifying TT systems may be tricky for some DIY'ers.

I've responded to the detail of this in the thread about the draft of a new wiki page ( here ), since it is very pertinent to that discussion.

Per the previous discussion with mods inthis thread (most of the mods messages have now timed-out), if it's the consensus view of how things should be done, once the new wiki page on safety is in place, would you be happy for us to ask the mods to arrange that the sticky post attributed to yourself (and the other two posts from 'FAQ') to be removed and replaced with just one post which linked to the new wiki?

Kind Regards, John