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This is why you need to understand what you are doing.
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B
breezer
and some get upset when i state they do not instill me with confidence
B
breezer
plugwash said:
so, no insualtion, sleaving, broken sleaving and reversing polarity is ok? (or did you not see that bit?)
I always thought the electricity supply industry relied upon air as the insulator for most of its network. The trick is to make sure the cables are held rigidly apart. Seems to work here.
Does illustrate that teaching how to wire up a plug and make good connections would be an excellent addition to the school syllabus. In fact I feel certain it used to be there already. Did they drop it in favour of teaching hungarian with the option of mandarin? (no offence to any native speakers, languages chosen randomly)
Does illustrate that teaching how to wire up a plug and make good connections would be an excellent addition to the school syllabus. In fact I feel certain it used to be there already. Did they drop it in favour of teaching hungarian with the option of mandarin? (no offence to any native speakers, languages chosen randomly)
depends how you define ok
once those wires are in that plug they aint going to move much and if they do it will only be to touch each other (which should just blow a fuse or trip a breaker nothing worse a NE fault may be a problem but they are rarely all that nasty)
and polarity reversal in the run to a final peice of equipment after all protective devices and switching isn't dangerous either
once those wires are in that plug they aint going to move much and if they do it will only be to touch each other (which should just blow a fuse or trip a breaker nothing worse a NE fault may be a problem but they are rarely all that nasty)
and polarity reversal in the run to a final peice of equipment after all protective devices and switching isn't dangerous either
B
breezer
but to the unitiated your post is saying that to wire as the pics show is a ok. which we all know it isnt
there are usually 3 seperate questions
1: is something compliant with rules/regs/laws
2: is something the "done thing"
3: is something actually dangerous
the answers to the first two questions are obvious with regard to the posted situation the third quesions requires more thought.
1: is something compliant with rules/regs/laws
2: is something the "done thing"
3: is something actually dangerous
the answers to the first two questions are obvious with regard to the posted situation the third quesions requires more thought.
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Plug! I am surprised...
I wouldn't have thought you'd ever be one to question the dangers of a wiring job like this.
The "done thing" does not really come into it - just because something may be common practice does not make it right. Imagine YOU wired that fitting and you are trying to explain to the HSE after a death why you did it that way...
Regs may be a PIA, but at least compliance with them, in the main, will make for a safe install. The idea of the regs (one of my takes on them) is to make something as unambiguous and as foolproof as possible (in terms of safety).
IMHO, one of the criteria that makes something is dangerous is when it breaks away from accepted practice.
I know as a professional, I should never make any assumptions about an install, but to a layperson, what they see should be what they get, ie that the red/brown is live, etc...
I wouldn't have thought you'd ever be one to question the dangers of a wiring job like this.
The "done thing" does not really come into it - just because something may be common practice does not make it right. Imagine YOU wired that fitting and you are trying to explain to the HSE after a death why you did it that way...
Regs may be a PIA, but at least compliance with them, in the main, will make for a safe install. The idea of the regs (one of my takes on them) is to make something as unambiguous and as foolproof as possible (in terms of safety).
IMHO, one of the criteria that makes something is dangerous is when it breaks away from accepted practice.
I know as a professional, I should never make any assumptions about an install, but to a layperson, what they see should be what they get, ie that the red/brown is live, etc...
I think plug was looking at it the right way. The question was not, 'how should it have been done', but 'how dangerous is it really (never mind how it should have been done)'
If you think that was bad you should see what I was looking at today. Live wires sticking out all over the place. Who ever heard of screw connections? Just twist 'em. Oops, never mind the missing covers on the meter tails, but they are tucked behind the laundry. Puts it into perspective.
If you think that was bad you should see what I was looking at today. Live wires sticking out all over the place. Who ever heard of screw connections? Just twist 'em. Oops, never mind the missing covers on the meter tails, but they are tucked behind the laundry. Puts it into perspective.
I'd suggest that it was an example of very poor wiring, which could become dangerous with normal handling, much more easily than the properly installed equivalent. While not immediate danger it should be corrected ASAP, before it becomes one.
However, as wired, it still requires 2 faults to become live,
1) the earth core to break, and
2) the exposed live wire (from the black core) to waggle a bit and touch the case.
If it were done nicely, with flex and a gland even if the earth core broke, no reasonable amount of waggling would make this happen.
The question is what is the likelihood of the dangerous double fault occurring before someone with a bit more nowse saw it and decided to re-do it, or before it went flash-bang and turned itself off.
In order of seriousness,
1) No cable grip at lamp
2) solid core cable where flexing is likely
3) overtrimmed insulation.
4) non-standard colours
(I know black is the new live, but paired with red I think most would still expect it to be neutral, at least for a couple of years to come.)
5) unsleeved earth.
For many developing countries this wiring quality would be the standard, but probably without the earth, making it only single fault to be dangerous, so I think it could (just) be worse than it is and still work for a while.
regards M.
Mind you I got a shock last night to find a socket in the kitchen reverse polarity -perhaps it was done by the same guy ! I'll be checking the other sockets in daylight at the weekend.
regards M.
Yes, that light is perfectly safe as long as nobody does much with it but surely the argument comes down to fault tolerance. By this I mean how many stupid mistakes can you make before something nasty actually happens. We all know that you shouldn't pull plugs out by the cable - or drag an appliance around like a dog on a lead - or grab the neutral wire in the belief that it's safe to do so. We also know that lots of people do the first two on a daily basis!
In the nuclear power industry there are two fundamentally different ways of minimizing accidents. One is to ask "What regulations can we put in place to make sure nobody does anything stupid?" The other is to ask "What safety interlocks can we build into this thing so that nobody can do anything stupid?" You can of course employ both but the first will only be a backup to the second.
On a smaller scale, good wiring practice greatly reduces the number of accidents that will result when people misuse electrical equipment.
In the nuclear power industry there are two fundamentally different ways of minimizing accidents. One is to ask "What regulations can we put in place to make sure nobody does anything stupid?" The other is to ask "What safety interlocks can we build into this thing so that nobody can do anything stupid?" You can of course employ both but the first will only be a backup to the second.
On a smaller scale, good wiring practice greatly reduces the number of accidents that will result when people misuse electrical equipment.
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