PUBLIC NOTICE:
Holmslaw has made this ludicrously incorrect claim before.
He has an agenda of trying to discredit the Wiring Regulations.
Ignore what he says.
Wiki entry on Junction Boxes
- Thread starter JohnW2
- Start date
Holmslaw has made this ludicrously incorrect claim before.
He has an agenda of trying to discredit the Wiring Regulations.
Ignore what he says.
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holmslaw
..
Manufacturer's instructions are written as a compromise between risk assessed safety matters and the need to sell equipment to remain profitable.
Common sense and safety should be the overiding factors in the decision whether manfactures claims and instructions are allowe to override the requirements of safety orientated regulatory authorities.
History has many examples of manufacturers making accidental errors and ommissions in their testing and their subsequent instructions about the product they are selling.
In a well designed electrical installation there should never be a need for junction boxes to be located in in-accessible places. It may mean a bit more cable is used but over all the installation is better without junction boxes ( other than in ceiling roses and other accessible equipment ).
It is not simple. They may be maintainance free in the environments they were tested in. They may not be maintainance free in other environments. Rodents nibble at plastic. Were rats used in the testing ? Was fungal growth involved in the testing ? Was curry powder used ? A food factory discovered that the control equipment of a line preparing and packing frozen meals involving curry suffered corrosion due to the curry. Identical equipment on other lines not carrying curry were not affected.
Are you sure about that, have the IET ( or other regulatory bodies NEVER told a manufacturer to modify their instructions ?
Holmslaw doesn't do common sense - his mission is to behave stupidly in order to try and discredit the Wiring Regulations.
It is to a tedious little ***t whose aim is to discredit the Wiring Regulations. Remember that you're trying to reason with someone who also claims that the use of twin & earth cable contravenes the regulations.
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holmslaw
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What an absolutely ridiculous suggestion.
IMO, it takes remarkably little intelligence to understand the spirit, hence presumably the intention, of the reg's references to manufacturer's instructions. I feel sure that the spirit is that MIs should be additionally adhered to if they have requirements over and above what is required by BS7671 itself - not that a practice is acceptable if the MI says so, even if it is in violation of BS7671.
The suggestion that any manufacturer, anywhere in the world, can effectively re-write BS7671 in any manner they wish (maybe 'overriding' some of the most basic safety-based provisions of BS7671) is nothing other than plain ludicrous.
Kind Regards, John.
Like you, I haven't seen it, and can't find a way of seeing it without paying good money - does anyone have access? It's title is a bit odd, since the first part implies that it relates simply to 'boxes and enclosures' (in which case it would be irrelevant to this discussion), whilst the second part mentions 'connecting', which is very ambiguous. My suspicion remains that it is just a general standard for JBs, of no direct relevance to this discussion, but I may be wrong.
Whatever, I would have thought we could assume that (given it mentions the standard), if the IET felt that some type of joint/terminal defined in BS EN 60670-22 was satisfactory for installation in inaccessible locations, they would have said so in BS7671.
That is not in dispute. What we are not sure about is whether or not compliance with BS EN 60670-22 in itself means anything in relation to this discusion. I still rather doubt that it does, but I may be wrong; I certainly have boxes full of (screw terminal) JBs which have "BS EN 60670" written all over them, and they clearly are not suitable for use in inaccessible locations. It is therfore very probable that the 'additional testing' done by Ashley is the only thing which might establish that their product is so much better than screwed terminals as to render it reasonable to use it in inaccessible locations - but I can't see how we can tell whether the IET/BS7671 necessarily agree with their conclusions.
If this forum is anything to go by, it certainly does not look as if many electricians are currently of the view that use of the Ashley/Hager product in an inaccessible location would comply with BS7671. It's almost a daily occurrence that someone on this forum is reminded of the need for JBs to be accessible, and I cannot recall even once having seen it suggested that use of these 'maintainance-free' products would be a possible solution.
Kind Regards, John.
Indeed, we don't know.
Maybe it only refers to cable restraints, ability to handle rated current without overheating, security of covers, flammability of enclosure materials, IP ratings....
holmslaw isn't doing intelligent.
He's doing being a tedious little ***t whose only desire is to discredit the Wiring Regulations. Remember that you're trying to reason with someone whose idea of consistency is to say that you cannot omit overload protection as per one regulation because of prohibitions in another whilst at the same time saying that you must follow one regulation no matter how many other ones that would contravene.
Quite. I have to say that the title, and the fact that BS7671 does not refer to BS EN 60670-22-compliant 'maintenance-free joints' suggests to me that it may well be no more than you suggest. Hopefully there's some around here who can get access to the Standard and put us all out of our misery!
Kind Regards, John.
I have a copy, and there's nothing in there that's really relevant to this discussion. FYI the standard refers to JBs as "connecting boxes". I suspect there might be something in the 60999 series "Connecting devices - Electrical copper conductors - Safety requirements for screw-type and screwless-type clamping units".
I'll have a look and report back!
Many thanks. Much as I suspected, then.
That sounds far more potentially relevant, so I look forward to hearing about it.
The 60999 series does not appear to be mentioned at all in BS7671. However, BS EN 60998-2-2:2004 ("Particular requirements for connecting devices as separate entities with screwless-type clamping units") is - and that might well be of some relevance to this discussion.
Kind Regards, John.
Right, I've scanned through 60998-2-2 as well as 60999. AFAICT neither makes any differentiation between screw and screwless terminals in terms of their need for maintenance.
Just a thought - does "maintenance-free" mean "never needs maintenance", or does it mean "cannot be maintained", which would certainly be the case for crimps.
Many thanks ... so all continues to be 'as I suspected'!
Well, given that the phrase is being used in relation to the need for accessibility, one can but presume that it means the former (whether or not the latter is also the case). In the context we are talking about, "cannot be maintained (but actually needs to be maintained)" would make absolutely no sense!!
Whilst I know there are dissenters, all of this still leaves me with considerable doubt (or worse) that we can be at all confident that use of these Ashley/Hager products would be in compliance with BS7671. As I wrote earlier today, one telling fact is that I have never seen it sugegsted to anyone in this forum that they should be used when a poster has been reminded of the need for accessibility of screw-terminal JBs.
Kind Regards, John.
Forgive my ignorance, but where does BS 7671 require that screw-terminal JBs must be accessible? 526.3 demands that all connections be accessible, except [etc, etc]. It does not exempt screwless JBs. It does exempt "A joint forming part of the equipment complying with the appropriate product standard, which if we accept that a JB is 'electrical equipment' could be screw, screwless, friction or something else, as long as there is a product standard for it and the MIs don't preclude it.
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