I also have a great regard for experience. However, I have also seen years of experience in the most inept person. Have we all followed the car whose driver has been "driving for 40 years without an accident"? We all wonder how, he must have caused hundreds. Experience per se is no use. Nothing personal Peter, I have a great regard for your knowledge. The only way to authorise an individual is to test them and give them a certificate. That's what we all do. If a stranger wondered up to you and asked to drive your car, the answer would be NO. If you were to know that individual and had seen them drive, etc, the answer may be different. The licencing authorities are doing just that but on a more formal footing and to consistent standards.
Of course I would when the DIY man is using the building himself, perhaps his kids, dogs & wife (note the order of priorities!) sleeping on the premises. Who but a fool would risk that? Who would trust some spotty kid with a certificate is more to the point?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- snipped-for-privacy@boltblue.com John Lloyd - Cymru/Wales
These same licensing authorities that introduced mandatory passports for horses? The same licensing authorities that require fallen stock to be collected by authorised dealers (hardly any) or hunt kennels. The same licensing authorities that have just made hunt kennels illegal? Yes - also the same licensing authorities that have made buggary of little boys legal? Got your £85 quid ready for your ID card John?
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- snipped-for-privacy@boltblue.com John Lloyd - Cymru/Wales
"Andy Dingley" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...
Are you saying that this legislation will NOT save lives? Can you give the source of the information about hedge trimmers please. My suspicion is that most are due to cutting the cable and being electrocuted. An earth trip would stop that. They are fitted in all new installations and save lives. For every argument, there will always be cases that can be quoted where it is irrelevant or wrong. Of course there will be cases where the professionals get it wrong. When you consider that they are working on electrical installations every day, it is impossible for some mistakes not to happen but their success rate is far greater than DIYers. That is not a case for abandoning licences. Drivers, airline pilots and doctors are all licenced. Should we abandon their licencing arrangements and let anyone do their jobs just because they think they knows how? I remember the resistance to the wearing of seat belts when that was made compulsory. How many people now think they don't save lives? I also know people who think smoke alarms are pointless. Ask any fire professional about how they save lives. In 2000, there were almost 2800 fires due to electrical installations. That's from government statistics.
formatting link
are entitled to your opinion just as I am entitled to believe that you are wrong. May I suggest that we have done this do death (no pun intended), agree to differ and that we return to stationary engine matters.
No, it doesn't. The current situation is that more people are dying in hedgetrimmer accidents than are being killed by dodgy electrical DIY. You can't save people who aren't being hurt in the first place.
We've also had the recent case of the kitchen electrocution (some TV celeb's daughter) and that has been trotted out as supporting evidence for this new legislation. Except that that accident was caused by professionals, not DIYers.
I was recently rigging a stall at a craft exhibition in Bristol. All of _our_ equipment had to be PAT tested and stickered before we could even bring it in. Then we had to get an earful from the sparkie about "who's dodgy stall kept popping the breakers"
Three phase lash-up to a big DB made of metalclad sockets screwed to plywood. And it wasn't our stalls that had committed uncleanness between the various phases (on adjacent sockets no less !) and were the real culprits. Professional sparkies again.
Lemmings get a bad press. Disney faked the infamous jumping suicidal lemmings and there was one of the camera crew _throwing_ them to get some of that footage.
John Manders wrote: The gas installation regs did just the
A local story: A gas leak in the street in front of residential property was reported to the gas company. The company ordered immediate evacuation of the property. The source of the leak was investigated and after a few hours , residents were allowed to return to their homes. Soon after , there was a big explosion in the flat nearest the leak and the occupant was killed . Subsequently the company were found to be entirely responsible for that man's death. One assumes that the gas co.'s employees were fully qualified , competant , carrying the right certificates . etc. No amount of legislation is going to stop this sort of thing. Robert
Provocative rubbish. What has this to do with electrical installations? Lets do away with all regulatory licencing shall we. Nurses, dentists, drivers, doctors, surgeons. After all, who knows better than the person doing the job? I've got a sharp knife and fancy doing a quick Caesarean like they show on TV.
John
##-----------------------------------------------## Article posted from Internal Fire Newsreader
formatting link
Share your knowledge in... uk.rec.engines.stationary ##-----------------------------------------------##
Chances are that the gas company's employees _weren't_ carrying "the right certificates". When CORGI registration came in, Transco refused to take part in it and insisted that their fitters were already competent enough, without any new certification.
If you're a big enough corporate, you get to ignore laws you don't like.
Its got to do with the competence of those who legislate for the licence. How many electical engineers, or even qualified electricians, do you think there were in the assemblies that voted this nonsense in? I've given several examples of the sort of "lets license it" fervour that just addds to the bureaucratic overhead whilst making no difference to the actual safety. Just in case you need some more, try the ludicrous overreaction to anyone wanting to dismantle an asbestos cement roof, or dispose of a fridge!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- snipped-for-privacy@boltblue.com John Lloyd - Cymru/Wales
Governments are advised by experts. They cannot know everything. Asbestos roofs can be dismantled by anyone UNLESS they are dusting and releasing asbestos fibres. That applies to all asbestos products. The body of scientific opinion is now that refrigerants cause environmental damage and that the gas should be reclaimed. Most councils will accept fridges at their refuse centres.
Sorry but no. Personally I'm fed up with hearing such trite claptrap. I do not agree that the possible saving of a very few lives automatically justifies burdening the lives of the other 60 million of us. Its a weak justification which is greatly and inappropriately over-used as an argument for all sorts of state control. kind regards Roland
It used to be that when one bought a new fridge the retailer would generally take the old one away for disposal. This is not now the case and dead fridges have joined the ever increasing amount of fly tipping (much of it brought about by the landfill tax) which litters the countryside. Most environmental legislation is well intentioned but hopelessly ill thought-out and often counter productive.
AIUI the particular fridge problem arises from EC rules which were not prepared for by the UK, not sure if it was local authorities or central govt, despite ample notice. Our local tip now has a 'fridge compound', I took one down there a month or so ago & had to sign a declaration that it wasn't 'business waste' (it wasn't)
You did the responsible thing, so did we (took council three weeks to collect during which time dead fridge was sitting in front garden - oops, there goes the neighbourhood!). Sadly many see the end of a quiet lane as a better option. It would surely have made more sense to have offered this free disposal service to retailers and then compel them to take away the old appliance if required, as many were already happy to do before disposal became such a burden.
Sorry, drifting further and further OT - of course if the basic mechanism of the fridge still works, you should really convert it into a de-humidifier for the workshop!
To be fair in the allocation of blame, it was UK government inaction that failed to put measures in place to deal with the EC's necessary implementation of some rulings from the Kyoto conference. Germany didn't have this same cockup, even though they had the same EC rulings imposed on them.
Just to add my two penny worth to this thread, we had our house rewired by 'professionals'. The house was built in the early '60s and had a mixture of PVC cabling and rubber covered cable. The rubber needless to say had perished in places exposing the conductors. Very scary! We insisted that the work was done by the electricity company themselves rather than their sub-contractor. I had occasion recently to replace an outside security light unit which had failed, so prior to the work I switched off the outside lights via an 'isolation' switch next to the consumer unit. Taking the cover off the security light I applied a DVM to the tails and low and behold there was 240volts between live and earth! Smelling a rat I removed the cover to the 'isolation' switch and found it was only single pole and you've guessed it they had switched the neutral!! I was up a ladder to do the work and it could have been curtains for me if I had not been cautious. The moral is that the 'professionals' may be quicker and neater in their work but are no better than competent amateurs and a certificate proves very little.
PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.