confirmation before contacting NICEIC

[Andy™]

no need to preach to the converted

,

but leaving an installation in an obvious unsafe/dangerous condition without notifying the owner/householder about its condition is against the law Im pretty certain,

and this is why I said opinions will vary wildly on this.

just the way I was taught, voltage trips are removed on sight, NO question.

not notifying the owner or something dangerous could be illegal (probably upto a court to decide that), but the ELCB its-self is not 'illegal'

 

[steptoe]

[quote name='Andy

 

[switch10]

Cheers for all comments, have passed this onto my friend, who will inform person responsible, and I will be sorting the job this weekend for him.

Can't believe the spark left it in such a **** way, however my friend was reluctant to have anyone done about it intill he heard they would pay for it. Which they have, so a nice labour fee and parts fee going into them.

Cheers

 

[Lurch]

Can't really see why it would even be classed as emergency work. If the boiler absolutely had to be powered up right that second and no wholesalers\other outlets were open and it couldn;t wait 12\24 hours then I can;t see why they couldn;t do what most plumbers I know do, bang it on a plug top then get the sparky in to sort it. IMO, there was no emergency about it.

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Ok guys, time to drag this back up. My friend has now recieved communication from the installer of the fuseboard, he was not assessed, however it was a supervisor of the company who turned up at the job and decided all was ok as installed. he neither is qualified . They have offered to foot the bill to put things right, in which i believe when my friend returns from holiday he will agree with this.so therefore he will have a consumer unit changed to include rcd, however i need some advice, as someone pointed out there was an very old earth leakage switch next to the panel, what should this now be replaced with in order to comply?

going to squeeze as much as possible out of the person who done this job in order to get my friends property upto the best possible.

Ye olde Voltage Operated Earth-Leakage Circuit Breaker ceased to be recognised in 1981...

see page 36 of Approved Doc P.. (Older wiring practice!)

so you need modern RCD...

BUT you need more than one of em to satisfy Reg 314.1 (iii)

thats the minimise inconvenience bit!

So if its a small installation you want FULL RCBO's

if not a Dual RCD split board as minimum IMHO!

I would be wanting

 

[steptoe]

Can't really see why it would even be classed as emergency work. If the boiler absolutely had to be powered up right that second and no wholesalers\other outlets were open and it couldn;t wait 12\24 hours then I can;t see why they couldn;t do what most plumbers I know do, bang it on a plug top then get the sparky in to sort it. IMO, there was no emergency about it.

agreed, deffo NOT an emergency.

Ye olde Voltage Operated Earth-Leakage Circuit Breaker ceased to be recognised in 1981...see page 36 of Approved Doc P.. (Older wiring practice!)

so you need modern RCD...

BUT you need more than one of em to satisfy Reg 314.1 (iii)

thats the minimise inconvenience bit!

So if its a small installation you want FULL RCBO's

if not a Dual RCD split board as minimum IMHO!

I would be wanting

 

[switch10]

Oh i am also reposrting them, and have made them aware of this, i have just been there to take some further pictures to back this up. However in order to make things safe i need to carry out the work.

one thing i just noticed though is this property has recently had a payment meter fitted for the electric, n power customer. should they of not reported this earth leakage switch and got it changed?

 

[Lurch]

one thing i just noticed though is this property has recently had a payment meter fitted for the electric, n power customer. should they of not reported this earth leakage switch and got it changed?

They will connect their meter to anything you provide them, they don;t care as long as you are using electric and paying them. The DNO's do not have to follow and do not know about BS7671, all they do is provide power and a meter. Usually the meter fitters are just that, trained monkeys who fit meters, nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Risteard]

so you need modern RCD...BUT you need more than one of em to satisfy Reg 314.1 (iii)

thats the minimise inconvenience bit!

So if its a small installation you want FULL RCBO's

if not a Dual RCD split board as minimum IMHO!

I don't subscribe to the view that half of a larger installation being de-energised is less inconvenient than one circuit in a smaller one.

Surely risk assessment is the way forward. I don't read "minimising inconvenience" as saying that an RCCB covering a distribution board is necessarily impermissible. It's surely a matter of judgement for the Designer?

Likewise two RCCBs each taking out half of the installation may not be deemed to be acceptable by the Designer for a particular installation.

 

[batty]

They will connect their meter to anything you provide them, they don;t care as long as you are using electric and paying them. The DNO's do not have to follow and do not know about BS7671, all they do is provide power and a meter. Usually the meter fitters are just that, trained monkeys who fit meters, nothing more, nothing less.

Certainly changed was only about 7 years ago when I subbed to another contractor EDF would not connect up new supplies unless all earthing and bonding were in place. Although they do seem to work different to other DNO as they seem to check installations before connecting were as sse seem to just want a signiture of contractor to say things are ok.

 

[Lurch]

Certainly changed was only about 7 years ago when I subbed to another contractor EDF would not connect up new supplies unless all earthing and bonding were in place. Although they do seem to work different to other DNO as they seem to check installations before connecting were as sse seem to just want a signiture of contractor to say things are ok.

TBF, with new supplies they're keen to see it done properly. With existing supplies though, they're generally not bothered and connect to anything as it's already there. It's unlikely they will disconnect an existing customer due to the regs changing but they may if the installation is extremely dangerous, and by extremely dangerous I mean actually on fire at the time they are attempting to connect the meter.