Working To Specifications Outside The Regs .

[Evans Electric]

Think I did this once before but thought it worth a reprise.

When  contracting to various organisations , you can find yourself working to a spec. you are not familiar with .  Wondering who else has found such things. 

Examples:-

(1)

   A local hospital board insisted upon steel conduit with "Hospital" saddles ,  and flanged couplers c/with full length heavy guage brass bush, a lead  ( the metal)  washer and a serrated washer.

        Hospital saddles stand off nearly 1/2"  to stop gunge collecting behind the tube  , fair enough but those couplers were really OTT.

(2)

Did a lot of work for British Gas some years ago.    In their switch rooms , you look at the SWAs all made off in a panel in the usual way ......... then 6" above the gland , a band of  PVC is cut out of each cable and a copper strip is clamped onto the armouring all the way across.

        We didn't do it with our cables TBH !

(3)

A local authority adacent to B,ham new housing site specified that 3 plate wiring  (lives looping at lights) was banned .

 The  masionettes on the site  were to be done in steel conduit    (Believe it or not!)    ( you couldn't get a full length into the room.) 

The tails between the meter and the consumer unit , about 4 mtrs away, to be contained in , FLUSH , 35mm STEEL conduit .  

(4)

B,ham City Council insisted  (may still do) on the metal sheathing (capping) on housing jobs being earthed.

(5)

A consulting firm had us bonding that flimsy silver foil that covers the thick expanded lagging in boiler rooms .  We asked how they expected us to do it.......... "With a self tapper and a 4mm jumper with crimp lugs "  

To get the picture........think trying to attach a bonding cable with a self tapper to Baco-Foil.  

Just thinking back!

 

[Zeespark]

When I was an apprentice at Heathrow Deke, it happened alot. More so in terms of increasing cable and trunking CSA more than anything else. BAA wanted the option of possible additions, so they wanted space to do so.

Andy Guinness

 

[OnOff]

Rochdale Council that insisted on LSF. Seemed overkill in that the cable was clipped to an RSJ running around the edge of the roof of their offices (over the bus station). Why? I wondered.

 

[wozz]

Often have to change existing fittings when they get pulled by environmental health inspections . Was fine for years the. Suddenly not.

LSF was the norm during my apprenticeship never installed anything else.

 

[Steve3948]

(1) Did that on many MOD job's but in those days conduit was the CPC.

(2) Only ever seen that when no banjo fitted, and that was someone's attempt to make it good.

(3) That's council work for you.

(4) Does that cover the less than 50mm rule we have now, seen it done.

(5) Just mad.

We had a builder, old school style, who wanted all drops done in galv conduit and 2 coats of clear varnish applied to every drop to stop possible rusting when rendered.

MOD job where all conduit, and no runners allowed.

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

Bonding of metal  kitchen furniture :facepalm:

Wiring of NM emergency fittings in FP2000 to there own circuit    :C

 

[Evans Electric]

I just remembered a classic one , which I never had a satisfatory answer to.

As an apprentice with  contractors installing a machine move around in a new unit at the now defunct General Electric Company  (GEC)  we worked to their instructions .  

A machine , say an Archdale miller type jobby,  fed from the tap off trunking above with  a 20A X 3ph supply  ...and then fed again from the next tap-off with exactly the same and paralleled up in the terminals.  ???/

I remember asking but none of the sparks knew why , didn't understand why but the whole place was done in that way .

As an aside , there was an accident there .    A 100A X 3ph supply was switched on but nothing working , tests made , dead .    General puzzlement .....then one guy decides the wrong cable must be connected to the isolator and the other cable , lying on the floor must be the one connected .  

It was lifed off the ground , the guy put his Drummond tester into the space where the cores had pulled back and they said it shorted before he even made a connection .  

The guy was blinded by the flash .       

 

[Sidewinder]

Deke,

What was the total current loading of the example machine 20 or 40A?

It could be a redundant supply situation, but, not correctly designed...

Thing is you don't know what they did after you left?

 

[Evans Electric]

You're right there Sidey .

I was an apprentice on that job but about 20 yrs old at the time ( Just before the Titanlc sank )  so I was used to those types of machine . 

So that machine in my example , say in the factory next door , where we had also worked, would have had a  TPN supply  , in 2.5mm   (7.029 back then) from a tap-off box , with 15A or 20A  HRC fuses .  

Somewhat bigger machine tools , ( Cincinatti say)  would have say, a 30A supply , but again , only fed from one tap-off box .  ( TPN  X 4mm  AKA 7.036)

Machines would have been rated at  15 - 20 - 30 A .

Now Sidey has made me think back , some of the machines were for Plastic injection work , I now remember seeing the old fashioned dial telephone mouldings being made in there .    These were much higher rated I think , wonder if it was the only way to feed them off that particular Tap-off trunking , but still odd to be fed from two different sets of fuses.     

Don't think the tap-off boxes went over 30A on that system .  

 

[Marvo]

We've had several requests in the past for high-end domestic installations to be installed using foreign regs and equipment. Two I can remember from UK people with holiday properties in Cape Town insisting we installed ring circuits which are never used in this country. One of them even flew out his own electrician to consult on the design. We've also been asked to make a property 110v and install US sockets and fittings for an American owner (our standard supply is 220v single phase). All these people were happy to pay more than double the price to have it their way.

 

[ProDave]

PA testing appliances where I did my apprenticeship had the rule, if it had ANY metal parts on the case, it needed an earth.

So they took off the shelf class 2 appliances, opened them up, fitted a 3 core flex and connected the earth to any metal bits they could find.

 

[Evans Electric]

Madness prevails  PD :shakehead

 

[kerching]

On my present job they have bonded all the ceiling grids to the metal lighting trunking behind each respective ceiling with 6mm curly pig tails

Another job yesterday all pipes under the new combi boiler are connected together with 10mm!

 

[Evans Electric]

I thought the ceiling  T bar bonders had all seen the light  , same with the C/H loopers .  

 

[kerching]

Not in Warrington!

 

[bernie4253]

We've had several requests in the past for high-end domestic installations to be installed using foreign regs and equipment. Two I can remember from UK people with holiday properties in Cape Town insisting we installed ring circuits which are never used in this country. One of them even flew out his own electrician to consult on the design. We've also been asked to make a property 110v and install US sockets and fittings for an American owner (our standard supply is 220v single phase). All these people were happy to pay more than double the price to have it their way.

I get a reasonable amount or rewires from people selling houses in France, wired to UK regs. There is a requirement for an electrical inspection (and other types as well) before going on the market. Most UK fittings, boards and MCB's don't meet the French regs and are hence considered unsafe.

Long may these silly folk keep wiring their places to regs that exist somewhere else!

 

[Steve3948]

Do the French have any regs, whenever I've been there the installations look unsafe and absolute sh*t.