Please ensure your electrics are up to date!!!!!!!!!

AdrianW2

sancho wrote: »

We weren't planning on getting the electricity inspected but after reaing a couple of pages here i think we will!!

There's a lot of hyperbole in this thread, for some reason this area seems to attract a lot of scaremongers. By all means get an inspection, but interpret the results carefully.

I think a car analogy is helpful. A car from 1960 won't have seatbelts, a car from 1970 won't have ABS, a car from 1980 won't have airbags. You might or might not change a car on the basis of the safety kit depending on your attitude to risk, but your classic Mercedes isn't inherently unsafe.

Similarly an electrical install from 1960 might not have earth bonding, from 1970 won't have circuit breakers and from 1980 won't have an RCD.

I'm not saying don't get it checked, but don't panic just because you don't have all the nice things that a modern install does, and understand the cost/benefit. You may find that spending the money on other things - getting the trees pruned, having a water tank jacket fitted, uncovering the air brick, new car tyres - are much more likely to save your life, or you may not.

dwarvenassassin

AdrianW2 wrote: »

You may find that spending the money on other things - getting the trees pruned, having a water tank jacket fitted, uncovering the air brick, new car tyres - are much more likely to save your life, or you may not.

Can anyone explain how fitting a hot water cylinder jacket will save a life?

The car analogy is fine up to a point, but to suggest that an install without earth bonding is not unsafe is downright ludicrous.
To use you own classic car analogy, would you drive a 1960s Merc that had no brakes?

Periodic Inspection Reports items are coded for severity from 1 (Immediate risk to life and/or property) to 4 (no longer allowed on NEW work)
Code 1 items are cause for serious concern and should be dealt with immediately.

However, some Inspectors will tell you that Code 2s are also an immediate danger and need immediate work.
If it is really that bad then why did they not give it a code 1?
These people are either (a) unscrupulous, or (b) working from a leaflet produced by the Electrical Safety Council (a "charity" tied far too closely to the NICEIC which tries to make up its own rules that tend to ignore what is in BS7671 for commerical reasons)

Do NOT accept a purely Visual "inspection".
Do NOT accept a Report (they are NOT Certificates) that has no test results.
Do NOT accept limitations to the Inspection and Testing that cannot be justified. There is no cpc so I cannot test R1+R2 is valid, you cannot measure the resistance of a cable core that isn't there! However, "I didn't want to turn your tv/freezer/alarm clock etc. off" isn't really a reason to not test.
Do NOT accept any Report that took less that an average of 30 mins per circuit to complete.
Do NOT accept any report with a sampling rate below 20% - and if there are lots of Code 1 & 2 items, that sampling rate should be nearer (or at) 100%

Lastly, READ THE DAMNED REPORT!
I have seen plenty of PIRs where the person compiling the Report has listed lots of "the usual" observations right after stating that the tests that identify the apparent faults were not done. The favourite one for this is something like "Circuit originally designed as a ring no longer is due to additions" - this statement CANNOT be made truthfully without testing - you cannot tell by looking at it.

AdrianW2

First off, thanks for the clarification on the PIR, and now I'll address the other points.

dwarvenassassin wrote: »

Can anyone explain how fitting a hot water cylinder jacket will save a life?

I never mentioned hot water, but it would probably still help, for cold water try the World Health Organisation, or this advice leafet.

dwarvenassassin wrote: »

The car analogy is fine up to a point, but to suggest that an install without earth bonding is not unsafe is downright ludicrous.
To use you own classic car analogy, would you drive a 1960s Merc that had no brakes?

An install with no neutral would be more like a car with no brakes, relying on a crash to operate properly.

There are millions of households in the UK without earth bonding and almost no electrocutions, so it clearly isn't that unsafe. The plumbing is inherently bonded to earth by virtue of the fact that it's supplied by a copper pipe buried in the ground. As an example, when we bought our house it didn't have earth bonding, but resistance between the pipework and electrical earth was never more than 0.2 ohm (measured on low voltage DC, mains AC impedance may have been different).

dwarvenassassin

Actually, an install with no neutral would be more like a car that had been sliced down the middle and the left-hand half taken away as Neutral forms part of the circuit and is not a safety device while earthing and brakes both are.

loulou41

Just had the house re-wire, have not been issued with certificate yet as electrician had to go on holiday. He is going to inspect the electrics and do the certificate, he is qualified and is registered on the competent person website. There has been an issue regarding the switches, I can see a spark when I switch the lights off in kitchen and bedroom. Electrician will come and check, should I be concerned? Also after having a rewiring, how long is the work insured for? Thanks

dwarvenassassin

The arcing you see is due to the size or type of load on the switch (what type of light and/or how many) or it could be a faulty switch. It needs fixing, whatever the cause.
As for the length of insurance, I think it varies between registration bodies but is about 5yrs minimum. Call you electricians scheme provider and ask them.

warehouse

Just read the original post, and cannot fault the logic whatsoever. You MUST have circuit breakers fitted.

However, I have had 5 electic shocks in my lifetime, and none of them were close to life threatening, (lucky me). One was when I had my arm deep inside a printer with a wet cloth and hadn't turned off the mains. I wonder if that would have caused the RCD to pop if there were one or my scream!

I used to work on London Underground and there was a 100v ac signal curcuit. One of the old boys used to be able to tell if a circuit was live or not by touching the fuses and ground at the same time. Live, live, dead, live he used to announce .

Ugi

I have heard that 100v or so will not cause serious harm to a healthy adult. This is why building site electrics (and indeed many countries) use 110v - they are working outside where the chances of getting rained on holding a power tool are quite high (they are also usually two "live" wires 180 degrees out of phase so each one is only 55v from earth, but I doubt many people are interested in that). It's also one of the reasons you find power outlets in US bathrooms but not in the UK.

On normal UK 240v mains, there is no question that an RCD is very important. I partially rewired our first house (while it was still legal for you to do your own) and found someone had put a flooring nail through the cooker cable - that's nothing but a 30 amp fuse between your toe and the nearest pylon were you to step on it. Luckily the nail went through the neutral, but it shows the value of RCDs and electrical inspections - you never know what the last owner was up to.

I have had a few 240v shocks through my own carelessness and although I am alive to tell the tale, I would not recommend it to anyone - the look on my wife's face when she rushed upstairs to find out what had caused my involuntary shout was enough to persuade me to turn the breaker off next time!

Ugi.

jonesjw

ftbworried wrote: »

.

Not seeing this (and with my hand touching the wire!!) I plugged it into a live socket :eek:. I am usually quite a careful person but I was rushing to get some washing on before i went out. I heard a loud 'crack' and I got a strong but short shock (which left a burn on my hand) and the RCD box tripped. If we hadn't had the RCD box fitted then I would have been a gonner, there and then at 23 years old.

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You would probably have survived.

dwarvenassassin

Ugi wrote: »

I have heard that 100v or so will not cause serious harm to a healthy adult. This is why building site electrics (and indeed many countries) use 110v - they are working outside where the chances of getting rained on holding a power tool are quite high (they are also usually two "live" wires 180 degrees out of phase so each one is only 55v from earth, but I doubt many people are interested in that). It's also one of the reasons you find power outlets in US bathrooms but not in the UK.

On normal UK 240v mains, there is no question that an RCD is very important. I partially rewired our first house (while it was still legal for you to do your own) and found someone had put a flooring nail through the cooker cable - that's nothing but a 30 amp fuse between your toe and the nearest pylon were you to step on it. Luckily the nail went through the neutral, but it shows the value of RCDs and electrical inspections - you never know what the last owner was up to.

I have had a few 240v shocks through my own carelessness and although I am alive to tell the tale, I would not recommend it to anyone - the look on my wife's face when she rushed upstairs to find out what had caused my involuntary shout was enough to persuade me to turn the breaker off next time!

Ugi.

Voltage is not the killer. It is current flow that kills. Not many people realise that only 120mA is FATAL. That's a fraction of an amp.