The EICR and competence. What are we going to do about the endless problems brought to the forum?

"Fortunately the BS7671 writers etc. are not that foolish. Usually, neither are the public. "


Ohh Dave lad,

you might remember a while ago (or yonks ago perhaps) I did mention a lady called me in to do a little job for her to add to the complete rewire I`d done a few months earlier.

She was happy with how nice and tidy all my work was except for that nasy black thick pipe thingy going up to that old box thingy (cut-out) so she thought that whilst I was now on site she`d ask me before she ot her hacksaw to it.


I am sure glad that you mentioned " usually "?


Charly Darwin had a name for such acts

Let's face it, registered electricians are not paid enough in comparison with other trades. A primary reason is the need by the to registration bodies to increase their membership/profit, although at least one says they are not profitmaking..While that position remains, there will be no incentive to improve the quality of their ranks - period!..The quality of EICR's is only symptomatic, Is there any comparison tables of pay of tradesmen over the years? 

Jaymack

The problem as I understand it is in two halves.


There is some really crummy stuff out there in regular use.

Some of it is actually dangerous, and should be taken out of service as soon as possible.

On the other hand quite a lot of it is just crummy, or ugly, or a bit of a nuisance, but poses no real risk to humanity.

And meeting BS7671 2018 is neither necessary, nor on its own sufficient, to make all installations safe and 'good'.


so

Q1) How do we help folk trying to inspect to tell the difference between serious non-compliance to regs and irrelevant ones, and how to spot situations that meet the regs but are not really safe ?


 and longer term, 

Q2) How do we address poor installation work being done right now  ?


Now various NICIEC and NAPIT guides are an attempt to address Q1 with the folk we already have in the field, and probably do quite well in a number of cases, but they should be really seen as more of a starting point for what to look for, not the last word in how to make a decision.

.

If we are stuck with less than ideal inspectors, and for now we will be, and fiddling with an exam syllabus will not alter that in any useful timeline, there needs to be a solid back-up to support the harassed field operative, in terms of some sort of  'phone a friend' for the odder cases, and and proper dispute mechanisms for  when it goes wrong between customer and inspector.


Part P and competent persons schemes were an attempt to address Q 2, and that too lacks any real back-up to make it reliable.

Scheme membership is more of  a tax on good businesses, especially smaller ones, and assessment is something that can be carefully steered around by a few bad ones.

Furthermore, an awful lot of things are not notifiable work and just appear or disappear without a paper trail

(and I would argue strongly that notification to the local council is totally the wrong target  here, it should be ensuring  the man with the toolbox knows what they are doing, not submission of a form with a stamp from some 'supervisor'  tens of miles away )

The long term answer is education of course,but that is slow.


Meanwhile support to set the bar at a uniform height, and a dispute resolution mechanism are both needed.

M.

The analogy with an MOT is worth further thought. A car is very complex,  and it is not reasonable to take it to bits completely every year to test it.


So all that is tested are the core safety features and warning features, brakes, lights and so on,and those  externals that can be done quickly like tyres and a quick visual for big rust holes.

Indeed when changing the rules to make the tests more complex, full testing of rear seatbelts on vehicles with more than the normal number was removed, to keep the test time proportionate.


For the same level for electrical installation we could have  a walk round  visual inspection report plus pressing all test buttons on RCDs and batteries in fire alarms. Maybe, or maybe not, an R2 wander lead with buzzer to the major metal appliances. And that would be that.

No great schedules of circuits, no insulation tests, no agonising about cable route or installation methods.


Would that be enough to catch the really dangerous cases - fire hazards and exposed live bits - probably most, but perhaps not all.


Is it as good as an EICR ? no of course not.

Would it pass systems with regs failures ? certainly.

But is it proportionate to the risks and costs? Hmm.


Mike.

Incompetence or fraud?


How big is the “serious problem” and what is the cause of the problem?

The thing is, even you have a fully-trained, competent and experienced inspector, who can use their skill to, for example, determine that a shower is not RCD protected but is otherwise soundly installed, you still have a problem. Obviously this doesn't comply with the current regs, but how should it be coded? It has basic and fault protection. This is very subjective, and there is currently no right answer. So different inspectors could reasonably come to different codings for the same installation. So you either need informal guidelines like NAPIT codebreakers, or statutory minimums.