Electrical Competency, what is it?

davezawadi (David Stone): 
 

I want to move to a slightly different branch of the EICR question, and this should cover the range of Electrical work. What makes an Electrician Competent? What makes an Inspector competent, whether for an EICR or EICs?

davezawadi,

I totally agree with the vast number of your posts and your particular interest in those persons completing EICR's and EIC's in fact I would like to speak with you on the subject of the exact same issue of those persons completing electrical inspection reports in the world I live in, so please drop me a message.

Competance is a combination of knowledge and experience of those pices of equipment or installation being worked on, after all all we have in the UK is Reg 16 of the EAWR 1989 to define those carrying out electrical work, also with no definition or legal protection of the word “Electrician” we are in this mess and I dont see an easy solution. In the world I work in I would like to think Im more than competant but there are other areas of electrical installations of which I have never worked on so Im happy to stay away from that as Im declaring my own incompetance. But other people wont, I on a regular likley two week basis get calls from so called electricians asking for my advice how to test a particular installation that Imm a SME on! my advice is pack up your tools and testers and leave the premises, the primary fault of course lies with the client who engaged them without empoying a suitably trained and competant person.

Yes people may have 2391 and 2392 quals etc, but does that mean they can test anything or are fully competant of course not, be we live in a world now of tick box spreadsheets, so if somebody has just passed their testing course then they can now test anything?

In Scotland we recently had a Scot Gov consultation on protecting the word electrician and who can do electrical work/testing/inspecting, I was one of very few individuals that responded in fact only a few of the well known electrical contracting bodies bothered responding and makes some interesting reading.

In my view we need to break down the industry into sectors a one stop title of electrician cant work, we need to perhaps look at the Gas Safe modular system and use that basic framework, with upfront basic modules and then specilist modules, then regular update and refresh courses to ensure bad habits aint happening. So what is a gas fitter? so somebody that connects up a gas boiler will have proven his competancy on that unit but means he cant work on a industrial/commercial gas fired combustion unit on a dryer etc.

So could we really spilt our industry into domestic, retail/commercial,light industrial and Industrial, process control, medical, flammable atmospheres. Have it you can be either an competant installer and/or inspector, but you cant be an inspector until at least five years after qualifying as an installer to ensure you gain the further knowledge and critically experience?

GTB   

davezawadi (David Stone): 
 

I want to move to a slightly different branch of the EICR question, and this should cover the range of Electrical work. What makes an Electrician Competent? What makes an Inspector competent, whether for an EICR or EICs?

davezawadi,

I totally agree with the vast number of your posts and your particular interest in those persons completing EICR's and EIC's in fact I would like to speak with you on the subject of the exact same issue of those persons completing electrical inspection reports in the world I live in, so please drop me a message.

Competance is a combination of knowledge and experience of those pices of equipment or installation being worked on, after all all we have in the UK is Reg 16 of the EAWR 1989 to define those carrying out electrical work, also with no definition or legal protection of the word “Electrician” we are in this mess and I dont see an easy solution. In the world I work in I would like to think Im more than competant but there are other areas of electrical installations of which I have never worked on so Im happy to stay away from that as Im declaring my own incompetance. But other people wont, I on a regular likley two week basis get calls from so called electricians asking for my advice how to test a particular installation that Imm a SME on! my advice is pack up your tools and testers and leave the premises, the primary fault of course lies with the client who engaged them without empoying a suitably trained and competant person.

Yes people may have 2391 and 2392 quals etc, but does that mean they can test anything or are fully competant of course not, be we live in a world now of tick box spreadsheets, so if somebody has just passed their testing course then they can now test anything?

In Scotland we recently had a Scot Gov consultation on protecting the word electrician and who can do electrical work/testing/inspecting, I was one of very few individuals that responded in fact only a few of the well known electrical contracting bodies bothered responding and makes some interesting reading.

In my view we need to break down the industry into sectors a one stop title of electrician cant work, we need to perhaps look at the Gas Safe modular system and use that basic framework, with upfront basic modules and then specilist modules, then regular update and refresh courses to ensure bad habits aint happening. So what is a gas fitter? so somebody that connects up a gas boiler will have proven his competancy on that unit but means he cant work on a industrial/commercial gas fired combustion unit on a dryer etc.

So could we really spilt our industry into domestic, retail/commercial,light industrial and Industrial, process control, medical, flammable atmospheres. Have it you can be either an competant installer and/or inspector, but you cant be an inspector until at least five years after qualifying as an installer to ensure you gain the further knowledge and critically experience?

GTB