Live - Neutral reverse from plug in tester

Sadly there are some truly dire installations out there, and unless I am unlucky in the ones I see, I would agree that things like part P and a ‘do not touch leave it to the experts’ advice is working against us - having customers who have enough knowledge to spot poor work is actually useful in preventing standards slipping too far at the shallow end. There is an unhealthy obsession with paper trails, registrations  and risk assessments, and not enough practical instruction of the basic levels e.g.  “give it a good pull, and if it falls out it's a failure so go back and re-do it so it does not” sort of level.

As a PS when the ring was first mooted in the 1940s some of the early advice suggested that the conductors of the ring should be unbroken. Now I presume this advice was not written by anyone with much practical nouse, as threading conduits or indeed just about anything, and stripping cores part way along at each fitting is a non-starter, but a solid twist became the way to ensure ring integrity. Only with the rise of testing in a way that requires unpicking the ring at regular intervals has the advice changed to wires side by side.  Maybe we will go all USA at some point in the future and start having a 1 wire one terminal rule, and thinner wires and radials.

Mike.

Sadly there are some truly dire installations out there, and unless I am unlucky in the ones I see, I would agree that things like part P and a ‘do not touch leave it to the experts’ advice is working against us - having customers who have enough knowledge to spot poor work is actually useful in preventing standards slipping too far at the shallow end. There is an unhealthy obsession with paper trails, registrations  and risk assessments, and not enough practical instruction of the basic levels e.g.  “give it a good pull, and if it falls out it's a failure so go back and re-do it so it does not” sort of level.

As a PS when the ring was first mooted in the 1940s some of the early advice suggested that the conductors of the ring should be unbroken. Now I presume this advice was not written by anyone with much practical nouse, as threading conduits or indeed just about anything, and stripping cores part way along at each fitting is a non-starter, but a solid twist became the way to ensure ring integrity. Only with the rise of testing in a way that requires unpicking the ring at regular intervals has the advice changed to wires side by side.  Maybe we will go all USA at some point in the future and start having a 1 wire one terminal rule, and thinner wires and radials.

Mike.