RCD Protection For Old Installations

Simon Barker: 
 

Chris Pearson: 
 

Sparkingchip: 
For the landlords EICRs in particular the government should have set out the expected minimum standards, which I think they thought they had done when they said the installations have to comply with the 18th Edition of the Wiring Regulations …

I don't think that they quite say that. In general terms, the law is not retrospective, so for example, my Alvis needs no direction indicators. It never has.

But the Wiring Regulations aren't law.  The new regulations for landlords are law, and specify the 18th edition.

What R.3 of ESSPRCR 2020 says is:

(1) A private landlord who grants or intends to grant a specified tenancy must—

(a) ensure that the electrical safety standards are met during any period when the residential premises are occupied under a specified tenancy;

And R.2 defines "electrical safety standards:

“electrical safety standards” means the standards for electrical installations in the eighteenth edition of the Wiring Regulations, published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the British Standards Institution as BS 7671:2018

I do not believe that this means that every installation in a privately rented property must comply in every respect with BS 7671:2018. If that were so, all the red and black cables would have to be replaced. Instead it means that the installation must be inspected and tested as set out in BS 7671:2018 and a decision made whether or not it is satisfactory and suitable for continued use.

This nuance may or may not appear before the Upper Tribunal and if it does, it will not be any time soon.

So, have the Government made the IET and BSI responsible for setting the standards?

It is quite an unusual situation - after all you are not obliged to remove solid walls from a building and replace them with cavity just because they do not meet today's building standards, although some safety things, like fire exits on  public buildings, do have to meet a current standard, there is a lot of accommodation for things that would not be built that way today.
 

Electrical wiring in PVC is likely to last as long as the building fabric if sized and installed correctly and well away from vermin, sources of heat etc. 
The circuit protection aspect, the consumer unit, fuses RCDs , AFDDs (boo hiss) seems to be seen as almost disposable by comparison. I'm not sure this is the right attitude.

I do not think the law makers have a grasp of the can of worms they have opened with the way current legislation has been  written for things like rented accommodation. 

The decision as to  what has to be inspected, and what constitutes a pass or fail is extremely unclear - there is no MOT inspectors handbook for the situation.

Now with an MOT, the authors of the guidance intend to set a standard, and there are mechanisms  to formally  complain and get feedback ‘up the chain’ to those with responsibility when a defective decision occurs.

 In effect the IET and the authors of the likes of the ‘codebreakers’ book become the setters of the legal threshold, and I'm not sure that is where they wanted to be - 

Put another way,  would it have been written the same if there was a clear line of responsibility for each decision back to the authors.  Probably not.  And as it stands there is no formal method for the end user to get back to the responsible person. Random test cases and calling in  council electricians as adjudicators is no substitute for a proper process. 

Given the total absence of folk killed by unearthed 1960s lights etc , I'm not convinced we needed a process to condemn it at all, but if we do, it needs a firmer footing, or the result will be very patchy and highly open to influence.
 (Now RCDs are a good idea, but there will be many cases where an RCD goes cradle to grave and saves no-one.)

Mike

I doubt a single upfront 30mA RCD would meet the requirements of 314.1 

mapj1: 
The decision as to what has to be inspected, and what constitutes a pass or fail is extremely unclear - there is no MOT inspectors handbook for the situation.

Isn't that where Chapter 65 (with Sections 642 and 643) comes in?

So, have the Government made the IET and BSI responsible for setting the standards?

Not really. They've just adopted one particular effort (the 2018 version) - future changes to BS 7671 will NOT change the law - the law remains pointing at the (unamended) 2018 version regardless … unless Parliament/Whitehall decides to adopt some other version instead.  The approach is deliberate - I think they call it being “non-ambulatory” - in that no-one but the government can effectively change the meaning of the law. 

It's the same with the ESQCR (which curently points, as far as I can tell to BS 7671:2008) and similarly (but non-statute) AD P - which points to BS 7671:2011). (Which might be thought to put people in a difficult situation when they have to comply with several or all of those simultaneously).

Some will say that compliance with a later edition will naturally comply with earlier editions, but I'm not convinced that the manderins (or indeed laywers) will necessarily agree.

As for the OP's situation, it doesn't seem that difficult to me (although I may be missing something). There are plenty of industry guides to refer to (some of least I'm sure have been prepared with IET co-operation).  I think (but to check) that most list the ommission of 30mA RCD protection as:

• for sockets (≤32A) - C2 if they're likely to supply equipment outdoors, C3 otherwise
• for cables concealled in walls - C3
• for domestic lighting circuits generally - C3
• for bathrooms - C3 if any required supplementary bonding is present & correct, C2 otherwise,

(occasionally c.p.c.s. and/or main bonding can satisfy the requirements for main bonding explicit supplementary bonding conductors)

So as long as you end up with no C2s (or C1s or FIs) you can issue an EICR with a satisfactory.

To my mind there should be no difference between an EICR produced for a rented properly as to any other produced to the same version of BS 7671. BS 7671 doesn't change between private rented and anything else, so neither should the corresponding EICR. 

   - Andy.

Doesn't it make you wonder why any electrician would be prepared to do EICRs?

AJJewsbury: 
To my mind there should be no difference between an EICR produced for a rented properly as to any other produced to the same version of BS 7671. BS 7671 doesn't change between private rented and anything else, so neither should the corresponding EICR. 

Well said! Neither should there be a distinction between domestic and commercial or industrial.

Chris Pearson: 

Well said! Neither should there be a distinction between domestic and commercial or industrial.

But surely there can be risk assessments for the omission of RCD protection in non-domestic properties?

When asked why you decided to code an issue on an EICR as you did saying “I discussed with some electricians around the coffee machine at the electrical wholesalers“ or “I discussed it on an internet discussion forum“ might not cut the mustard.