Cooker and shower on the same circuit

well it seems that knives and so on used to do wallpapering and other DIY tasks are pretty much at the top on the danger list.

Some figures from ROSPA  Oddly despite electrical work and gaswork not figuring anywhere  in the top ten dangerous DIY activities, they are the only areas singled out at the end of the article as activities where a professional should be called. Having seen the work of some so called electrical professionals, such faith is not always well placed.

Mike

well it seems that knives and so on used to do wallpapering and other DIY tasks are pretty much at the top on the danger list.

Some figures from ROSPA  Oddly despite electrical work and gaswork not figuring anywhere  in the top ten dangerous DIY activities, they are the only areas singled out at the end of the article as activities where a professional should be called. Having seen the work of some so called electrical professionals, such faith is not always well placed.

Mike

So, how many amateur paper hangers have died whilst engaged in that occupation in the U.K? Of course we may never know the number of house fires caused by amateur D.I.Y. electrical meddling.

LOOOOOOK

www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/.../

Z.

As that data is not collected, I have exactly zero fauith in that organisation. It can really only be called completely fake news. Shocked you though Z!

So David, does you disbelief mean that there are no incidences of house fires due to D.I.Y. electrical meddling?

https://www.morganclark.co.uk/about-us/blog/uk-house-fire-statistics/

Z.

The problem is 2 fold. electrical safety first is far from an unbiased organ, being essentially a mouthpiece for NICIEC, and secondly there is very little to back up where those quoted facts come from.
Unlike the rather amusing adverts for beuty products that mar my favourte re-runs of Midsummer Mudrers etc on late night telly, where it says something wonderful - perhaps a bit like '97 % of women say xx reduces wrinkles' but then there is a litte star and for a short time at the bottom of the screen it says 'based on a survey of 93 women in winebars near Chelsea' or something equally fatuous - so you know that the sample may be  skewed.

It would be good to know how many fires shocks etc and where the data came from.  If it is based on on the fraction of the  folks phoning the NICIEC helpline cursing DIYworks, for example then it is not representing the bigger picture.

I am quite sure that there are accidents caused by DIY wiring - but that should not be the question. The question should be "is a closed shop approach to telling folk how to do wiring and what is permitted likley to make things safer or not?". There is no doubt it will boost business for NICIEC members.
There is another side question - how much poor quality and in some cases downright dangerous work is done by businesses that are paid up members of such organisations. That we also know exists but on websites like that such information is curiously absent

The fire stats are more solid - and cooking and smoking are the big dangers, then faulty appliances Wiring is actually quite a long way down.

Mike.

I suppose that all those fires called "distribution" were caused by amateur bad workmanship the Z? Such a supposition is obviously wrong, most will be lack of maintenance of one kind or another, and general accidental damage and deteioration due to age. The statistic is itself suspect, as few house fires get the proper forensic treatment which is very expensive, and fire of unknown cause often gets written down as "electrical" as it is easy and doesn't matter much to anyone as the insurance company pays anyway.

In my experience much bad work is done by scheme members, you can even see some boasting about it on YouTube! The EICR debacle points out how bad many are, basically anything to get money from the public. There is a huge gap between knowledge and outcomes as so clearly shown by this thread. To cause actual fires is very difficult, cables very rarely get sufficiently hot to cause burning, even if undersized. Loose connections are the potential problem, because this is the one place where significant resistance can and does occur, leading to very high power dissipation in a small space.

These "shock, horror" stories never have any real information on what went wrong, or what mistake was made. I inspected an installation recently where there had obvviously been some bad work done by an older chap, but there was no danger of fire at all, the main problem being unenclosed wire connections, and a very curious plug and socket reversal  feeding the greenhouse. There were potential risks of electric shock. There is a huge difference between an untidy installation and a dangerous one, although it seems that many connect these two directly together.

"There is a huge difference between an untidy installation and a dangerous one, although it seems that many connect these two directly together."

True.

However there is sometimes a correlation bextwixt the two so using it as a small clue to what we might find can have some merits I think