Exposed: Cash for logos and drive by inspections

What happened to the statement " When preparing an EICR the inspector does not need to know the historical details of the Wring Regulations, because the EICR is a comparison against the current edition, not earlier editions, which means you cannot always vary the codes depending on the age of the electrical installation"?

Still there I think. The tricky bit comes because EICR isn't just a simple complies in every respect (pass), or doesn't comply in at least one respect (fail) - there's a need take a view on how serious each non-conformity is. Knowing how long ago the requirement was introduced is perhaps one handy yardstick for how acceptable its absence might be. If it was generally acceptable yesterday or last year it's probably considred less serious than something that hasn't been acceptable for half a century.

Apparently the first requirement for 30 mA RCD Supplementary Protection in a TN earthed installation was the provision of a 30 mA protected socket for outdoor use in 1981.

Sounds about right - usually achieved with one RCD socket marked 'For Equipment Outdoors' (if it was met at all). The requirement for 30mA RCDs for sockets in general (for indoor equipment, or indeed for bathroom circuits) is much much more recent. Most guidance AFAIK aligns with that - C2 for no 30mA RCD protection for sockets likely to be used for equipment outdoors, C3 in other cases. Likewise C3 for lack of RCD additional protection for bathroom circuits if supplementary bonding is OK, C2 if it isn't.

   - Andy.

The internet is a library of old webpages that have not seen the light of day for many years, thumb through these two from 2002 and 2006, basically they are what this discussion is about in 2022.

Insert emoticon for flogging a dead horse   

I have sort of posted them in reverse order, read the NICEIC page first then the second one.

https://dxu3qlulsm4jd.cloudfront.net/sites/www.voltimum.co.uk/files/fields/attachment_file/gb/others/L/200510136205812143-1920_0.pdf

www2.theiet.org/.../messageview.cfm

That is not correct Zoom, the regulation says "unwanted tripping shall be considered", and a lot of notes. I consider there is no such thing as unwanted tripping, there is always a reason. I assure you that a single RCD provides all the benefits of protection, yet simply SHOULD not randomly trip. If it does you have a problem. Please don't start on the cumulative Earth leakage current thing, you SHOULD (SHOULD is the correct grammar for SHALL in these sentences!) not see that in a domestic.

@ David Stone Read the guidance from the NICEIC I linked to in my previous post from 2002 a full twenty years ago and explain to me you think it is appropriate to not even enter an observation on an EICR for the lack of any RCD protection for sockets at all in a house with a garage in 2022 and state the installation is safe to use until 2032 without advising upgrading?

Sparkingchip said:

Apparently the first requirement for 30 mA RCD Supplementary Protection in a TN earthed installation was the provision of a 30 mA protected socket for outdoor use in 1981.

If that is true don’t you find it rather surprising that some people are still saying that such a socket is still not required forty one years later?

If you are careful to maintain your equipment for use outdoors, and you are careful how you use it, are you really in danger?

I am no more concerned about it than driving a 90 year old car on the roads.

Common sense overrules everything. Do you really want a total loss of power in a house on a winter evening because just one appliance becomes faulty and trips off the one and only supply R.C.D?

Z.

What are your favourite flowers Chris?

Z.

R.C.D.s are life savers. I always advise them. David seems to be a dinosaur in his thinking.

Z.

I remember working as a carpenter on a new housing site presumably early in the 1980’s, it was pouring with rain and a couple of us were sheltering in the garage of one of the houses being built.

The electrician was in the garage knocking a couple of holes in a wall with his lump hammer and Rawlplug tool to fix a double pattress box to it, he then installed a 30 mA single socket SRCD fitting, I asked why he was fitting it and he said they had been pulled up on their NICEIC annual inspection for not fitting a RCD protected socket for outdoor use, so now had to fit a RCD protected socket in all the garages.

This did actually create an issue, back in the 1980’s it was very common for people to have a large chest freezer in the back of their garages and obviously in these new homes they were plugged into the single socket SRCD, however the electricians were fitting active SRCD fittings with no-volt releases in them, which was the correct choice for supplying outdoor equipment such as lawn mowers, but not freezers because the slightest interruption in the power supply would mean the no-volt release in the active SRCD would trip it and it would need to be manually reset.

As a result of this many people lost a freezer full of food and these RCD units gained a reputation for “nuisance tripping” and people started saying that they needed a socket without RCD protection for their freezer, when there wasn’t a problem with the RCD function and the units had actually tripped due to the no-volt release during an interruption to the power supply.

The other obvious issue with the single socket SRCD is that people did not actually use it to mow their lawns, because it had the freezer plugged into it and other sockets were more accessible.

It wasn’t long before the electricians started fitting Memara 2000 consumer units with a two module 30 mA RCBO for the sockets, which was a huge improvement however there was often a single socket built into the cooker control switch which did not have RCD protection, I coded several of these as a C2 whilst undertaking landlords EICRs because the tenants do open the kitchen window and plug in lawn mowers and other outdoor equipment, just like in the diagram in the Part P document.

Like others, I don’t make issues up when preparing EICRs they are quite clearly present, some of us don’t just choose to ignore them.

pretty much my take on things too. i totally disliked the one dedicated rcd skt by front and back or thereabouts for same reason and the fridge freezer and battery charger in garage is a classic example of why a non rcd socket was selected for outside with the lawnmowers etc.

then the flavour of the month became well ok all ground floor sockets.

people looked at me as if I`m daft to suggest upper floors sockets get used for plugging in extension leads to dangle outside. I`d seen that many times..

also the CCU with inbuilt socket non RCD and ditto the socket on that circuit used to dangle an extension lead outside.

If you have a 2 up 2 down sort of domestic with a cellar and a loft then even so you might not expect the loft or cellar skt to be used in preference to any other but would you be happy to guarantee it will not happen?

I took the view many years ago that all sockets should really have RCD protection whether collectively or separately by circuit or by outlet.

And no, I do not think that RCDs are the be all and end all of safety and we should always use any socket etc as if RCD protection is not present but hey-ho folk tend to rely on safety devices by reducing their own safety practices.