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Imposed code 2

lyledunn

A contractor gave a code 3 to an outside socket located on the exterior wooden balcony of a first floor restaurant which was only used for Xmas tree. Reason no additional protection. He was subsequently subject to NICEIC assessment the outcome of which required him to re-visit his client, withdraw the satisfactory report and amend it with a code 2 thereby resulting in the report having unsatisfactory designation. To add insult to injury, he was required to confirm he had carried out that instruction by writing to NICEIC head office. This he obediently did. I am afraid I may have taken a more belligerent stance!

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  • HI Lyle

    I hope you are well and the AM2E bit is going well.

    When you say you'd have taken a more beligerent stance, you'd not have agreed with the NICEIC?

    I'd certainly not have agreed with them either...........I'd have argued my corner a bit more. I'd accept though that this could well be a contentious issue being only on the 1st floor, but that's no more dangerous than any socket on the first floor indoors. So going back to the 16th (maybe the 17th edition too?) - not that long ago anyway........

    Surely the original intention - the spirit behind the regulation that required the DSSO nearest the outside door needed additional protection - was to protect the user when they are in contact with the ground outside, which may have a different potential to the usual earth fault path and hence additional protection was required. Outside the equipotential zone, outside the faradays cage type thing. I'm fairly aware of the limitations involved in those descriptions. 

    A socket on a balcony on any floor above the ground, is - id suggest - still with in the confines of the property, still inside the zone, there's no other earth to choose from other than the intended earth fault path or metalwork associated with the same building, and that balcony metalwork or whatever the case might be, is probably not providing a fault path anyway unless carried out in the 15th edition when bonding was done all over the show.......

    So in modern times, sure an RCD is required, but I'd not argue so hard for this case 10 years ago.............I wonder if the NICEIC would have accepted such an argument 10 years ago the way they clearly have not now? Assuming the argument was along these lines of course.........

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  • HI Lyle

    I hope you are well and the AM2E bit is going well.

    When you say you'd have taken a more beligerent stance, you'd not have agreed with the NICEIC?

    I'd certainly not have agreed with them either...........I'd have argued my corner a bit more. I'd accept though that this could well be a contentious issue being only on the 1st floor, but that's no more dangerous than any socket on the first floor indoors. So going back to the 16th (maybe the 17th edition too?) - not that long ago anyway........

    Surely the original intention - the spirit behind the regulation that required the DSSO nearest the outside door needed additional protection - was to protect the user when they are in contact with the ground outside, which may have a different potential to the usual earth fault path and hence additional protection was required. Outside the equipotential zone, outside the faradays cage type thing. I'm fairly aware of the limitations involved in those descriptions. 

    A socket on a balcony on any floor above the ground, is - id suggest - still with in the confines of the property, still inside the zone, there's no other earth to choose from other than the intended earth fault path or metalwork associated with the same building, and that balcony metalwork or whatever the case might be, is probably not providing a fault path anyway unless carried out in the 15th edition when bonding was done all over the show.......

    So in modern times, sure an RCD is required, but I'd not argue so hard for this case 10 years ago.............I wonder if the NICEIC would have accepted such an argument 10 years ago the way they clearly have not now? Assuming the argument was along these lines of course.........

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