Are you a real electrician or just a domestic one?

With the new domestic electrician grade ECS card now available and achievable through the normal apprenticeship route or via the experienced worker option, it may be a question that might be asked by some enthusiastic site gate keeper.

From my experience as an erstwhile contractor and as a part-time tutor in the electrical installation sector (now in year 31), I often found the guys coming from the general domestic side as being reasonably well switched on, particularly on the regulatory front. But confined to the domestic sector, operative experience in three-phase installations and wiring systems such as steel conduit is likely to be absent or minimal at best. Way back when I was a general electrical contractor, I used the guys as was appropriate, Sean was as neat and tidy as they come and speedy with it, but his abilities were twin and earth, sockets, switches and beautifully dressed consumer units. Kevin, on the other hand, was the motor man, any call we got about motors, Kevin was the man to send. I had another 18 chaps of various capabilities and skills to allocate as efficiently as possible to our wide base of clients and job-types. 

However, whilst it wasn't common, when needs must, Sean and Kevin (and guys like them with different skill sets) could end up on the same job for long periods. Had some gate keeper or competence bean counter prevented me from using Sean's skills on a commercial or industrial job, it would have have de-railed my ability to run an efficient business. 

Maybe it would be better to have an accreditation like a NVQ L3 to acknowledge competence in a basic skill set rather than to have two separate camps on the installation side. Interestingly, the domestic qualification is, in my opinion, more stretching.

Parents
  • This is an interesting debate.  In my opinion and ONLY my opinion the answer is it depends.


    Consider
    When did the Electrician do their apprenticeship, 70s, 80, 90s, 00s, 2010s and 2020s ?

    I have met many a person who says they are an electrician that would probably fail the NOW New entry criteria.  Their work for the area is very good but maybe they have been specialised in that area for so long that they may not really need the other parts.  Eg a a PCL/controls engineer may neither do domestic or commercial so may not need to know the current height for a double power socket.  Some of these people will hold a ECS gold card and some may not.

    I have also met people over the years that carry a gold card who say they do Domestic/Commercial and industrial but there work is not very good and sometimes will need to be rectified or ripped out and done again.  Sometimes this is due to the person and sometimes this is due to the fact that they are a sub-contractor and they are following a Design/Plan which is not well Designed or Planned.  Eg an FP600 doing several ninety degreed bends in the space of 2 meters or less.

    There are also people in the industry which trained in other country and again some are great and some not so great.

    Over the years I have spoken to cable engineers in Data Centres who argue that they do not need to comply to BS7671 as they are only dealing with cat3, 5, 6 and 7.  At best they state the cable may carry PoE (Power Over Ethernt) I ask then to consider things like premature colapse in the event of fire.

    Future development ideas
    In my opinion and ONLY my opinion things may in time need a re-think.  Then term Electrician is so varied that maybe it needs to be split further.  Maybe it starts with a based academic study and then a practicable element and then people and choose to specialise into Domestic or Industrial or Commercial.  At the moment it seems that 100Amp or less is Domestic and the rest is commercial/industrial.  This will get more blurred or vague as time goes on.  Eg Solar PV is using DC.  Now some PV panels will drop to 1 volt until they are synced with an inverter some will produce a few hundred volts of DC.  This them means that some domestic PV roofs are only only presenting maybe 10 to 15 volts DC and some maybe producing 100s or thousand of volts.  Again long term this I think needs to a clearly labelled on the cables and the inverter, not so much for the installer but for the person who follows.  Eg it could be someone doing a Proper EICR on the proper rather than one who fills the form with LIM or does it from the van outside.

    There also needs to be more thought about how an adult can join the Electrical industry, lets say someone in there 30 or 40 or 50s.  Some people may want a career change.  These people may already have some of the skills required and they may also have some of the certificates but there is no simple way to joing the dots and get them the ECS gold card and CPS approval.  I do think that CPS need a separate team to deal with cases where the tick box method excludes very viabale candidates.  Maybe some kind of skills and knowledge assesment and then an action plan with a local college or training provider and onsite work experience to help get them over the line when they are ready and capable to do so.  One of the biggest hurdles for an adult learner or change of career person in the salary they can expect while they are in this transition period which could take upto 3 years. 

Reply
  • This is an interesting debate.  In my opinion and ONLY my opinion the answer is it depends.


    Consider
    When did the Electrician do their apprenticeship, 70s, 80, 90s, 00s, 2010s and 2020s ?

    I have met many a person who says they are an electrician that would probably fail the NOW New entry criteria.  Their work for the area is very good but maybe they have been specialised in that area for so long that they may not really need the other parts.  Eg a a PCL/controls engineer may neither do domestic or commercial so may not need to know the current height for a double power socket.  Some of these people will hold a ECS gold card and some may not.

    I have also met people over the years that carry a gold card who say they do Domestic/Commercial and industrial but there work is not very good and sometimes will need to be rectified or ripped out and done again.  Sometimes this is due to the person and sometimes this is due to the fact that they are a sub-contractor and they are following a Design/Plan which is not well Designed or Planned.  Eg an FP600 doing several ninety degreed bends in the space of 2 meters or less.

    There are also people in the industry which trained in other country and again some are great and some not so great.

    Over the years I have spoken to cable engineers in Data Centres who argue that they do not need to comply to BS7671 as they are only dealing with cat3, 5, 6 and 7.  At best they state the cable may carry PoE (Power Over Ethernt) I ask then to consider things like premature colapse in the event of fire.

    Future development ideas
    In my opinion and ONLY my opinion things may in time need a re-think.  Then term Electrician is so varied that maybe it needs to be split further.  Maybe it starts with a based academic study and then a practicable element and then people and choose to specialise into Domestic or Industrial or Commercial.  At the moment it seems that 100Amp or less is Domestic and the rest is commercial/industrial.  This will get more blurred or vague as time goes on.  Eg Solar PV is using DC.  Now some PV panels will drop to 1 volt until they are synced with an inverter some will produce a few hundred volts of DC.  This them means that some domestic PV roofs are only only presenting maybe 10 to 15 volts DC and some maybe producing 100s or thousand of volts.  Again long term this I think needs to a clearly labelled on the cables and the inverter, not so much for the installer but for the person who follows.  Eg it could be someone doing a Proper EICR on the proper rather than one who fills the form with LIM or does it from the van outside.

    There also needs to be more thought about how an adult can join the Electrical industry, lets say someone in there 30 or 40 or 50s.  Some people may want a career change.  These people may already have some of the skills required and they may also have some of the certificates but there is no simple way to joing the dots and get them the ECS gold card and CPS approval.  I do think that CPS need a separate team to deal with cases where the tick box method excludes very viabale candidates.  Maybe some kind of skills and knowledge assesment and then an action plan with a local college or training provider and onsite work experience to help get them over the line when they are ready and capable to do so.  One of the biggest hurdles for an adult learner or change of career person in the salary they can expect while they are in this transition period which could take upto 3 years. 

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