Criteria for the Regulation of Electrical Contractors

Hoagy

Just in case anybody has missed this, the CER has a consultation document on its website. This will have major implications for all contractors.

You can download the separate parts from this link:

http://www.cer.ie/en/consultations.aspx?type=electricity&article=abaa9644-2a61-4374-940a-0b390d1a2964

Make sure you have plenty of paper if you intend to print them out.
Comments are due by 6th Feb next.
Gives us something to read over Christmas.

fishdog

In theory this is great. In practice I don’t think that it will make any difference. Some electrical ignore any regulations that do not suit them and know that nothing will be done about it.

I was an electrical contractor for a few years and I did things by the book. This I found made me uncompetitive. By breaking the rules you could do the job much quicker and spend a lot less on materials.

For example, I bought a new house 2 years ago. I noticed that the electrical contractor was breaking rules left, right and centre. I could see this by looking at other houses in the estate as they were being wired.

I informed RECI of this BEFORE my house was first fixed. I asked them to do a “random inspection” of their contractor and get him to do things properly.
They said that there was nothing they could do about my wiring as it had not been started yet.

As my house was being first fixed I politely talked to the sparks, explained that I was an electrician and asked that he do a few things for me that would make my house comply with the regulations. I even offered to pay him cash for this service. He told me that he “could not be bothered” and to f… off!

When my house was complete I called in the RECI inspector (that I had talked to before) and explained that I had found the following:

1) No completion cert issued. I still have not received it!
2) Only 2 socket circuits for the whole house. I took it that by the regulations a kitchen alone must have 2. (This is a 4 bed 1400 square foot house)
3) The 2 socket circuits are ring, but the MCBs are 20A, they should be 32A
4) The kitchen sink was not bonded.
5) The cooker (oven) was wired in 1.5 flex from a junction box on the wall, despite being protected by a 32A MCB.
6) Live exposed terminals in the attic.
7) Cabling in the attic is run “as the crow flies”, ie not kept to the sides.
8) Earth cables twisted together in boxes, not connected in terminals.
9) Every light switch, socket etc. at a different height. I know that this is not breaking any regulation, but it is very unprofessional.

The response from RECI:

1) Give them a bit more time.
2) This is OK because both circuits are ring!
3) Agreed with me on this and made him change theMCB
4) Agreed with me, made him do this.

DublinDilbert

fishdog wrote: »

2) Only 2 socket circuits for the whole house. I took it that by the regulations a kitchen alone must have 2. (This is a 4 bed 1400 square foot house)

That's mad... can't even imagine it saves much time / money, just lazyness... the terrible thing here is that they could just put one socket in a house in Ireland, and as long as that 1 socket is wired correctly it will pass... in other countries (eg US/Canada) you have to have a socket every x feet in each room...

As for just winding the earth wires together, thats just stupid / lazy.

fishdog

As well as that not one immersion in the estate works! The way the boiler was wired if the room stat got to its set point it would not be possible to heat domestic hot water! I could go on and on, but the bottom line is they do what they want and there is nothing that can be done to make them comply with the regulations. That is one of the main reasons I got out of contracting.