DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Bad ‘Electricians’
Regulations broken: BS7671:2008 Reg. 421.7; 134.2.1; 610.6; 631.1; 633.2; 134.1.1; 416.2.2; 633.2; 314.4; 514.8.1; 514.14.1; 132.13; 514.9; 432.1; p363; 433.1

This job seemed simple enough. A mixed bag of jobs so the client could skim and redecorate their front lounge. They wanted a water stop tap moved, a radiator relocated and an electric fire fitted to the old chimney breast. We arrived on the day with the intention of adding a fused spur to the double socket located on the side of the chimney breast.  Unfortunately, the double socket was fed by a single cable meaning that it wasn’t part of a ring main and was already a spur. We removed three more double sockets and discovered that they too were spurs! As I checked three more sockets located on the opposite wall to the lounge they too were spurs. NO RING MAIN!

At that point we also opened up the consumer unit to discover that the circuit feeding spur circuit was 32 amp. A radial being fed with a 2.5mm cable should be fused by a 20amp breaker. The 32 amp breaker also had two live (line) wires going in to it. This is exactly why a REAL electrician has test equipment and knowledge of circuits. The appearance of two cables tricks lay people into thinking that the circuit must be a ring. Electricians trust their meter reading. So when I did an end-to-end measurement on the live (line) cable I got a reading of 0.0 ohms. That means that one end of the cable did not connect to the other end of the cable such as it would in a ring circuit. If it was a ring we would expect to get a reading in this property of about 0.30 ohms or thereabouts. We have circuit issues here!

At that point we have to isolate the circuit and disconnect all cables so we can trace which one goes to where. To make a long two hour story short it was hooked as follows: One line from consumer unit was connected to one double socket near front of lounge. The other line cable from the consumer unit ran directly to a junction box under the floor which then fed the double socket on the side of the chimney breast and then continued to feed another double socket on the other side of the lounge. That double socket then fed two more double sockets located in the new kitchen extension and the other to a hallway double socket. We also found another double socket near to the consumer unit which was fed from yet another junction box from the cable that was feeding the hallway spur mentioned above. What a mess!

The solution to this was real easy. Start again. We ran new cable from the consumer unit and picked up all sockets extending back to the consumer unit. We added our spur for the electric fire and added the other double sockets as radials. After testing our cables and checking our circuit for correct operation we put everything back together and got on with the plumbing. Job done but not in an hour as planned but in six hours because the previous moron cut corners due to either lack of knowledge, laziness or both.

The previous electrician was hired to wire up an extension being added to the property. He had to upgrade the consumer unit and did leave a certificate for the work he did. Unfortunately he didn’t check any of the cables he moved in the mistaken thought that they weren’t his responsibility. He therefore connected dangerous circuits up to the new consumer unit! He also added at least two and possibly three of the radial circuits we had to fix meaning that he didn’t check the existing ring main for continuity. Oh there was one more thing as well. The cooker circuit, which WAS installed by the same electrician did not have the earth connected at the consumer unit as the screw connector was never tightened!

So I’ll say it again. Hire a real electrician who has knowledge and the tools to not only undertake new work but also fix up poorly installed work like that described above. If the original circuits in this home had been tested like they should have then all of these faults would have shown up for him just like they did for us.

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