DANGER OF THE WEEK AWARD
Bad ‘Plumbing’
Regulations broken: BS7671:2008

We were at this property a month or so ago to repair some dangerous electrical work left over by a central heating engineer. He left some live and uninsulated wires in a wall and told the homeowners it was safe to cut them out. It wasn’t safe and fortunately they urned the power off first. We came back this time to look at running an outside cable to their new shed. They moved the washing machine aside so we could see the wall behind. Ooops! Band plumbing.

So it would seem that with a large space in which to place the hot and cold water feed the obvious choice to this idiot was directly above the existing electrical socket! This type of crappy workmanship is wearing thin with me. With all of the self certified workers running around and no formal inspections EVER taking place on small jobs it seems to be getting worse.

It all boils down to this. If your plumber or electrical doesn’t have any common sense lend them some of yours. In the end it’s your house and not theirs. And in the end it’s your electrics that are going to short out and get damaged when the washer hose leaks not theirs. As well, tell contractors what you want. You don’t have to be snotty to get them to do what you want. If it’s a reasonable request such as ‘please could you move the cold water feed away from the socket’ it’s reasonable to think that they’ll do it.

A small tip to get this type of small job done correctly is one I use when working in your homes. I ask the home owners to mark the spot where they want to place sockets, light switches, lights, etc. I then take pictures of those spots and file them away. Every now and then I use them for reference purposes such as the homeowner that says ‘I’m sure I asked for the living room light to be placed over there!’ I can show them that they actually asked, and marked the spot, over here. My point is that it works for you too. Mark the spot where you want the pipe, socket, switch, etc. Providing it’s safe to do so (building regulations override personal taste) then you’ll get what you want. Just remember to mark it, show the contractor, take pictures as you discuss the location and keep a copy of those pictures until the job is completed.

In this case we’ll be moving the socket while on site to sort out the shed electrics in a couple of weeks. Incidentally the socket was already damp enough that the screws could not be removed and we’ll have to break the fixture to get it off of .the wall

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