- Thread starter BrokenBiker
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brightspark
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i hope u know if your on economy 7 and u havent got nightsorage heaters u pay more fore your day rate electric even though its half price at night
I think your all really lucky seeing some of the pics and comments. We've been jumping through hoops to get our house build hooked up to the mains grid properly in France (we're on a temporary "work" supply now) and they made us go for consuel inspection as a condition.
The consuel inspector spent a hour and half inspecting the install, disassembling the fuse board and wiring closets, measured the height of our fuseboxes, stripped it to check the wire diameters and rating of each part, measured the height above floor of lightswitches and sockets, pulled all our lights out the celing and measured cavity sizes of the void around the spot, measuring the resistance of every earth pin in every socket in the house, megga tester on the earth impedance rod the lot (no pme here). The regs even specify how many telephone sockets you have to have, that you need x satelite capable sockets per house, that you HAVE to have a socket in zone 3 of the bathroom, and that you have to have a air extraction system in your toilets that cant have a off switch (ours is flipped off at the mcb as it makes a noise and consumes power for nothing). Stupid micromanagement of detail.
We failed his first 150e visit because 2 of the sockets had a earth resistance of 2.6 ohms instead of 2 even though our earth resistance was 52ohms and the limit is 100ohms meaning we had 54.6 on that socket from a total allowed 102, and we'd used blue wire in a light switch circuit then resleeved it to black all the way through the conduit with heatshrink that he'd had to cut off with a knife to see the underlying colour and we had to pay 190e to have him come out and retest that we'd changed the entire wire for a black one instead. You can resleeve a blue wire to black, but only if its part of 3 core, if its loose wire in prefilled conduit you have to change it. The worst is we've been working on the project for five years now, and every year they changed all the regs and we had to redo it annually.
Course we have no Part P, now its connected, its do what the hell I like. Time to break out all my home automation devices and install them
The consuel inspector spent a hour and half inspecting the install, disassembling the fuse board and wiring closets, measured the height of our fuseboxes, stripped it to check the wire diameters and rating of each part, measured the height above floor of lightswitches and sockets, pulled all our lights out the celing and measured cavity sizes of the void around the spot, measuring the resistance of every earth pin in every socket in the house, megga tester on the earth impedance rod the lot (no pme here). The regs even specify how many telephone sockets you have to have, that you need x satelite capable sockets per house, that you HAVE to have a socket in zone 3 of the bathroom, and that you have to have a air extraction system in your toilets that cant have a off switch (ours is flipped off at the mcb as it makes a noise and consumes power for nothing). Stupid micromanagement of detail.
We failed his first 150e visit because 2 of the sockets had a earth resistance of 2.6 ohms instead of 2 even though our earth resistance was 52ohms and the limit is 100ohms meaning we had 54.6 on that socket from a total allowed 102, and we'd used blue wire in a light switch circuit then resleeved it to black all the way through the conduit with heatshrink that he'd had to cut off with a knife to see the underlying colour and we had to pay 190e to have him come out and retest that we'd changed the entire wire for a black one instead. You can resleeve a blue wire to black, but only if its part of 3 core, if its loose wire in prefilled conduit you have to change it. The worst is we've been working on the project for five years now, and every year they changed all the regs and we had to redo it annually.
Course we have no Part P, now its connected, its do what the hell I like. Time to break out all my home automation devices and install them
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After reading that, I'll never complain about working to BS7671 again!
BrokenBiker
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- Newport, South Wales
well, I went out, the guy had already had the fuse out. AFAIK the SP came out. I did the job, did the tests signed the cert and gave it to him. he didn't look happy when I told him he would have to ring the SP to be re-connected and have the seals replaced.
I don't care. money in my pocket, I've done nothing wrong and its up to him if he wants to chuck the fuse back in or wait for the SP
I don't care. money in my pocket, I've done nothing wrong and its up to him if he wants to chuck the fuse back in or wait for the SP
- Messages
- 23,236
- Location
- Birmingham
Westfield-builder
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How did you test PFC, RCD's etc. with the fuse out?
I was wondering exactly the same thing !
wheresmejumper
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pretests i presume
Except, the guys came out to fit the final meter yesterday and it didnt fit the approved EDF meter box I had to buy & fit to pass consuel and what is more, because I put the fuse box at exactly the specified by consuel heights, because the 3 phase meter is taller its above the approved height for electrical installs. So they've removed the approved box and just mounted the meter into the closet too high, but stuck a radio transponder on it so nobody has to get a ladder to check it. Its ok for them to ignore their own regs because they dont fit reality, but they charge me 200e to come back out for a contra inspection because one wire had a heatshrink sleeve on it.
BrokenBiker
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- Newport, South Wales
How did you test PFC, RCD's etc. with the fuse out?
the fuse was sat on the kitchen worktop. only took a short while to pop it in, test then take it back out.
customer was in work so knew nothing of it.
I have no doubt that he simply put it back in and went on with his day. I doubt his SP know anything about the re-wire, but like I said, I have done my job, I have my money and I have moved on
