Just had a go at wiring me new shed.

[Lewis_RX8]

This statement reminded me of my working life in the past. Made me fell stressed just thinking about it!

and proof of competence has become so diluted as its a money making scheme is it really worth asking.

All those courses folk do to prove competency sure puts plenty money in the training companies a lot of times out the workers pocket unfortunately not even the company .

 

[Dave-sparks]

Maybe we should ask for proof of competance, hahahahah. good luck with that eh...

For proof of competence I accept personal recommendations from people I trust or the evidence of my own eyes.

I'm not a fan of all these schemes, badges etc that you can collect if you hand over enough cash and show an inspector a couple of good jobs each year.

 

[mike os]

For proof of competence I accept personal recommendations from people I trust or the evidence of my own eyes.

I'm not a fan of all these schemes, badges etc that you can collect if you hand over enough cash and show an inspector a couple of good jobs each year.

You mean the trade tax?

 

[Dave-sparks]

You mean the trade tax?

It's a joke, we've even got one in the fireworks display industry which is a complete and utter joke.

 

[mike os]

It's a joke, we've even got one in the fireworks display industry which is a complete and utter joke.

I refused to play, never had a cscs or anything that I had to pay just to do my job. Never been out of work because of it, but I also never work on big sites or the like … I have too much pride in my work to tolerate their standards and bull

 

[MetalMonkey]

Maybe we should ask for proof of competance, hahahahah. good luck with that eh...

Well of course, that is the way it used to be - you were either competent or you weren't, and largely lived or died (hopefully metaphorically) by the reputation of your work which was your proof.
Now we have a raft of regulation and accreditation - so we have lots of qualified professionals, which of course doesn't necessarily equate to competency, just proof they have the paperwork and paid their dues.

 

[Dave-sparks]

I refused to play, never had a cscs or anything that I had to pay just to do my job. Never been out of work because of it, but I also never work on big sites or the like … I have too much pride in my work to tolerate their standards and bull

I don't have cscs or any of that stuff, the only one I have is NICEIC as a large customer of ours stipulate it.

I don't set foot near building sites either, and definately don't touch the domestic race to the bottom. I stick to 'specialist' (it's really not that special) work.

 

[keithski122]

As regards soldered joints.
Not for mains but certainly for boats and cars soldered joints are far more reliable.
Mate of mine was an auto electrician for years. Used a big heavy copper iron over a gas flame for hefty joints. Used to work on all sorts such as forklifts and machinery as well.
Now works as lead electrician in an Australian Diamond mine. Still using soldered joints on massive earth movers and remotely operated drilling machines. Still swears by soldered joints!

I have found though that where there is movement on a cable a soldered joint can break. There is an argument that the cables should never move but obviously not always possible. Then a braided cable with crimp can be better.

Soldered joints aren't used on factory cars just for the reasons you stated, breaking at the end of the soldered section.Pretty sure you won't find any soldered joints from factory. In some circles even soldering is frowned upon in the aftermarket car world with a decent crimp being better, (not your red/blue crimps and a £4 set of crimping pliers).

 

[MCKDAVID]

Well of course, that is the way it used to be - you were either competent or you weren't, and largely lived or died (hopefully metaphorically) by the reputation of your work which was your proof.
Now we have a raft of regulation and accreditation - so we have lots of paper qualified professionals, a lot of which have little or no practical experience which isn't necessary applicable, which of course doesn't necessarily equate to competency, just proof they have the paperwork and paid their dues.

fixed that for you .... sadly...

 

[Kayos]

I had the problem of people not being up to date with regulations when I put my central heating system in 35 years ago and still going strong. I got the gas people in just to check the gas boiler and first he said I couldn’t use copper. ( it was allowed at that point) then he said I had to have vents of a certain size in the doors of the boiler cupboard. (I vented through the floor as the house is on 2ft piers) then he said I wasn’t allowed to install gas anyway as I wasn’t Corgi, as it was at that time, registered. The regs said Corgi registered or competent. I considered I was competent. He tested at the meter and said I had a leak, which I didn’t. He wasn’t letting his manometer settle long enough. More than one way to skin a cat sometimes and still have a satisfactory result.

The gas safe registered vs self certified competence was tested in court a little while ago

Guess what, it turns out the legal definition of a competent person won, the person who said they could prove they were competent despite not having the relevant training, qualifications or experience didn't win

Well in a way he did, got a free roof over his head and 3 meals a day, paid for by the tax payer

 

[Screwdriver]

I skim read the whole thing but forgive me if I missed anything already said.

Looks like a neat and tidy job which is a good sign someone has taken sufficient care and implies a further amount of care in "getting it done right".

I recommend getting a mate and/or qualified sparky to give it a good once over. This is especially true for your earth bonding requirements/recommendations since even for a shed, that may affect the earthing arrangement at the house.

A solder joint is not a mechanical connection. Properly crimped connections form a cold weld, solder is good for reducing oxidation/corrosion at the join and improving conductivity. Solder also helps keep the mechanical join (wrap or crimp etc.) solid but at the risk of causing multistrand wires to become inflexible due to wicking (as a couple of people have already said). Always use the least amount of solder possible.

 

[Ubique]

Soldered joints aren't used on factory cars just for the reasons you stated, breaking at the end of the soldered section.Pretty sure you won't find any soldered joints from factory. In some circles even soldering is frowned upon in the aftermarket car world with a decent crimp being better, (not your red/blue crimps and a £4 set of crimping pliers).

Soldered joints are also verboten for repairs to vehicle wiring, everything has to be crimped. The reason is that the quality of soldering is variable, crimps (with the correct tooling used) are of repeatable quality. The other reason soldering isn't used is vibration induced fractures, particularly in the engine bay.
For fixed wiring, sparkies used to be taught soldered running joints. Personally, I don't see the problem in fixed wiring where there is no likelihood of vibration but my last work as a sparky was under 16th edn. regs. and I hadn't used a soldered joint since 15th edn. was extant.

 

[sako243]

I was going to say that soldered vs. crimped is about repeatability, speed and skill required but @Ubique beat me to it. Soldering a good joint takes a reasonable amount of skill vs. letting a machine do the job for you (a crimp tool is still a machine).

Just like riveting vs. welding one requires a lot more skill than the other but one done right is far superior to the other (usually).

 

[keithski122]

Soldered joints are also verboten for repairs to vehicle wiring, everything has to be crimped. The reason is that the quality of soldering is variable, crimps (with the correct tooling used) are of repeatable quality. The other reason soldering isn't used is vibration induced fractures, particularly in the engine bay.

I used to fit car alarms back in the day when it came under thatcham regulations, they used to like soldered joints.

 

[Onoff]

It's a joke, we've even got one in the fireworks display industry which is a complete and utter joke.

Someone needs a rocket under their ar5e...

 

[Ubique]

I used to fit car alarms back in the day when it came under thatcham regulations, they used to like soldered joints.

A lot of manufacturers stipulate no repairs to SRS systems (airbags, pretensioners, impact sensors etc.), those that do allow it either insist on overlay looms or, bizarrely, soldered joints. Most alarm or tracker installs are breaking in to existing wiring where soldering makes sense - especially if it's in the cabin. Cutting and tee-ing using splices isn't great as one side of the splice will be under-crimped and there generally isn't enough slack in the loom to allow space to work properly with crimping pliers. Thatcham generally used electrical engineers to spec their stuff, not automotive engineers to validate it - and it was generally only specced for the warranty life of the vehicle.

On a side note, when I came back to UK I worked on a project for Skanska, it was less onerous to get a managers CSCS card (and appropriate to my role) but it didn't stop me getting involved with the commissioning & testing, I could have done some of the installation if we were pushed - thankfully for all involved, we weren't.

ETA - Coincidentally I had an engine bay wiring repair to do yesterday, we have to take photo's for warranty validation. Essentially, the harness wasn't clipped up at build and had been chafing on the gearbox casing below the mounting point. The crimps are the adhesive heatshrink covered type.

 

[Alan Reynolds]

I skim read the whole thing but forgive me if I missed anything already said.

Looks like a neat and tidy job which is a good sign someone has taken sufficient care and implies a further amount of care in "getting it done right".

I recommend getting a mate and/or qualified sparky to give it a good once over. This is especially true for your earth bonding requirements/recommendations since even for a shed, that may affect the earthing arrangement at the house.

A solder joint is not a mechanical connection. Properly crimped connections form a cold weld, solder is good for reducing oxidation/corrosion at the join and improving conductivity. Solder also helps keep the mechanical join (wrap or crimp etc.) solid but at the risk of causing multistrand wires to become inflexible due to wicking (as a couple of people have already said). Always use the least amount of solder possible.

I am changing the soldered earth tags to the swa nuts with crimped rings. Just to keep the peace. My recent experience of crimped tags has not been good. There’s a lot of Chinesium products available that look good but the metal is too soft and allows the wire to pull out of the crimp or causes a high resistance. I used 6 on one wire on a New Hudson moped I’m restoring for someone and all of them failed a pull test. I soldered the wires eventually. My neighbour’s son is a qualified sparks, so I’ll get him to give it a once over but I have had to help him out on fault finding in the past so the jury is out on the value of a piece of paper

 

[Alan Reynolds]

The gas safe registered vs self certified competence was tested in court a little while ago

Guess what, it turns out the legal definition of a competent person won, the person who said they could prove they were competent despite not having the relevant training, qualifications or experience didn't win

Well in a way he did, got a free roof over his head and 3 meals a day, paid for by the tax payer

The change from Corgi to Gas Safe removed the ‘competent’ aspect of diy. My gas safe friend tested my boiler outlet recently and couldn’t believe how good the readings were.

 

[Kayos]

The change from Corgi to Gas Safe removed the ‘competent’ aspect of diy. My gas safe friend tested my boiler outlet recently and couldn’t believe how good the readings were.

No it didn't

Please, please stop posting nonsense

Do what you like in your own house, but please don't post it as fact on here

Ive tested many, many boilers, very few have anything other than excellent readings, unless they are knackard

 

[Parm]

Anyone that isn’t Gas Safe is an unregistered gas engineer, they must not work on gas

our website is full of prosecutions involving unregistered gas workers