How far is the DIY'er allowed to go in your country,with respect to electrical work?.
Over here in 1992, the then Government, reworked the Electricty Regulations, to allow homeowners to do their own electrical
work, provided that a Registered Person tested and connected the installed work.
As a Fire-Fighter, I have put a number of these houses out, they were just hooked up,
no registered person involved.
Your input please?.

As far as Austria is concerned, a DIYer is allowed to put in conduit and pull the wires and boxes or install cable. An electrician has to make all connections and stuff. That's what we did when we relocated our meter. In theory, a DIYer would also be allowed to do all his wiring if he has it checked by a licensed electrician WHO HAS FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WORK DONE! So I doubt there's any sparky who'd do that.

You've probably got this point already by now , but in England a DIYer is legally allowed to do any wiring he likes, including a total rewire if he so wishes.

the US has a wide range of bureacracy here, there are some stringent states, as well as those where anything goes.

Sweden: See Austria. You are allowed to replace switches, sockets and the like. The electricians union of course claim that only electricians should do this, at $50/h

Having said this, D-I-Y work is common and there is a shortage of electricians. This means that much small scale commercial wiring is done by laymen. (Connecting power for alarm systems, emergency lights and other add-ons to old buildings. I've seen really scary "sparky-killers" that have looked like neat wiring.)

Electricians consider us engineers to be the worst D-I-Y'ers, and rightly so. (A friend had wired up a fuse box outdoors (!) with old reused single insulated wires tied to nails on the wall (!). He used the fuses as light switches...)

Regards,
The criminal

Here a DIYer can do anything, bbut it has to be inspected by a independant inspection firm before the PoCo branches it. The same applies (about the inspection) for qualified electricians.

Too bloody far for my liking!
Go down to the electrical wholesalers on a Saturday morning & you find Mr (or Mrs) DIY.
Mr DIY: "I want some wire!"
E.W.: "What size?"
Mr DIY: "I don't know, it's for wiring a shower"
E.W.: "You'll want 6 or 10mm then, what's the loading of the shower......etc.

I've witnessed the above on several occasions. Then they go home & wire a nice little death trap for their family & future unsuspecting homebuyers.

I'm sure you will all be surprised to learn that I don't approve of DIY electrical work!

There is talk of requiring all electrical installations that need a Building Warrant Electrical Completion Certificate to be carried out by a "competent enterprise".
However this is a couple of years away & will only stop DIY work on new installations & alterations where Building Warrant is required.
I think this is a step in the right direction (if it happens), but I would like to see DIY wiring limited to replacing broken accessories only.
I would also like to see all electricians compulsorily licensed.
(Steps down from soap box.)

David,
I have seen the senario at the wholesaler,
they stand there, in droves, all demanding what they asked for, even if it does not exist, while you are standing in line to get a single Earth rod, I happened to murmur
"Hurry up!" and wow, the sneers and filthy looks.
One woman was told that she was not allowed to install an RCD into her own s/board, there was an explosion, I can tell you.
Some people have no idea, eh?.

David! I have a slightly different suggestion. Anyone who wishes to do any work except replacing accessories is required to have a limited license. A theory exam and a practical test should be enough. This license is limited to unpaid residential work. For paid work or work in commercial environments it will only be good for minor work on existing circuits. (Lot's of installers just need some power for their system, not a whole new circuit.)

Rest of work is reserved for real Electricans.

David UK said:

"I would like to see DIY wiring limited to replacing broken accessories only."
--

I'm a DIY guy and I fully agree with you.

I believe all connections to the fuse box should be made by a licenced electrician, especially when you live in an apartment where you can't easily shut off power to your own fuse box.

In that case you certainly need someone who is familiar with working with live electricity and knows what they're doing.

However, I've noticed even some simple (to me) tasks such as replacing a cracked socket or a burned out switch are beyond the scope of a lot of people.

These are the same folks who shove the fiberglass insulation from the fixture "rose" up into the wall box, wire them in with pig-tail leads made out of .75mm "lamp cord" (disintegrates in the heat generated by the bulb enclosed in the fixture) and use TWO 100-watt bulbs in a fixture rated for two 60-watt bulbs max; leaving me with crumbling cables I now have to rip out of the ceiling and replace!!!

I've encountered these problems in the last two flats I've lived in. It's scary, to say the least.

Frankly, if you don't know how to replace, or install a plug on an appliance or toss out the entire lamp just because the bulb socket has worn out, you certainly have no busines messing with the wires in the wall!!!

>especially when you live in an apartment where you can't easily shut off power to your own fuse box.

That's why in Austria we always have main fuses ahead of the meter, conveniently accessible (usually in the stairway) but outside the tenant's panel. So it's possible to completely cut power to the panel.

Hi Guys,
Sven, added an important note here, he may do DIY work, but at least he is sure of what he is allowed to legally do.
The real problem is the first-time DIYer, who thinks that they can do the whole damn lot, they know nothing about safety practices, and are normally the roughest people.

>The real problem is the first-time DIYer,
>who thinks that they can do the whole damn
>lot, they know nothing about safety
>practices, and are normally the roughest
>people.

The real danger are the people that just doesn't care or even like to make the wiring as dangerous as possible. I spent a summer behind the counter in an electrics store and met a number of these people. They always want the cheapest of everything, no matter the quality or suitability. I sold one guy an unusually long length of ungrounded zip cord. When asked what he was going to use it for, he told me that it was for wiring his outdoor lights.

Me: "But, this cable must not be used for installations, let alone outdoors!"

Guy: "Haha! Then you should see the rest of the wiring I've done!"

I'm 100% sure I don't want to see it...

This stupidity is not limited to men. There are a number of females with the same attitude, although fewer. One lady showed up with an iron with a cord that had caught fire in four (!) places. She refused to replace the cord, she just needed a temporary "fix" of it. (In addition to three that were already there.) Need I add that the plug was smashed, exposing live parts?

A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing!
That is why I want to see DIY limited to replacement of damaged accessories.
DIYers do not have appropriate test equipment, let alone the knowledge to use it or interpret results.
As we all know, with electricity everything can appear OK but you could have no adequate earthing or have reverse polarity. Without the appropriate testing kit, how can you be sure?
In all the years I have worked in this trade I have yet to see a DIY job without defects, one day I will post some photos to back this up.

Too many have no real idea what they're doing at all.

David, the folks buying cables down at B&Q or HomeBase on a Saturday morning sounds very familiar. I've mentioned this in another thread before, but one concern of mine over this point is the way these places put labels on the racks which indicate the current rating -- Always the absolute maximum for "clipped direct," never a word about derating for other situations.

Permitting only qualified people to carry out work sounds very good from the safety angle, but I'm not sure we should go down that road.

True, some people are so stupid that they should never even be allowed to change a fuse, but I'm not at all happy about restricting people's right to carry out work on their own home if they so wish.

That aside, I don't see how it could be effectively enforced. How is anyone going to know that somebody has added unauthorized wiring to his house?

Restricting sales of cable and fittings to licensed people would be of limited effectiveness. If somebody can't get the proper cable, he'll probably just use flex instead.

This is exactly what has happened in Sweden. We have gone down the road David wants and it didn't work out too well. People aren't prepared to pay those £30 per hour for an electrican and use the flex cord instead.

If you look back through the archives in the general discussion area, you'll see that this subject also crops up regularly in America, where rules vary tremendously not only from state to state, but sometimes from county to county and city to city.

I don't think there is a simple answer. Ultimately, people have to take some responsibility for their own actions and recognize when they are out of the depth and need to call professional help. Just how we get them to do the latter is another problem with no easy solution.....

Paul, that's a very good point you brought up about the availability of cable, I've seen I don't know have many installations done with Flex,by DIY people.
It seems to be a mentality, of what ever you can get(to do the job), will do.
And the regulators haven't really helped either, they send out all these Codes of Practice and so forth, but, nowhere have I ever seen a New Zealand guide to Wiring, since the new Regulations allowed Homeowners to do thier own wiring, so how the Hell are they supposed to know?.
:mad

Good point Trumpy. The D-I-Y stores are full of cables, switches, sockets, breakers and you-name-it. But to the best of my knowledge, there is no how-to-guide in Swedish. There are books for the electrican's education, but not available to the general public.

"A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" In my humble opinion, people should not be allowed to buy materials unless they have a license. This of course would only work if there is a system with limited licenses, possible to obtain for D-I-Y'ers. A license would of course be required to carry out any electrical work.

Our present solution with licenses impossible to obtain unless you plan a career as an electrican (two or so years working as an apprentice under an electrician) is impossible to enforce.

Adding to the problem is that in days of old people had cars to play with. Now that you can't work on cars anymore, people turn to computers or home improvement instead. And the most technical part of home improvment is wiring...

There is no shortage of "How To" books in Britain. Library shelves and book stores are filled with them, including many electrical ones.

I've often borrowed the latter from my local library to see what advice they offer, and I've found that the advice varies from quite good to downright misleading. The ones which annoy me the most are those which are written with the assumption that somebody is starting with a modern house which was wired using the methods predominating in the last 20 years or so. They often omit any reference to earlier methods, and I would have thought that these are the houses most likely to be "attacked" by the DIYer.

On the limited license issue, I'm still not sure that it would work. It might sound like to a good way to ensure that the person doing work on his house has at least some basic knowledge, but most people will just ignore it anyway. It is illegal to install ones own gas pipework in a house in the U.K., but that doesn't stop people from doing it.

I can see a limited license scheme just becoming another layer of cumbersome bureaucracy that ends up costing thousands without really achieving anything. We have more than enough of those schemes already.

Thanks to all who have replied to this topic.
But I think that there is one underpinning idea here, that I think that we may have overlooked.
If a DIYer, wanted to do some work in their place, would it not be pertinent, for them to contact a Qualified Electrician, before the work was undertaken, to find out cable sizes for length of run(V. Drop), regulatory requirements, etc.
Let's be realistic here, us people in the Electrical trades are not monsters, we are not going to bite some persons head off for enquiring about a proposed electrical job?.
I would imagine that most, if not all of the people involved with ECN, would greet these people with a smile and advise them accordingly, rather than go in and do a fix-up job later.
Just a small side-line here, all of the books about Electrical Wiring in our local library, are referenced to either the UK or the US.

Good point Trumpy.

I have a neighbor who is quite capable of carrying out basic installation to an acceptable standard -- installing a receptacle, wiring a switch etc. I've seen his workmanship, and it's fine (better than some supposedly "professional" installations, in fact).

But he freely admits that he doesn't know how to calculate cable sizes, or how to wire more complex arrangements such as heating controls. I'm happy to help him out with diagrams and calculations, and I know that in the case of something being unclear that he'll come back and ask me to go check it for him before he throws the switch.

There are other people to whom I'd be reluctant to give any information, because I've seen the mess they made of something as simple as replacing a switch.

Thats a good system you've got with your neighbour, Paul, its just unfortunate that all DIYer's aren't like this, they would sooner just rip into it and bugger the consequences.

Paul,
Had an experience today, with a homeowner,I never wan't to have again.
I was rang on my cellphone from work to go and check some wiring in a house, that had been disconnected by the local Power Board,as the wiring was not up to scratch, when inspected recently.
Upon arriving,I was verbally abused for taking so long to respond to the call(5-10 minutes).
I was then told,by the guy, that I was to simply fill out a Certificate Of Compliance and leave.
Upon, visually inspecting the place,most of the socket outlets were damaged, one light switch was hanging out of the wall, all of the light sockets were either burned out or broken and the Switch-board/Metering had been tampered with, there were no seals left on either of the meters or the ripple relay.
All the while, I was being abused for taking far too long,( Where are you going now?, Why do you need to look at that?, would you PLEASE hurry up, for Christ sake!)
I left the place, listing all of the remedial work required to bring the installation up to Regulation standard,
for my efforts, I was told that I would NOT be doing the work, and I had better not send him a bill for my time spent there, or else.(Go on Bugger Off, he told me, as I reversed down the driveway, at speed.)
How Rude!, I normally laugh these situations off, How would you handle this situation?.

Oh boy.... I don't think I've run across anyone quite that bad. Most of the people I deal with are reasonable, although I've had moments when I wonder about their intelligence. Like the ones who wanted outlets, switches, and wall lights moved, and also wanted me to hide all the cables that were presently run in trunking around the top of the room.

Not a problem? Well, they'd just redecorated the place and didn't want any holes cut in the walls! Drop the cables into the wall cavities from above I hear you say. No... Flat-roofed house and I'm not allowed to either cut into the interior ceilings or remove any roofing materials from the outside. Up from underneath? Nope... Concrete floor, and I wasn't even going to think about digging that up, not that they'd allow it of course. Fish the cables through the cavity from holes made in the outside wall? You're kidding aren't you?! No way...

Ending up asking where the h*** they thought I was going to run cables. Maybe they imagined sci-fi style power beams invisibly transmitting electricity to each outlet!

Seriously though, there have been a couple of occasions when I've seen wiring so dangerous that I've opened the main switch and told the people that I will not be responsible for turning it on again. I know they'll turn it on afterward, and probably not get anything done to the wiring for months, but what else can one do?

Paul,
Thanks for your comments, just like to add that this was a Rental property(Tenanted),
where the people had just moved out and the meter-reader had noticed the seals missing from the meters, when he done the Final Reading.
Land-lords,eh?, they everything under the sun done, as long as it doesn't cost them a cent!.
This guy(the one complaining), had had probably NZ$150-200 per week from this place,for the last 2 years, with little or no maintenance done on the place,
you can't tell me, he cannot afford to do have the work required, done.
They are all the same.

[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 11-18-2002).]

When will people learn to turn the Main Switch Off, before they change a fuse wire?.
Went around to this fella's house, because he changed the fuse and it blew again, when he was holding the fuse carrier, his hand was all burnt.
No wonder, there was a Dead Short in the Range, and he tried to fit a 50A wire in the
fuse carrier, to keep the Range going long enough to cook his Dinner.

Oh yeah... The householders rule of electrical failure #1: "If it blows, fit a larger fuse."

Wish I had a dime for every overrated fusewire I've seen fitted.

You know what the Householders rule of Electrical failure #2:
If the Heavy fuse you've already fitted, blows, bypass the fusing, as it is not working properly.
Seen this a few times and everytime I have
been riding in a Red truck, with flashing lights on the roof.

Diazed fuse blows too often? Rip out that darn gauge ring that keeps you from screwing in more than 6A fuses and screw in 25A ones! Saves much money! And your 1 mm2 wires will be really happy they can finally show what they're actually able to do without the restrictions of that ole fuse!

Seriously, the old lady next door in our appartment house had cloth covered 1 mm2 wires (correctly fused @6A). When she got the new washing mashine, the "electrishun" completely removed the gauge rings from one circuit, replaced the other 2 with 16A ones and screwed in 4 16A fuses. This is how we (my dad is the landlord) found this nice setup. I replaced them with 10A Diazed breakers until I put in a completely new 5 circuit din-rail panel with main RCD and all new wiring.

Householders Rule of Electrical Failure#3:
If a Light bulb fails, the wiring is at
fault, it could not possibly be the new bulb that I have just replaced.
This discounts broken Neutrals,etc.

Texas,
Thats a pretty small sized circuit to be running a washing machine off, especially with 1mm2, feeding it, normally this would be a minimum cable size of 1.5mm2,protected by 16A MCB, over here in NZ.

Sure it is. Here it would be a dedicated circuit 2.5 mm2 with 16A MCB (1.5 would be ok, but 2.5 is better). This was old work (1914), and this lovely old lady had the washing machine hooked up by her even lovlier plumber (this is where the pic with the cord routed through a hole in the wall in the photo discussion section came from, it was the washer cord). This guy was notorious for installing horrible wiring in taht appartment, though he's also a licensed electrician. For example he installed a "boxless" receptacle in the kitchen. He just had a hole in the wall and installed the receptacle in the hole. It was a Schuko receptacle, but never saw a ground wire. I assume that it was him who changed the 6A fuses for 16A ones.

For a 16A radial circuit I'd always go with 2.5 sq. mm as a minimum, even if 1.5 is just about allowable under the Regs. for some situations.

A big concern,
is the installation of ELV(12V) Dichroics,
by Homeowners, we have a new Code over for these particular lights, mainly because of their Heat transfer, most Home owners dont care about this until the ceiling goes on fire.