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I'm in Australia and am having continuous augments/Debates on another forum as to why NZ homeowners can do electrical work unlicensed on there own home

Here in Australia an unlicensed person cannot do any electrical work at all.

The debate is the in NZ they use the same wiring regulations and since the NZ government allowed the homeowner to do limited electrical work the amount of deaths by electrical accidents have decreased.

The augment on the Australian forum is if this is the case why don't the Australian Government allow the home owner to DIY electrical work

From what I can find out the NZ Government allowed this to help get rid of faulty and dangerous fittings which in turn created a safer environment

Can someone shed some light on the NZ way of doing things

Nev:
Good day, and welcome to ECN!
Our resident NZ guy (Trumpy) is on assignment at a sub-station job for about a week. Hopefully, he may check in and respond to you.

I can tell you that here in New Jersey, USA that a homeowner that owns and resides in a single family home can do his own electrical & plumbing work, with a required permit.

That does not apply to anything other than single (1) family homes. NOT rentals, condo's, multi-family, or any commercial properties.

Take care & stay safe.

That wouldn't be http://www.renovateforum.com/forumdisplay.php?f=78
by any chance would it?
It's also been a hot topic in "Silicon Chip" magazine for a couple of years now.
One gets the impression from reading the threads there that there is a still a closed shop attitude and that's the real reason. That most of the world doesn't have such restrictions, and any more problems as a result, always meets with a blank response. One excuse that comes up is that U.S homeowners are at less risk because of the 120V supply, and Australians mustn't be let near something so deadly as 240V for their own safety. The fact that U.S homes do actually have 240V fed into them is conveniently ignored.
At this point in time the union power in Australia is just too strong and I don't see common sense coming to fruition for quite some time. In the meantime, Australians will continue to do electrical DIY as they have always done (bad and good work), so it's not like there's suddenly going to be loss of jobs for the tradies.
The sensible response is to follow the NZ model, and educate rather than deny.

For a description of what is and what is not allowed to be done here by a home-owner, a read of New Zealand Electrical Code Of Practice 51 should be read.
Clicking on this link will download you a copy of it.




Nev, that is not entirely true, both countries use AS/NZS 3000 (and a few others) for wiring installations.
These are wiring standards, not regulations in the true legislative sense.

New Zealand still has it's own NZ Electricity Regulations and these are totally separate to any Australian regulations or even state-wide laws.



Nope,
In 1992, the electrical industry was de-regulated here,
it had nothing to do with safety to the end-user of electricity or in fact the safety of fittings or other things, we still get shonky electrical stuff coming into the country and it is being installed by people that buy it at the DIY store.

BTW, welcome to ECN, mate!

Welcome to the forum Nev.

While comparing Australia and New Zealand, consider the situation here in the U.K. too. Until very recently there were absolutely no controls here over who could do what on his own electrical installation whatsoever.

Since January 2005, however, legislation has brought certain electrical works under the scope of our general Building Regulations, requiring that certain things either be carried out by a suitably accredited person or be reported to the local council for inspection, as with many other building matters. It has done nothing to reduce the number of fatalities; in fact it appeared a while ago that they had increased:

https://www.electrical-contractor.n...pics/146542/Part_P_2_years_on#Post146542

But even if permits or inspections are required, as a matter of principle I do not believe a government has any right to tell a person that he may not carry out any work he wishes on his own house. Requiring it to be done to a certain standard is one thing, but laws prohibiting you from working on your own property have no place in a free country.

The Argument I'm having here in Australia is that supposable when the industry was deregulated in NZ the number of electrical related deaths decreased.

That being the case why wont the Australian Government allow Homeowners to DIY electrical work as Australia supposedly has the highest death rate in the world and uses the same regulations.

The Argument I'm face with if the Australian Government allowed the homeowner to DIY electrical work the death rate would decreases as it supposable did in NZ

In My opinion thats like saying if the road speed limit was done away with the road death toll would decrease

The only thing about those figures is that the raw numbers are so small that changes are statistically insignificant and could simply reflect things like a building boom or just pure chance.

Nev,
I'd like to see some figures that back that claim up.
I can't find any statistics off-hand that go that far back, to 1990 and forward to say, 1994 and I would be interested to see where these figures were referenced from.

I have sent an e-mail to the ESS here and will see what they can tell me.
Also bear in mind that there has been a few changes to the electrical safety regime here in this period of time,
accident reporting systems are also a lot more advanced here than what they were back then too.

Paul,
I have to agree with you when you say that any Government should not have the right to say what you can and cannot do in your own place.
However,
I would draw the line in this circumstance, where the work done by a person in their own house, could affect the safety of other users on the same electricity network.
I know something like this is rather rare, but it has happened before.

Trumpy,
Can you elaborate on this? You've got me trying to imagine what kinds of domestic DIY wiring faults could cause problems further back in the system. Provided the main fuse is not bypassed or upgraded (is that where the problem is?), any overloads or short circuits will only affect the consumer side of the fuse. Mixing up earths and phases will again blow local fuses, whereas earths and neutrals mixed will have no effect on the supply as these should already be connected together at the neutral link.

There are some issues with the IEC 60364 defined TN-C-S earthing system in my region:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthing_system

1) High-impedance ground faults pass thru fuses, so plumbing networks --and bonded Earthing system-- across several buildings, are sometimes hazardously energized.

2) In addition to plumbing bonds, my region requires any coax-cable TV to bond at consumer D-Mark. So the coax cable ground sheath provides another high-impedance fault path for energized injury between buildings.

3) Remote harmonic distortions menacing other customers has also been reported to propagate some distance along this earthing network.

Perhaps, the hazard with any network earthing system is objectionable or potential paths thru people in contact with their bonded plumbing, fixtures, equipment casings, etc.

Some remote transients, such as lightning strikes, have exploited these potential differences thru telephone lines, killing a radius of people thru the insulated hand sets.

In the cases above the Australian IT earthing system may be superior.

"Can you elaborate on this? You've got me trying to imagine what kinds of domestic DIY wiring faults could cause problems further back in the system."

While I don't know how common it may be down under; I know up here (it feels strange to say that in Florida) in hurricane country, we have some dodgy generator instalations that could back feed into the network. I know that a residential generator would trip out if it tried to power a large part of the network but, it could be a hazard, to a linesman, in an isolated setting.

When homeowners are allowed to legally DIY and faced only with modest permit fees and difficulty, they will pull permits and submit to an electrical inspection. When the inspector finds unsafe work, he makes the homeowner fix it. Lives are saved.

When homeowners are not allowed to legally DIY, they will still DIY anyway because it's unenforcible and without any oversight. Dangerous installations go uninspected, and lives are lost.

NZ's experience makes perfect sense- outlawing DIY electrical does not stop DIY electrical work, and only serves to make it more dangerous. Don't outlaw it, provide education and oversight, and make it safe.

Good point Ian, I'd forgotten about things feeding back into the supply. Not only generators but misused uninterruptable power supplies or inverters (eg. solar grid connect systems) as well. When I lived in New Guinea portable generators were everywhere due to the unreliability of the power mains. I was told about a rather lethal accessory constructed to connect a generator into the house wiring. It was simply an extension lead with plugs at both ends. You plugged it into any power point in the house and turned off the main switch in order to use the generator. Assuming the house had only a single phase supply (which I think they all did) everything would work as before, only limited by the generator output and power circuit wiring.

Steve, Well said! Here in Australia it appears to be union driven to keep it all closed shop. It seems to be a fear based on electricians losing jobs if Australian homeowners are legally able to do what they've already been doing for years, which of course doesn't make sense.
So, how do non Australian electricians feel about this? Is homeowner DIY a threat to your job?

Well, personally I feel that whether it would be a threat to the job or not is largely irrelevant. It's about whether a person has every right to carry out work on his own house or not. Would anyone accept it being law that he could not paint his own window frames or lay his own carpets, because it might take work away from painters and carpet-fitters?

Fair enough, there might be concerns over safety issues such as back-feeding generators which could be used to justify some sort of regulation and control, but it's a big step to go from that to saying that a homeowner should not be allowed to do the work at all.

No,
I do not feel threatened by people doing their own work, quite the contrary, in fact.

As an inspector, I have been rung up, I don't know how many times by people wanting to know how this or that is done, some people may find that annoying, I don't, I'm more than happy to give advice and have the job done correctly, rather than have them guess and cause someone a bad shock or a fire starting.
Same side of the coin, I have had the odd person say "can you come and have a look at this, it's finished, but I'm not sure it's right".

This is where you make your money, 98% of the time, the work is done correctly and I will test, connect and liven the new work, if I'm happy with the install, it's in my name after all.

One thing that electricians seem to forget is the fact that DIYer's have more time to do a neater job and this is usually the case in most of the installations I have seen, the bad ones are definitely the minority.

I have also had a lot of work from switch-board upgrades and the fitting of RCD's to boards that are out of bounds to a DIYer.

Anyone that thinks work is being taken away from them is paranoid IMO.

Just for further amusement for those from the progressive countries, in some states it's supposedly illegal to even fit a plug to a flexible cord, or even change a jug element. There is a push by some at present to ban the sales of electrical fittings in hardware stores (Bunnings won't be pleased given how popular the electrical section is).
Trumpy's response is exactly how I see it...paranoia abounds!
And Paul, just give it time...it has recently become illegal for a painter to use a ladder; scaffolding now has to be used.
Australia is in the grip of the Nanny State

Reading your comment about jug elements reminds me of those porcelain electric jugs with a bakelite lid and a bare coiled coil element on a china former hanging down inside the water that were very common in Australia when I was there some 20 years ago. I was amazed that a country so fussy about who could do electrical work would allow such a potentially lethal device. I saw one in use once with a broken lid such that it was possible to put your hand inside and touch the live water. Do you still see them there?

I brought one home as a souvenir (sad I know, my daughter brought home a cuddly toy platypus but then she's not an engineer), and also a spare element (still in its packaging) just in case.

This is the sort of thing to which I object. If I'm happy to use a ladder instead of scaffolding, why is that anybody's business but mine? It is not the state's business to try to prevent me from taking a calculated risk so long as I'm not directly endangering anybody else.

I don't know what other Brits might think, but from my persepctive we've grown up with the idea that Australia is a pretty laid-back place where freedom is valued, yet at every turn it seems as though the country has imposed draconian regulations with completely disproportionate penalties. I know the first time I stumbled upon the N.S.W. penalties for failing to use a seat belt, I couldn't believe how severe they were. I thought it was bad enough here, but N.S.W. was just crazy.

Yes that's exactly the kind of jug I was referring to. They are still around (I use one along with a toaster with flip down sides exposing the live element). They disappeared from the shops probably about 20 years ago when small appliance manufacturing ceased in Australia.
I've heard of them being used with a broken or no lid; apparently the office tea lady sat an aluminium tea pot on top of the lidless jug to keep it warm...the bottom of the teapot ended up with two holes as it touched the terminals.
Then there's the story where one was used on DC mains that used to exist in a small part of Sydney. There was a complaint of "funny tasting water". The live heating element was of course causing electrolysis on DC.
As far as I can tell this jug design is unique to Australia (NZ too?) probably as a result to DC mains being so rare here. Needless to say, when I saw cheap elements on sale very cheap I hoarded a few for when the Nanny State bans them.
Paul, I'd be getting awfully off topic to go on about the crazy laws here, but Aussies (not their politicians) are still laid back and aren't happy with the situation.
Have you heard about the internet censorship that all of Australia is going to be subjected to? That's right, just like China. Censorship

Aussie,
I remember back in my early days as an apprentice electrician at the Power Board, one of the jobs was to make the tea (for some strange reason no-one drank coffee back then).

You had to boil the kettle (jug, in your language), it was one that didn't turn itself off, you had to unplug it at the kettle, because the plug at the wall used to get too hot to touch, ( yeah, all this in a Power Board building).
You had to warm the pot and then put the tea leaves (no tea bags back then) in and the water and let the tea "draw".
Milk and sugar in the cups (I was once told off one day by an old Inspector for getting it around the wrong way)
and then pour this filthy looking brew into the cups, no tea strainer either.

Years later, after the old guard had more or less retired,
we threw out an old toaster like you described above, Aussie, it had more joints in the flex than actual real cord, at one time it would have been chromed but it had been overheated and thrown in the nearby sink so many times, it looked more like an old lady's hand-bag with a "cord" on it.
This was of course before we had anything remotely like smoke detectors.

Sure mate,
What is not clearly understood, even by electricians in this country (NZ), is that any bad connection in the MEN (Multiple-Earthed Neutral) system, can cause rising earth currents not only in your own installation, but on properties either side of you, that do have better connections to Earth.

Should there be an appreciable fault in your house, that cannot find a low enough impedance to operate a main fuse at a pole or pillar box, that fault current will continue through any low impedance paths (namely the neighbours N/E system) until sufficient current is obtained to trip the protection.

We are talking 1000's of amps here, not 100's of amps.
If however the person has done things right and installed Circuit Breakers,the circuit will trip in a shorter time, if they haven't and have merely "upgraded" an existing porcelain fuse circuit, it will take longer to blow that fuse.
In any installation, make sure your earth and neutral connections are well made and tight.
After all, there are MEN connections in houses that have not been checked or tightened in years, they will at the most carry 63A here, but, that does not take into account the ever climbing PSCC values of the outside electricity network.

Sorry I missed this comment, Nev,
Same regulations as who?
If Australia has the highest death rate in the world, with respect to DIY work, wouldn't that make you think that people aren't understanding what they are doing.

It seems to make me think that ignorance of the rules is more to blame than any lack of skills, or maybe it is a combination of the two?, you don't get killed by 230V by knowing what you are doing.
There used to be an Inspector here from Queensland, haven't seen him in ages, but if he could poke his head in here, it would be cool.
Come on in Gray!

We occasionally watch a local home show about real estate sales around the world. Besides all the English retirees oddly fleeing Great Britain for other countries, one particular episode on New Zealand homes was especially odd.

Why are appliances, most equipment, sinks, & toilets stripped from homes before sale in New Zealand? Mortgages seemed uniquely budgeted around these empty shells.

If house payments are budgeted without plumbing & electric fixtures, doesn't this unique practice invite economic incentives for New Zealand families to attempt equipment re-fit themselves?

A tradition of owner installed equipment in New Zealand homes may explain why such perpetual DIY installations are removed entirely when properties are sold.

In the U.K., the inclusion or exclusion of major appliances during a house sale varies, and is generally by mutual agreement, or -- at least in the past -- if not specifically included in the contract on the basis of "£200 cash if you want them" kind of an arrangement. It would be expected that the integral ovens and cooktops which have become more popular in recent years over the traditional free-standing range would always be included unless otherwise stated though.

It would certainly be very odd to take the toilet or major sinks when moving though!

I believe that over in France it is -- or used to be -- pretty common for people to strip out virtually all "fancier" light fittings when moving and just leave the cables poking out of the ceiling for the next owner to install whatever lights he wanted.

Where on earth did you hear/see that??
That is most certainly not the case here, stealing permanent fixtures like you have described,after you have sold your house, would be straight out theft!

After all, you wouldn't sell a car then whip the wheels off, take the engine out and remove the steering wheel, would you?

Doesn't it happen that the seller will state whether he intends to leave certain appliances or take them with him? That's certainly the norm here -- Either at some point during the discussions the subject will come up and an agreement as to whether they remain or not will be made, or quite often the real-estate agent's description of the property will indicate the seller's intentions over this.

HGTV is the cable broadcast channel in my region.
House Hunters International is the specific program.
New to New Zealand, Episode HHINT-310 looks familiar.
http://www.hgtv.com/house-hunters-international/new-to-new-zealand/index.html

My dial-up can't buffer any of the broadband media episodes, so I can't be positive which one it was.

OK,
I thought for a second, it might have been a reliable source.
Don't ever expect that TV is EVER a reliable source to reference from, especially "Reality TV", it is made by clowns, for retarded people to watch.

But people do like this rubbish, I have NO idea why.

LOL, I would love for someone from NZ to comment on this one.

Sound like a big joke to me Mike.

Sometimes a lightbulb may have been removed but the sinks and toilets not.

An ex rental may have been stripped of certain items, but it looks that that TV program is stirring s#@&.

Regards from Auckland

The augment I'm constantly faced with on the forum i am referring to is that Australia and N/Z both use AS/NZ3000
There has been claims made by statistics that since the deregulation of N/Z death rates have been reduced
So if this is about reducing fatality's why cant Australian laws allow home owners to DIY Electrical work

Nev,
I think you may have slightly mis-construed what I was trying to say.
Sure, both Aussie and NZ, use AS/NZS 3000, however that is a wiring standard only, it gives a benchmark as to HOW the work must be done.

New Zealand uses the New Zealand Electricity Regulations, it is this document and this one alone, that states who can and cannot do PRESCRIBED electrical work and the limits thereof.
Aussie does not use the NZ Electricity Regulations, as far as I am aware.