They are then either giving false confidence in items, or the opposite and throwing away perfectly good things, which only need a very minor repair.
THIS, on so many levels!!!
I was talking to a builder about 6-7 months ago and he said that after the test and tagging guy had visited, he was told to throw out (get this) 4 extension leads, a radial arm saw, 2 grinders, a stick welder, a cord-line RCD unit, 2 work lights and the work-site kettle that the guy had had for 20+ years (as unbelievable as that sounds).
Which I thought was strange, because I've known Dave for years and one thing I do know, him and his guys are not rough on their gear (not like some builders).
I asked him if he wanted me to come down and have a look at the gear and give him a second opinion.
I had a look at the gear that had been marked as failed, the "faults" were repaired as follows:
- 4 extension leads - needed new plugs or cord connectors fitted.
- Radial arm saw - failed because it had a rubber sheathed flex on it (no action taken).
- Grinders - failed because the commutators sparked "excessively" (fitted new brushes).
- Stick welder - failed because the electrode (torch) lead had a small cut in it (Applied heavy duty heatshrink tubing to the cut (Bear in mind this was on the low voltage side of the welder, not the mains side).
- Work lights - needed new plugs fitted.
- Cord-line RCD - failed because it made a "rattling" sound when shaken. It tested perfectly with the RCD tester, opened it up and a loose screw fell out.
- Kettle - failed because it looked "old", although it tested perfectly, even the scraping earth connection gave a suprisingly low resistance of 0.02 ohms and in the name of correct functional testing, I made a really nice cup of tea.
The thing that really annoys me is that some people wouldn't even give this a second thought and all of that stuff would end up in a land-fill somewhere.
Don't get me wrong, if some bit of equipment is dangerous and can't be repaired, sure,
it needs to be disposed of, after having been made inoperable beforehand and marked as unsafe.
