ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Non-US Electrical Systems & Trades International D-I-Y store chains?

I actually don't think our regulations are excessively restrictive. You can do what ever you like but you only an electrician can put in a distribution board/fusebox/consumer unit.

It's one part of an electrical installation i dont think your average consumer has a clue about. There are too many potential problems with grounding, RCD requirments etc etc.

You can legally add final circuits just as long as you don't replace the distribution system.

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There are however two other legal issues.

1) If you do DIY wiring and your house burns down the insurance company can refuse to pay up!

2) It's not acceptable to do DIY electrical work in a commercial / industrial context. The Health and Safety Athority / Safety at Work Act and various statutory instruments click in.

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I know of one instance where a guy installed his own gas fire. There was a leak and the gas company just disconnected the entire installation closed the supply at the meter and took the meter away!! pending a full inspection by a registered contractor.

[This message has been edited by djk (edited 10-17-2003).]

Thta's the typical way to deal with gas issues here too. Close main valve ahead of the meter, put a seal on it and tell customer to get a licensed plumber. Preferably on a Friday afternoon in December. Conclusion: _Never_ call the gas company's emergency number! You can close the main valve yourself. And _you_ don't have to put a seal on it. Them guys are absolutely paranoid, and accidents involving natural gas are very rare here. Most are people messing around with their cookers trying to heat their kitchen or stupid plumbers/other workers (Some years ago an old lady was killed by a plumber purging a gas line, that's about the only incident I remember from the newspapers). LPG explosions happen slightly more often..

Natural Gas accidents are very very rare here too. The publically owned gas company "Bord Gais" (Its in Gaelic! and just means Gas Board) is extremely paranoid about safety.

Quite difficult to have a major leak too they use regulators that behave pretty much like MCBs and RCDs in a lot of ways so if there's too much flow the supply is tripped shut.

LPG installations are controlled by 2 companies who seem to follow the same code of practice as natural gas. Accidents are rare although have happened.

The old town gas systems were much more dangerous as the gas was very toxic, made from gassified coal / oil.

Paul UK,

you're right. I forgot that possibility.

Yeah, town gas was a rather dangerous thing, and back then appliances din't have bimetallic shut-off valves. My aunt always tells the story of a baker in their street who wanted to commit suicide. Somebody rang the doorbell and the whole house blew up. Town gas basically consisted of roughly 3/4 hydrogen and 1/4 carbon monoxide.
LPG accidenst are usually small bottles exploding, but even that is rather rare.
I faintly remember a story of _real_ stupid construction or demolition workers who attempted to cut a live natural gas line with an angle grinder...
Or in Germany some guy blew up his house. Turned out he had bridged his meter with garden hose and scotch tape... (aka sellotape)
Don't think they use somhing like a regulator here, unless it's built into the meter.
In 1988 (winter) when I was alittle kid we had the pleasure of dealing with the gas company. My mom noticed a gas smell near the meter and called 128. Worker came, turned the main valve, put a seal on it and told us to get a plumber. Friday afternoon, Monday was a holiday. Well, long story short, it was a joint near the meter through which minimal amounts of gas escaped. We could easily have lived with it until Tuesday, but we'd have had heating, cooking and hot water.

Every winter it seems like we have the requisite tragic stories of families dying in their cold because they left their town-gas stove turned on for heat -- with the windows closed.

Most buildings in New York City are connected to town-gas service and people usually use gas stoves instead of electric for cooking so this "death by gas" happens mostly in apartments in squalid neighborhoods where the slumlords refuse to provide sufficient (if any) heat.

As a child I lived through lots of bitter winter nights where my mom and grandmom would have to have the oven and all four burners on the stove (with a pot of hot water for bathing) going at full blast because the landlord would shut the boiler off. We always kept a window cracked open a bit though.

sven: It wouldn't be just towngas fumes, natural gas appliences exhaust gasses that could be equally deadly.

Do you mean actual town gas (coal gas) or natural gas, Sven? If burnt, both kinds of gas create deadly fumes (that's why you have to cut holes into the doors of windowless rooms in which a boiler is installed). But unburnt coal gas was most dangerous, as it contained CO. Unburnt natural gas is 'only' explosive, not toxic. Many people committed suicide by just turning on the oven w/o lighting it and sticking their head into it. Conversion to natural gas was done from 1970 to 1978 here in Vienna, 'cause coal gas became too expensive. It's a byproduct of coke production, and with decreasing steel production they didn't need all that coke any more.
GDR and western Berlin were on town gas until about 1990. Some Western German towns started converting as early as 1955, and there were big commercials "Gas poisoning impossible!".

A similar conversion from town gas to natural gas took place in Britain during the 1960s & 1970s. I've always been led to believe that natural gas in its pure form is almost odorless, the pungent smell being artificially added to eneable leaks to be detected more easily.

Natural gas may not be poisonous in itself, but in a fairly well-sealed room, wouldn't the pressure of the gas eventually drive out the room air through small cracks until the oxygen level was dangerously low?


[This message has been edited by pauluk (edited 10-19-2003).]

Sorry,
But in the last couple of days over here, there has been a very large stink building over here, with respect to a National DIY chain, starting to buy 1mm2, 1.5mm2, 2.5mm2 and 4mm2 2C+E and 3C+E Tough Plastic Sheathed cable.
This is un-precedented(sp?) here, as the only place you can buy this sort of thing is either through an Electrical shop or a Wholesaler, and in both cases, if you are of the DIY ilk, you WILL be questioned as to what you want to use the said cable for and your arrangements to get it connected legally.
The said chain has been buying the cable from a source that imports cable from overseas, by the container load.
But the thing here is, that it is half the price of our Trade price (the Retail price to the customer).
95% of the Electrical Contractors in town here, that held Trade accounts with this chain, have cancelled them, in protest.
I have done the same and bear in mind, we only buy Rawlbolts and various other such things off them.
This chain only looks to make a sale, it doesn't care what the stuff is used for and they don't have anyone even close to having any Electrical knowledge, given that most of thier staff have just left school!.
I can see this move leading to tears.