House alarm

[steviefaux]

Based in the UK

Moved into my new house a couple of years ago and it had an alarm we were told "I think its not been used it ages". No code was given. So waited quite a while to decide to pull it out.

Disconnected the fuse the other day and thankfully it didn't go off. Not knowing what I'm doing electronically and to make the ends safe I thought "I'll put my wago connectors on each end. That way I'm sure I won't ever accidentally touch. Actually I have a 3 way, I'll put that on the end".

I can see everyone face palming. Yes, I ended up tripping the downstairs sockets. But only the downstairs sockets when I put the power back on. Eventually realising idiot me had created a circuit with the wago connector, I took it out and put electric tape on the ends instead, like normal people would do. Not no trips.

Question is, I've always felt the electric in the house was a bit suspect despite being signed off. I'm not an electrician but even I could tell from trial and error that they'd patched the house alarm off off the downstairs sockets. Am I correct in thinking this is a cowboy setup? It seems it.

We've had an electrician friend (before I did all this) tell us the main consumer unit needs replacing. Which is fine, but he said he can't test the sockets in the house as they haven't even bothered to ground the consumer unit, so he said all sockets will fail his tests. That also sounds like a cowboy setup.

Long winded question is, does the alarm setup (that now is removed) sound like it was setup by a cowboy company? Surely you don't power it off of the main sockets downstairs and instead put it on its own separate circuit.

[Ian.M]

Depends *HOW* they did it.  If it had a fused connection unit on the ring, its 'kosher'.  Plenty of cheapskate clients wont want to pay for a dedicated circuit, many panels may already be maxed our with breakers, and the alarm company probably doesn't want to have to mess with the panel further than using the main disconnect to isolate it so they can add the fused connection unit to the ring, so when the customer calls to bitch about some totally unrelated electrical problem, they can say, "We didn't even touch that, and its nothing to do with us - call a general electrician."

[steviefaux]

There was a box in the small room with ALARM fuse written on it. The cable that went into that, appeared to be the one that was connected to the downstairs sockets. So from what you say it sounds like it was installed properly, just the previous owner didn't want to pay for a separate circuit? Sounds about right as he was renting the house out and cheaped out on alot of other stuff. Like the plug socket directly under the sink with no protection against leaks from the sink. How the electrician signed that off is beyond me. That plug eventually went pop one night due to water.

[Gyro]

Question is, I've always felt the electric in the house was a bit suspect despite being signed off. I'm not an electrician but even I could tell from trial and error that they'd patched the house alarm off off the downstairs sockets. Am I correct in thinking this is a cowboy setup? It seems it.

We've had an electrician friend (before I did all this) tell us the main consumer unit needs replacing. Which is fine, but he said he can't test the sockets in the house as they haven't even bothered to ground the consumer unit, so he said all sockets will fail his tests. That also sounds like a cowboy setup.

If your electrician friend says that the consumer unit isn't grounded you have a bigger problem than the alarm wiring. Lack of main earth is an IET code C1 failure (Danger present. Risk of injury. Immediate remedial action required) - As a qualified(?) electrician, he is required to make the installation safe before leaving the premises!

How good a friend is he?  I can't believe he walked away from it if you have interpreted what he said correctly (although unable to test the sockets is pretty conclusive). 

P.S. By "signed off", do you mean that you had an EICR inspection carried out.

[james_s]

It would be very unusual out here for a low power load like an alarm system to be on a dedicated circuit, normally they are just tapped off a convenient circuit feeding receptacles in the area but I don't know if UK conventions are similar. If in doubt you should hire a licensed electrician to look things over, it's not something you want to risk having done wrong. More than once I've found live wires dangling abandoned in wall and ceiling cavities, here I would try to disconnect the run at the source and then cut the exposed tips off the conductors and tape them up securely so they cannot contact each other or anything else in case they ever become energized for any reason but follow local regulations and conventions, don't just guess.

[steviefaux]

Question is, I've always felt the electric in the house was a bit suspect despite being signed off. I'm not an electrician but even I could tell from trial and error that they'd patched the house alarm off off the downstairs sockets. Am I correct in thinking this is a cowboy setup? It seems it.

We've had an electrician friend (before I did all this) tell us the main consumer unit needs replacing. Which is fine, but he said he can't test the sockets in the house as they haven't even bothered to ground the consumer unit, so he said all sockets will fail his tests. That also sounds like a cowboy setup.

If your electrician friend says that the consumer unit isn't grounded you have a bigger problem than the alarm wiring. Lack of main earth is an IET code C1 failure (Danger present. Risk of injury. Immediate remedial action required) - As a qualified(?) electrician, he is required to make the installation safe before leaving the premises!

How good a friend is he?  I can't believe he walked away from it if you have interpreted what he said correctly (although unable to test the sockets is pretty conclusive). 

P.S. By "signed off", do you mean that you had an EICR inspection carried out.

He wasn't around on an official job. I could of heard what I was told wrong. We have another friend (this all sounds suspicious but its not) who's qualified and is going to do the earthing for free. Then the other day job electrician is coming back to replace the consumer unit.

What annoys me, is we did have another electrician before all this come to take a look at the socket that blew under the sink. Instead of condemning it as I believe he should have, the cowboy put a new one in place. What happened? It blew again. He's not be invited back.

EDIT - I forgot to add regarding the sign off. When we bought the house in the buyers pack was the certificate for the electrics that had recently been "Tested" by the owner. I'm still sure it was his "mate".

[Gyro]

That's good, as long as somebody's going to earth it.  I didn't mean to worry you but that really is a pretty serious one. Even if it wasn't an official visit, I would have expected that he would have taken a few minutes to make it safe - depending on whether it's a TN-S (earth bonded to outer supply cable sheath), TN-C-S (earth connected to incoming neutral) or TT (separate earth rod - ok that one would be an undertaking). It would have had an earth at one time.

What annoys me, is we did have another electrician before all this come to take a look at the socket that blew under the sink. Instead of condemning it as I believe he should have, the cowboy put a new one in place. What happened? It blew again. He's not be invited back.

EDIT - I forgot to add regarding the sign off. When we bought the house in the buyers pack was the certificate for the electrics that had recently been "Tested" by the owner. I'm still sure it was his "mate".

That's why I  have an innate distrust of tradesmen, garage mechanics etc. They don't have any direct stake in the quality of their work (I'll hold back on the bodged rear brake and loose wheel episode!).

If your solicitor accepted an inadequate certification in the homebuyers' pack then you may have some comeback against them. It might be worth getting a free one hour introductory consultation with another solicitor to see if they were negligent. I've done it (with an employment matter) and got an out of court, no blame, settlement from the first solicitor. Best case, it might pay for a rewire. Just a thought.

[steviefaux]

That's good, as long as somebody's going to earth it.  I didn't mean to worry you but that really is a pretty serious one. Even if it wasn't an official visit, I would have expected that he would have taken a few minutes to make it safe - depending on whether it's a TN-S (earth bonded to outer supply cable sheath), TN-C-S (earth connected to incoming neutral) or TT (separate earth rod - ok that one would be an undertaking). It would have had an earth at one time.

What annoys me, is we did have another electrician before all this come to take a look at the socket that blew under the sink. Instead of condemning it as I believe he should have, the cowboy put a new one in place. What happened? It blew again. He's not be invited back.

EDIT - I forgot to add regarding the sign off. When we bought the house in the buyers pack was the certificate for the electrics that had recently been "Tested" by the owner. I'm still sure it was his "mate".

That's why I  have an innate distrust of tradesmen, garage mechanics etc. They don't have any direct stake in the quality of their work (I'll hold back on the bodged rear brake and loose wheel episode!).

If your solicitor accepted an inadequate certification in the homebuyers' pack then you may have some comeback against them. It might be worth getting a free one hour introductory consultation with another solicitor to see if they were negligent. I've done it (with an employment matter) and got an out of court, no blame, settlement from the first solicitor. Best case, it might pay for a rewire. Just a thought.

Not sure how the solicitor would check? Because the certificate is a legit certificate but I just have a feeling it was a "mate" the house owner knew in the trade who signed it off.

I'm thinking the earth issue isn't probably as bad as I've describe. We 100% trust our friend and know he wouldn't have left it unsafe. They just said something about needing to run a cable from the consumer unit, to the pipes under the stairs to create the earth. Unfortunately that means lifting floor boards to get it to the point it needs to go, so I assume wouldn't be a 5min job. We'll see when he comes round to do the earth, I'll be helping (holding a torch).

[NivagSwerdna]

Long winded question is, does the alarm setup (that now is removed) sound like it was setup by a cowboy company? Surely you don't power it off of the main sockets downstairs and instead put it on its own separate circuit.

IMHO as a non-electrician... it doesn't need a circuit... but it should be fused.  That's what mine looks like anyway... it has a small fuse thing... 
like
. 

The term is "Fused Spur".

You don't mention make of the Alarm... I have scantronic and the codes can be reset easily enough.

[Gyro]

That's good, as long as somebody's going to earth it.  I didn't mean to worry you but that really is a pretty serious one. Even if it wasn't an official visit, I would have expected that he would have taken a few minutes to make it safe - depending on whether it's a TN-S (earth bonded to outer supply cable sheath), TN-C-S (earth connected to incoming neutral) or TT (separate earth rod - ok that one would be an undertaking). It would have had an earth at one time.

What annoys me, is we did have another electrician before all this come to take a look at the socket that blew under the sink. Instead of condemning it as I believe he should have, the cowboy put a new one in place. What happened? It blew again. He's not be invited back.

EDIT - I forgot to add regarding the sign off. When we bought the house in the buyers pack was the certificate for the electrics that had recently been "Tested" by the owner. I'm still sure it was his "mate".

That's why I  have an innate distrust of tradesmen, garage mechanics etc. They don't have any direct stake in the quality of their work (I'll hold back on the bodged rear brake and loose wheel episode!).

If your solicitor accepted an inadequate certification in the homebuyers' pack then you may have some comeback against them. It might be worth getting a free one hour introductory consultation with another solicitor to see if they were negligent. I've done it (with an employment matter) and got an out of court, no blame, settlement from the first solicitor. Best case, it might pay for a rewire. Just a thought.

Not sure how the solicitor would check? Because the certificate is a legit certificate but I just have a feeling it was a "mate" the house owner knew in the trade who signed it off.

I'm thinking the earth issue isn't probably as bad as I've describe. We 100% trust our friend and know he wouldn't have left it unsafe. They just said something about needing to run a cable from the consumer unit, to the pipes under the stairs to create the earth. Unfortunately that means lifting floor boards to get it to the point it needs to go, so I assume wouldn't be a 5min job. We'll see when he comes round to do the earth, I'll be helping (holding a torch).

Ah, ok. It sounds like the earth bonding of the incoming services is missing - you're supposed to have equipotential earth bonds to the incoming services (gas and water - if it's not a plastic pipe) in addition to the mains earth cable bond (assuming that you don't have a TT system with an earth stake). It still ought to pass a socket test though  .

I've taken to picking up the odd bit of second hand professional electrical test gear so I can do my own testing as often as I want. In addition to a decent voltage tester I've got an earth loop impedance/prospective fault current tester and a proper RCD tester which measures trip time to confirm that they still meet standards. Both are simple to use and plug into a mains socket via an IEC lead, so no exposed wiring hazards.

The ELI/PFC tester is a Socket & See (Yes I know, silly name but they're UK and part of Kewtech) PDL310 (complete with British gas logo). It has all the functions a standard socket tester has in addition to the measurements - There's a later PDL230 which has LEDs to indicate value ranges rather than actual figures.  The RCD tester is a Robin 5406. I picked both up for relative peanuts on ebay, much better than the basic  stuff from Toolstation and Screwfix.

Even though this stuff is out of official cal period, it's well able to handle the duties of going round the sockets every now and again (obviously not the RCD test, that only needs to be done once per circuit) to check their integrity, spot high contact or wiring resistances etc. in time for proper remedial action. From the measurement I've done, they're still in cal anyway. A little reading of the free IET 17th / 18th edition installation related documents on the web is enough to confidently understand these sort of checks.

As others have said, a fused spur off a ring circuit is fine for an alarm supply - the only time that you'd want it on a separate circuit is if you're worried about it going off if the ring circuit trips. Modern consumer units have so many ways though that everything seems to end up on its own breaker.

[james_s]

That's why I  have an innate distrust of tradesmen, garage mechanics etc. They don't have any direct stake in the quality of their work (I'll hold back on the bodged rear brake and loose wheel episode!).

They're like any other group of people. Some are passionate about their work and run a tight ship, doing a quality job by the book every time. Some are just coasting along doing the minimum they can get away with without getting fired. My uncle spent his whole career as an electrician and was the former, he always did quality work, taught me most of what I know about the trade and always told me that any job worth doing is worth doing well. I took a different career path but I do still enjoy electrical work and I always do a top notch job whether it's in my own house or somewhere else.

[Gyro]

There are some excellent electricians with Youtube channels, very educational and also good for their business. Even so, you still see them make the odd minor mistake. The problem is that many of the videos shown them going in to repair or update relatively recent installations which are completely bodged and crap!

The difficulty is, how do you get a Youtube electrician if you don't live in Cambridge?  Friends and neighbours don't have Electricians in often enough for personal recommendations and they're not usually qualified to judge the quality of hidden bodgery anyway. 

P.S. I forgot I had these. Photos of the consumer unit that a qualified 'Electrician' put into my son's house. Note how all the lighting circuits are on the same RCD so they all go out together, all the exposed copper (I found un-torqued terminal  screws too) and the general pride in his work (you get a hint from the outside but you needed to pull the lid and expose yourself to hazard to see the detail). The breakers on the right are RCBOs, not RCDs by the way so the labelling is wrong too.

You just can't tell what (who) you're getting.

[steviefaux]

We had a look again as a friend was going to install the Earth. Turns out was already there lighting was just poor and it was a brief look over originally so he hadn't seen it.

New Consumer Unit in now and all nice.