Why should I apologise for recognising a de facto situation created by someone else? I'm recognising the reality of the situation; you are just complaining that it isn't as it should (in your opinion) be.
You will not get a mortgage on a property where the wiring (if newly installed) does not meet the current wiring regs. You will not get public liability/fire insurance for your building if the wiring is not periodically inspected and found to comply with the regs (at the time of installation).
You may not get a mortgage on a property where the wiring, even if it complied with the regs at the time of installation, does not comply with the current ones; it depends a lot on the individual circumstances.
The situation that Robert outlined re PAT some time ago is not an argument against PAT, it is an argument against incompetent testers.
You may indeed, as the responsible person in a company/organisation, decide that certain items do not require testing. If you wish to avoid potential future prosecution by the HSE, you MUST provide documentation stating why this is the case. If you are/were wrong in your assessment, you are still going to be for the high jump.
FWIW I'm with Big Clive on the subject of changes to the regs, by and large. It has become a means to extort money, with the constant "improvements to safety" having long since passed the point of diminishing returns. Once upon a time we educated people not to stick metal objects into mains powered equipment to "see if it's working", like we once educated people to look both ways before crossing the road, and to use a crossing point if possible.
Nowadays it has apparently been decided that it's too difficult/expensive to educate people properly, and so make every situation as completely idiot-proof as possible. We all know where that leads...
You can bloviate as much as you like on the subject, but that doesn't alter the fact that these so called regulations are not regulations.
I think this is a classic case of the regulations being just that, regulations, but not ones published by the Govt as the Govt do not have the expertise nor the science to do so, so they have effectively outsourced it. You say they are not regulations, you try and flout them and see where it lands you, as Anders made reference to, in the event of a death, you could well fine yourself in deep hot water and drowning if you did not follow the 18th wiring regs and also have your equipment tested annually. Some insurance companies will not even insure business premises unless they can produce a validated paper trail to prove you have done the required PAT tests, etc. I know this from 1st hand experience with overhead cranes, and factory machinery etc.
You're both missing the point.
I have made
many qualifications saying that the actions and practices are in themselves good; no one disputes that the nth edition of the IEE wiring 'regs' is good practice, no one disputes that regular planned maintenance including using a PAT machine is good practice. At
no point have I said anything different.
But the plain indisputable fact is that they are not
regulations with the force of law; and calling them regulations is done by those who wish to mislead people by implication that these have the force of law when they do not. If these
are real, pukka,
bona fide regulations show me the formal text of the regulations made by a body with statutory
authority, please point out the act of parliament, statutory instrument, Supreme Court case or record in Hansard where these regulations were made law. I know the 15th/16th.... IEE/IET wiring 'regulations' are an article of faith for electricians, and it is heresy to say otherwise, but they are not THE LAW. If you can prove otherwise, do so, all it would take is an appropriate link to
www.legislation.gov.uk; but if you can't do so then stop claiming regulatory status for things that do not have that imprimatur.
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Topic: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) group therapy thread (Read 14810610 times)