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holmslaw
..
Anyone interested in old colour cable?
- Thread starter wolves999wolves
- Start date
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Fair enough. Please accept my humble apologies.
Paul_C seems to relish the opportunity to show that he has no concept of what "reasonable" means.
Shut up. just shut up FFS. No one cares.
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Paul_C seems to relish the opportunity to show that he has no concept of what "reasonable" means.
You just can't help it can you?
H
holmslaw
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Speak for yourself, I do, I'm easily entertained.
H
holmslaw
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P
Paul_C
No. But by referring to BS7671 the official guidance on Part P clearly indicates that "in the view of the Secretary of State" using mixed colors is not, in itself, unsafe.
Yes, I dispute that. The current edition of BS7671 does not sanction the use of traditional colors any more. There was a changeover period, which expired in 2006.
No. I've never claimed as much.
But you've already answered "No" to the questions I posed. You've agreed that mixing brown/blue with red/black does not violate any rule within BS7671. You've agreed that the Approved Document indicates that the official position is that an installation complying with BS7671 is taken as being in full compliance with the "reasonable provision for safety" requirement of Part P.
So how can you still claim that it's illegal?
Legally speaking no, but I'm not claiming that there is. You, on the other hand, are claiming that it's against the law in some cases to mix the systems.
Not disputed.
According to the official guidance for Part P, the Secretary of State does not agree with you.
I'll take that as a "No" then.
I was trying to establish what you considered as being "available."
So I'll ask again: In what other situation would whether you happen to have something readily to hand or not be an excuse for failing to comply with building regulations?
Whether you, I, or anyone else reading this considers mixing the cables to be making "reasonable provision for safety," as required by Part P, is one thing. But used mixed cables either makes such provision or it doesn't. It's ludicrous to claim that of two identical installations, one complies with the regulations and the other doesn't.
Shall we try to apply you approach to some other electrical issues?
1. I'm adding a circuit to feed some specific fixed appliance. I need a 20A MCB, but there is no particular technical reason for providing RCD protection. It just so happens that I have both a 20A MCB and a 20A RCBO of the correct types in my box. So do you consider it "unreasonable" and therefore illegal to install the 20A MCB, because using the RCBO would provide increased safety?
2. I'm wiring an extension and have none of the necessary supplies, so will be buying everything from scratch. On the grounds that radial circuits are safer than ring circuits with all their inherent shortcomings, is it illegal to wire the sockets in the new extension on a ring, because I could just as easily use radials?
The law under examination requires that the finished installation makes "reasonable provision" for safety. The reasons one has for doing something are irrelevant, so long as that requirement is met.
And you agree that in such a case the finished installation using mixed cables would be fully compliant with the "reasonable provision" requirement of Part P. Yet for some bizarre reason you think that the same installation would not be compliant if I happened to have half a roll of red/black cable in the garage which I could have used instead.
That's not what I said at all. I merely pointed out that the law does not always make demands which are reasonable (by the "Man on the Clapham omnibus" definition of the term).
There is no dispute about whether mixing the colors could introduce confusion and thus has a potential safety issue. My dispute is with you claiming that doing so is illegal, when all the official documentation clearly states otherwise.
But still no.
You believe that an installation with mixed colours is less safe than one without, and yet you also believe that deliberately and for no reason whatsoever making an installation less safe than you could otherwise do is reasonable behaviour.
As I observed earlier, if you really believe that, at the start of a job, saying to yourself "I know what I'll do, I'll deliberately make it less safe than it is even though I could just as easily not do that" is you behaving reasonably then you are beyond reasoning with.
It does not prohibit them in a way which means that their use cannot be documented as an exception on the EIC, justified on safety grounds.
[code:1]
No. I've never claimed as much. [/code:1]
No.
You believe that an installation with mixed colours would present greater hazards to someone maintaining or altering it in the future than one without, and yet you also believe that deliberately and for no reason whatsoever making an installation more hazardous to someone maintaining or altering it in the future than you could otherwise do is reasonable behaviour.
As I observed earlier, if you really believe that, at the start of a job, saying to yourself "I know what I'll do, I'll deliberately make less provision for the safety of people maintaining or altering it in the future than it has now, even though I could just as easily not do that" is you behaving reasonably then you are beyond reasoning with.
Simple.
It's not a reasonable thing to do, and therefore whatever provisions result from it cannot be said to be reasonable.
Yes he does.
He has said that your provisions for safety etc must be reasonable. If you have not behaved reasonably in making provisions then they cannot be reasonable.
You may take it for what you like, but your position can only be valid if you refuse to accept that there is any possibility of the concept of reasonableness being involved.
Would you please provide a reasonable explanation of why you were so unable to understand
... if you have NOS pre-harmonisation cable available ...
...What I said was that if you have got some NOS pre-harmonisation cable available ...
... if you have old-colour cable in new condition available ...
that you asserted that the presence of cable for sale on eBay, no matter what the price made it available to you in a way which would make it reasonable to expect you to use it?
When the requirement is that it is to be used if you have it available, not that you have to use it no matter how unreasonable it is to obtain.
Wrong.
Using mixed cables either makes reasonable provision or it does not. If using them is unreasonable then it does not.
It is not ludicrous to say that unreasonably choosing to make an installation less safe than it was means that you haven't been reasonable in your provision for safety.
Shall we try to apply you approach to some other electrical issues?
As there could be technical reasons for not providing RCD protection, and because the cost of what you do has a bearing on whether it is reasonable then I can't answer that.
If there really was absolutely no reason to prefer rings,
i.e.
ABSOLUTELY NO difference in ease of installation,
ABSOLUTELY NO difference in the cost of cables, protective devices, CU space, testing time, documentation time, circuit labelling time,
ABSOLUTELY NO difference in the ease of use of the resulting circuits,
ABSOLUTELY NO difference in the degree of safety of the resulting circuits,
then yes, but since the last point is open to debate (there are reasonable differences of opinion on the relative safety of the two topologies), and it would be difficult to show that there would be absolutely no cost differences then the answer has to be no.
No - it requires you to make reasonable provision in. If your provision is done unreasonably then you have not complied.
No I don't, not if you had behaved unreasonably and perversely done work which was less safe than it could have been.
If you had the cable available then choosing not to use it would be deliberately choosing to compromise safety for absolutely no reason.
That cannot be said to be a reasonable thing to do.
Precisely.
There ought to be no doubt, therefore, that deliberately choosing to introduce confusion and potential danger FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHATSOEVER is not reasonable behaviour.
The law requires your provisions for safety to be reasonable. If you do not behave reasonably then you have not complied.
To try and claim that you have is a bit like trying to defend yourself against a charge of driving without due care and attention on the grounds that you didn't actually have or cause an accident. The end result of your driving was the same.
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holmslaw
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Basil brush, or just a generic sweeping brush?
wow, only two pages in and sheddy has already started with the multi-colours, various font sizes, underlines and italics.
I think its time his consultant and care team reviewed his prescription/s
Hes gone proper basil
I think its time his consultant and care team reviewed his prescription/s
Hes gone proper basil
P
Paul_C
Just because one of two options available might be a better choice does not automatically make it unreasonable to adopt the other option - And certainly not when the other option is considered perfectly acceptable under all other circumstances.
So, as I said, red/black no longer complies with BS7671, which is what you asked. If the old cable still complied with the current edition of BS7671 there would be no need to note its use as a deviation, would there?
The question is whether reasonable provision has been made for safety, and the official interpretation is clearly that mixed colors satisfy that requirement. Whether you happen to have other materials around which you could have used is beside the point.
Let me ask again, and I'll use this phrasing deliberately: How can you consider it to be a reasonable interpretation of the regulations that of two identical installations one is legal and the other is not?
If you believe that the Secretary of State's view coincides with yours on this point, then why does the official guidance contradict that?
The Approved Document refers to compliance with BS7671 as being deemed to be compliance with Part P. It doesn't say anything about such compliance being conditional upon what other materials you may or may not have laying around which you could have used instead. BS7671 itself doesn't either.
Who is going to decide whether or not it is available? What if it's sitting in my workshop, but I have plans to use it for something else?
And all of this is pretty academic anyway, since after the brown/blue cable has been installed, who is ever going to know whether suitable red/black cable was sitting around the house anyway?
We know that building inspectors like to make up their own rules as they go along, but can you cite one instance of any installation being rejected on the grounds of your argument?
Again then - Explain why the official guidance notes do not say that, and in fact completely contradict it.
So do you think that when a building inspector refuses to accept, say, insulation which falls below what he considers meets the requirements of the appropriate part of the building regs., you could simply claim that buying more would be unreasonable because of the cost?
Again, do you think that difficulty of installation would be accepted as an excuse for failing to comply with other requirements of the building regulations?
As above.
Given the dubious specifications for U.K. ring circuits which, even though considered unlikely, could result in overloaded cables whereas compliant radials cannot, that's unlikely.
Again, where does cost factor into being excused complying with any other parts of the building regs?
In the case of being involved in a collision versus not being involved in a collision, the end result is not the same. But in the case of using brown/blue to extend a red/black installation, the end result is the same, regardless of whether you had no red/black cable around or had it but chose not to use it.
However, to continue with your driving analogy, if you were driving at 50 mph on a road and were unfortunate enough to be in some sort of accident, would you want any accusations of driving without due care and attention to be judged on the basis of your speed being reasonable and prudent under the circumstances, or or would you be happy with a judgment that clearly you could have driven at 40 mph which would have been safer, and that therefore driving at 50 mph was unreasonable behavior because you chose the less safe option?
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