Its a worry

[Adam_151]

... that some people without the slightest grasp of how electricity works try and attempt to do electrical related DIY.

Its one thing to not be sure on the finer points of the regs, or to be unsure whether a certain circuit should be rcd protected or not (taking into account the likelyhood of an earth fault and the likely hood of nusience tripping, as well as the regs), but is another thing completely to connect your switch across your light and be confused when it trips the mcb.

From many replies to these sorts of questions I gather that I am not alone in thinking its worrying issue

Adam

P.S. saying this I did manage to connect a supply right across a room stat once , but that was a case of cable mistaken identity- two cables disappeard (behind pine cladding) towards a fcu needed to re-route one, would be difficult to get it back down to fcu and pine clading was going to be removed anyway, so tried to pull both cables up, the supply cable came, but the 'load' cable didn't, so chopped it off and put it into the fcu (in new location), little did I know that the central heating junction box was a surface mount box with balnking plate trapped behind the cladding and what I thought was the cable going from the fcu to the central heating junctionbox elsewhere was actually the cable to the room stat from the junctionbox

 

[ninebob]

It's very, very grey area. Personally, I can see where the thinking behind part P is coming from. I have been brought up being tought electrical theory, from 11 years old at school. I know how circuits work, I know the difference between AC and DC, and so on. At 24 years old, I would therefore would consider myself capable to extend a ring in my house, or to run a spur, safely. I have enough knowledge to know which grade of cable to use, and which components to employ. However, if it came to a full rewire, or anything major involving the CU or meter, I would bite the bullet and pay someone else to do it. Some people clearly don't. I think that the basics should be tought as a compusory subject early on, just like the green cross code.

 

[supersparks]

...

P.S. saying this I did manage to connect a supply right across a room stat once , but that was a case of cable mistaken identity- two cables disappeard (behind pine cladding) towards a fcu needed to re-route one, would be difficult to get it back down to fcu and pine clading was going to be removed anyway, so tried to pull both cables up, the supply cable came, but the 'load' cable didn't, so chopped it off and put it into the fcu (in new location), little did I know that the central heating junction box was a surface mount box with balnking plate trapped behind the cladding and what I thought was the cable going from the fcu to the central heating junctionbox elsewhere was actually the cable to the room stat from the junctionbox

well that dosnt say much good about your electrical compitance mate.
you should be testing before you do these things.
the case above would mean identifying the cable unless it was labled by myself when disconnecting or confirmed by observing the connections.
you should never make the assumptions stated above.
sorry to be pointing it out but it seems a bit offy that you post like this and yet managed to confuse a supply and switch cable....

 

[AdamW]

The basics are taught: as a chap of 24 also I too was educated about electricity and circuits in school.

Rule no. 1

"Never use electricity direct from the mains, only ever use mains electricity via a mains adaptor"

But we all choose to ignore it because you can hardly run 1.5V dc supplies around a house: think how thick the cables would be!

You are right. If you can't even grasp the basics from year 7 Physics/Technology class then you shouldn't really be messing with mains electricity. Like most jobs, you don't need to be a genius to be an electrician. What you DO need is to be able to think clearly and logically; this will help you design your installation or plan any modifications to it.

 

[ZenStalinist]

The rules were the same at my school. He said it is for health and safety reasons that we can only use ELV. Most we ever worked with was 18 volts DC.

 

[Adam_151]

well that dosnt say much good about your electrical compitance mate.
you should be testing before you do these things.
the case above would mean identifying the cable unless it was labled by myself when disconnecting or confirmed by observing the connections.
you should never make the assumptions stated above.
sorry to be pointing it out but it seems a bit offy that you post like this and yet managed to confuse a supply and switch cable....

Fair point, I should have tested it, (but sometimes its too easy to think, its got to be that, there isn't anyother way it would be...) but the point I am makeing, is when it went bang, and I investigated further, it was obvious why it hadn't worked, which is differen't than purposely wiring it up like that and wondering why it dosen't work

 

[dingbat]

Like most jobs, you don't need to be a genius to be an electrician. What you DO need is to be able to think clearly and logically

And therein lies the root of the problem. Common sense is a true oxymoron, isn't it? Even many fully trained technicians are logically challenged. As for the untrained, a little knowledge is truly a dangerous thing.