It's Offical, Cable Colours to Change

[sterose]

Further, no installation must contain both the new and old colour schemes. A draft ammendmend change is in progress at the moment, and the IEE intend to make this available to the public on or after 31 March 2004.

There will also be a new Appendix to BS7671:2002 which will explain how to undertake new work in an installation populated by the existing woiring methodology, it is likely that in order for the older wiring to be compliant, all cores will be required to be sleeved in the new colours.

I find it laughable that, say, an extra spur could cost daft money to replace or sheath every cable in the house. This is a reg that will be taken with a pinch of salt, and widely disregarded.

...Do the words BRITISH EMPIRE mean anything anymore!

Don't be fascist.

 

[AdamW]

I think it is absolutely looney that this is being done in the name of "European harmonisation", but they are allowing two different colour schemes for 3-core to appease Germany... That defeats the whole object of the exercise!

Whatsmore, this will not solve problems with Europeans trying to do DIY wiring when they move to the UK. In fact this would probably make it worse. Say a Frenchman bought a house in England today and decided to do some wiring, not realising that we use ring mains. He would take a socket off the wall, and would see wire colours that he was not expecting. This will set alarm bells ringing and he will hopefully do some further research before starting again.

Now, what if the colour scheme is exactly the same? Socket comes of the wall, the wires look familiar. So a few wires get jumbled around: "no problem, it's just some spurs" he thinks. Wires it all together and it doesn't work or even worse his TV explodes.

Now is this really a sensible thing? Why don't they make the service station pumps for diesel the same colour as the ones for petrol to make harmony between petrol drivers and diesel drivers? They might be completely different types of engine, but it would mean they only have to make one colour pump! However, some idiot would go and stick the green spout in the car without checking what it is first. And this is a lot less likely to endanger life than the aforementioned reg changes.

 

[mildmanneredjanitor]

Yes, harmonisation with Europe...

Complete shambles here then!

There's only one good thing that came out of Brussels... Sprouts?

OK, so nothing good has come from Brussels!



On a serious note, what country in Europe has the (generally) highest standard of domestic wiring??? Bearing in mind three pin plugs etc...

 

[masona]

Say a Frenchman bought a house in England today and decided to do some wiring, not realising that we use ring mains.

Is it true,the ring mains are phrasing out as well in the UK ?

 

[AdamW]

I hope not! I can think of easier systems to wire, but they all have their downfalls. I think that ring circuits are the best compromise.

Perhaps if we got ahead of the game here, and wrote our own European Bill on electrical harmonisation, then we could get decent electrical standards imposed on Europe before they impose unfused plugs and over-long spurs on us. This would save on the cost of rubber wellies and gloves to wear at home so we don't get shocks off the wiring that is done to the new degraded standards.