A Different Perspective

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

Where can we find out the statistics of electrocution/fires caused by non-qualified work, Oz Vs USA so to speak.

Ahhh... you want Facts! You're in the wrong section, that's three threads over, just after Drama, Drivel and Dingo, but before Fairy Tales, Fantasy and Fiction. This is Misinformation, Obfuscation and Speculation.

[rrich]

I understand now! Perfectly illogical.

[rat52]

One of the problems I have noticed is that it is very difficult to get all the information to give a informed answer to questions.

Unless you have a trade background, or at least knowledge of the subject, it is difficult to ask the right question in the first place.

[silentC]

There are two issues here: one is whether to give advice at all, the other is the disdain that some posters show towards the "call a sparky" response that inevitably follows these questions.

If you want to give advice, go for your life. I'm not going to stop you. Just be mindful of the forum rules in that regard. But when I say "call a sparky" I'm exercising my right not to give advice (which I might add I'm not qualified to give anyway) and implicit in that is my opinion that others should do the same. That's what it is: an opinion - which the laws of Australia happen to back up at present.

Whether you believe that people should be allowed to do their own electrical work or not is immaterial. The fact of the matter is that, at present, they are prohibited from doing so. It's clear cut. I don't care whether wrong advice might lead to death or injury or not, that isn't at issue. Doing your own wiring is illegal. No one can debate that.

[Daddles]

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.

This was done by someone presumably who 'knew what he was doing' - A mate in Melbourne wanted to replace a power point but found that the wires to the existing power point were all the same colour ... and were seperate wires, not bundled. So he climbed into the roof and found where the wires came up into the ceiling, where he found where someone had joined the new run to an existing run ... by seperating the individual wires at one point, driving a nail through each wire, and then wrapping the bared end of the new wire around the nail Fair dinkum. Me mate had lived there for five years. He called a sparky straight away ... and needed to have so much of the house rewired (not all the 'fixes' were that dodgy) that he wound up getting the whole house done properly.

Okay, we're not all at that level, but in my last place, I had to replace a motion detector. When I pulled the old one off, the colour coding was all wrong. I wired the new one up according to the book ... and blew the fuse. Wired it up as done originally, and it worked. A year later, when the place was extended, I mentioned this to the sparky, who had kittens when he had a look - apparently colour blindness wasn't the only problem the 'expert' who'd done it suffered from ... and he probably thought he was doing the right thing too.

It's no flamin' wonder I'm scared of 'lectricity and stubbornly cling to the 'smoke theory'.

Richard

[wattlewemake]

Quite a few years ago now, I was on a construction job in townsville. A couple of new blokes started on the job. One was an aussie who had just returned from the states. He had a yank sparky with him. Cant remember but I think he was a rellie to the aussie.
We had just finished putting up a light circuit but we had made a blew and the circuit didnt work. ( happens sometimes) We had been telling the yank dont test like you do at home - ie dont wet your fingers and touch the wires to see if theres voltage, use a multimeter.
But this yank knew better and he touched the wires. A over t with a horribly stunned look on his face. We couldnt do anything but laugh and then give him an earful. He was a bit timid after that and used a meter from then on. Reckons it was his worst shock ever by a long shot.

The difference between oz and the yanks is mainly the frequency. Here it is 50 hertz and over there it is 60 hertz. 50 hertz is more in line with your hearts natural cycle and has a bad tendancy to mess it up where 60 hertz doesnt. 50 milli amps is enough to kill you they say. Thats why they set the safety switches to 30 milliamps. So you dont get enough to cause a fatal shock. And that only works if you are a heathly person btw.

[rat52]

1amp for 1sec is enough to send the heart into fibrilation where it just flutters and doesn't beat.

Min fuse is 10amp so do the math. It's nasty.

As an aside, I was talking to a lady owner while doing carpentry work on her house and she said I didn''t have to use my earth leakage power box as she had one installed in the fuse box 6mths ago.

I asked if she had ever checked it.

No, didn't know she had to so we went to check it and it wouldn't trip.

2days later she rang to thank me as the "tradesman" who had installed it had not checked the earthing which was connected to the water pipes. The problem was the water pipes were PVC (plastic) hence no earth.

There is probably a moral to this story

[pedro the swift]

probbaly not so much the frequency but the voltage. Yanks run at 120 volts compared to our 240 volts. It would drive twice as much current through him and he would certainly be A/T.

[silentC]

2days later she rang to thank me as the "tradesman" who had installed it had not checked the earthing which was connected to the water pipes. The problem was the water pipes were PVC (plastic) hence no earth.

I suspect there is more to that story. But if a licensed sparky installed an earth leakage detector and didn't test it, then he probably should have his license taken away.

We had RCDs installed in our place a few years ago and the sparky installed a new earth stake at the same time (it was earthed through the plumbing previously). He said that if he did any work on electricals at all, he had to upgrade it to current standards.

[rat52]

I agree Silent, there would have to be more to it, but that is all I know.

[rat52]

Call me pendantic but when it comes to things that bite I don't take anyones word. I prefer to check myself.

[Rossluck]

I had a rather telling lesson myself a few months ago. I bought a machine that I since learned pulls more power than my circuit breakers can handle. But in the course of discovering this, I had to run back through the wiring looking for the problem.

When I undid a three-phase outlet to check the wiring, I discovered an absolute debacle of pathetic electrical work. It then dawned on me that it was my own work of a few years ago. An electrican wired the shed, and all I had to do was to later add an outlet that I'd bought. It wasn't pretty, and I've now sworn off doing even the most basic stuff.

But the bottom line in all of this is that if you ask any (honest) electrician if he or she ever cops electric shocks, they'll say "yes, it's part of the job". Well if the professionals get them, what chance do we have of avoiding them?

[rrich]

Doing your own wiring is illegal. No one can debate that.

And the LAW is the LAW whether you agree with it or not.

[Pat]

Rich, I work for a large electricity distribution company as a clerk. I am friendly with a large number of sparkies, within the company. They all tell me to give them a call if I need anything done to my house, no matter how trivial. I also hear the stories of the "bites" they get. Having been bitten myself, in my younger, dumber days, I have an understanding of what they mean. I also talk to the inspectors, whom the police call when a "DIY" electrician gets a serious bite and the police need a report for the coroner!

[Honorary Bloke]

I will preface this by saying that I do a lot of my own (simple) electrical work, if I am comfortable with the task at hand. But . . .

You never know when someone else has done some dodgy work, especially in an older house. I removed a ceiling fan in our kitchen only to discover that the wires just poked through the gyprock and the base of the fan was simply screwed to a joist.

Then again, one of our baths had apparently been "renoed" at some point and a door from one bedroom into the bath closed off and a small closet built-in. Fine, except the overhead light was on a two-way switch and now one switch is in the closet which faces the bedroom! Just imagine you're a boofhead who works on the lights just by turning off the switch (which I used to do sometimes) instead of the breaker and someone else goes in the closet and flips the switch.

So I'm all for reasonable DIY electrical work, but be da*n sure you have cut the breaker and very sure what you are doing. And know the code! No cheating.

[This post should in no way be taken as advice to break any Australian law, federal, state, or local. ]

Also, had a sparky here last week to wire up the new A/C and asked about running more power to my shed. His first question was: "Will you be wanting it inspected?" Followed quickly by: "It will be done right, but if you are having it inspected, it will cost more." Go figure. I suppose he meant that they would have to pull a permit from the county (local council) and that would run up the cost.