Anyone that thinks banning the sale of electrical goods from sheds or to the public will soon find that the price of those day to day goods will literally skyrocket in price, to a point where bona fide electricians will see domestic work drying up across the board. Whereas at the moment these DIY'ers are actually a source of income, putting right what they have got wrong. Unfortunately when you start restricting sales, it never seems to stop where you expect it too. You'll all get your arse well and truly bitten.
Thank god you'll never get past the big retail outlets, they will never let you get a toe in the door let alone a foot!! lol!!
Besides anything else, who the hell wants the UK to become a bloody Nanny State??
As i say, far better to get your own electrical industry sorted out, before you start throwing stones and blame at everyone else, the biggest problem(s) are a lot closer to home than your average DIY Dave.....
You raise some interesting points. I think the idea of banning the sale of electrical equipment to Joe Public is a discussion we do need to have.
I don't particularly agree with you on the point about material prices skyrocketing. Having spoken with a few managers of wholesalers, most of whom wouldn't be phased at all if they were no longer allowed to sell to Joe Public (TLC aside!). The manager of my local YESSS branch told me quite recently that 95% of their business is with the trade, so the main price increases would be your sundries really as it would be the wholesale distribution prices that would be affected. Sockets, switches, junction boxes, fancy lighting, 1mm T+E and 2.5mm T+E, and even then, they wouldn't be horrendous.
I'm totally with you on the nanny state side of things, my worry however is that in your own words 'sorting out' the electrical industry will inevitably have the side effect of pushing tens of thousands of unqualified and untrained 'electricians' out of business because let's face it, not many will be willing to use a four year grace period to get themselves a core qualification and proof of experience under supervision. The small amount of 'good' 5WWs will do the right thing I'm sure and get trained up (and by 'good' I mean concious about doing the right thing). A large number of bad ones however I expect would opt to fly under the radar rather than joining the club above the raised bar, thus becoming Joe Public themselves!
How would you prevent the thousands of 5WWs who don't want to upskill but at the same time still want to operate from doing so?
If there are other options I'm all ears, this is one area where my ideas are not especially set in stone so am open to suggestion, but the way I see it at the moment, if you increase the level of qualification and experience required to become an electrician, thousands simply won't be capable, so will just continue regardless?
The only other option I can think of is heavy penalties for those who operate without a licence and mass public awareness campaigns of the importance of only using licenced electricians, but then we're back to this 'nanny state' business are we not??
