Is this legal to install in the UK?

[Ric2013]

Hi, plumber here so please be gentle (or take the p-ss ),

I am supposed to be installing a UV water steriliser for a customer. I have some concerns about the suitability of the product that the filter company (a UK manufacturer) has supplied me with.

Essentially it's a UV tube inside a quartz sleeve that zaps the water as it goes through a stainless tube mounted to the wall with a separate transformer unit. There is an earth connection that earths the metal cases together (not connected in my photos, but you get the idea).

The installation instructions recommend an FCU or plug connection (but it isn't fitted with a plug: naughty naughty but let's let that one slide).

I don't have concerns regarding the primary side of the switch-start fluorescent ballast, as that is a sheathed flexible cable to an earthed metal enclosure, but the secondaries (230VAC IIUC) seem to be single-insulated to the lamp connectors. There is some heat-shrink over the single-insulated wires but this is unshrunk and does not 100% cover the insulated conductors. Finally, the lamp connectors simply push on to the lamp and, once fitted, are not inside any kind of enclosure.

My concern is that, while the stainless steel water tube is earthed, someone could get a shock off the secondaries quite easily as the single-insulated wires are vulnerable, and quite likely earth themselves too, so the shock could pass right across the chest. And that, since the shock would be from the secondaries of the lamp transformer, this would mean the RCD protection on the circuit would be negated.

Am I being finickky, or does the whole thing need to go inside an electrical enclosure to be safely and legally fitted in the UK, which isn't exactly practical in a domestic environment?

Many thanks for any help you may be able to give me.

 

[Ric2013]

To answer the question, the way they get around CE conformity is that I am, apparently, the first one to ask them for it. The company has agreed to refund the goods which doesn't really solve the problem, but it does at least allow me to purchase from elsewhere. They seem to be decent enough, albeit probably out of their depth when manufacturing and selling electrical equipment.

Given that they seem to have been trading for years I fail to see how they haven't been picked up on this kind of thing before. Possibly they are genuinely acting in legality even if the collective thinking of the forum is that the product fails to meet UK standards. Or no-one bothers to check.

 

[brianmoooore]

I came across a UV steriliser tube with end caps like this while doing an EIC on a farm a few years ago. The damn thing actually bit me while I was having a good look around at what was there before actually starting the inspection.
It was situated, along with filters and iron removal stuff in a fenced off stall in a cubicle shed for cattle, cleaning up water from a borehole about 50 metres away.
Gave it a C2 on the EIC on the grounds of IP rating. It's almost certainly still where I left it, with the tube long burnt out, unless the cap has carbonised and tracked to the metalwork.