RCD Protection

[carl9254]

Goin to quote a job tonight, went round yesterday for a quick look.

Basically there redecorating there master bedroom, there is only 1 double socket next to the door, they want 3 more around the room. Its an old use box with no rcd's and dont want to upgrade, will i be ok putting the new cables in steel earthed trunking?? Or shall i only do it if they upgrade??

 

[TPES]

Regardless of whether you add one socket or adding a dozen, you are altering the circuit and therefore you need to ensure the entire circuit complies with 17th ed regs. Which essentially means an RCD or RCBO.

Very mixed views on this, Ill always do what my Part P scheme provider says, as its them i want to keep happy every 12mths.. And they tell me that if possible then fit an RCBO at the board, If not then your ok to fit a RCD FCU to protect the additions or alterations youv'e made, As its only the work your doing that needs to comply to the regs.

Even if 9 out of 10 sparks, schemes or books tell me otherwise ill be doing what it takes to keep my Part P scheme provider happy.

 

[Yooj]

Section 131.8, 610.4 and 633 of the red book.

Just the addition or alteration must comply with current regulations as long as it does not degrade the safety of the existing installation. All Bonding/Earthing must be adequate.

Any defects within the current install should be noted on the EIC or MWC.

Yooj

 

[Steve D]

The seminar I attended during the summer at the IET in London had a presentation y Mark Coles on additions and alterations - it expanded on an article in the Spring Wiring Matters magazine.

Excerpt from the magazine article.
"When carrying out additions or alterations to existing electrical installations, the reconfigured aspect of the electrical installation should comply with BS 7671:2008. The installer does not simply take responsibility for the newly installed or reconfigured element of the installation but all parts of the circuit(s) worked on"

The full article can be found here
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&ct=res&cd=1&ved=0CA0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.------.org%2Fpublishing%2Fwiring-regulations%2Fmag%2F2009%2F30-additions.cfm%3Ftype%3Dpdf&ei=j7YiS_rxGIGq4QaVusz0CQ&usg=AFQjCNGaHOkOk9actyBv6fb5C-m5ILjNIA&sig2=Bb5Lq5RPBoZhdilw6-d1Fg

They said that the implication of the regs is that if you alter a circuit, because you are altering the characteristics of the circuit, you must ensure the entirety of the said circuit complies to the current regs.

The example in the article does actually refer to a very similar scenario being discussed on here.

The Scope of the regs states that the regs apply to "additions and alterations to installations and also parts of the existing installation affected by an addition or alteration"

 

[Yooj]

Lots of food for thought there...I think that I am going to talk to the IET and see who Mark Coles is....

What I cannot understand is if this was the actual intent of the IET, i.e, any circuit an installer works on must subsequently be brought up to the current standards, then why did they not just say that, as the relevant sections in the red book can certainly be interpreted in several ways.

Yooj

 

[SirKit Breaker]

How do you certify that your work does not comply with the Regulations?

There are ways and means but sometimes you have to go to the extreme of the rules.

I recently relocated an existing socket (if you get my drift) for a dishwasher in a kitchen which had been overlooked by the kitchen fitters. The CU was full of 60898 breakers no RCD to be had and the customer only wanted a £50 socket for his dishwasher, not a several hundred pound job doing. Minor works cert, no new circuit, job is compliant.

The rules are there to be used, sometimes we have to bend them, but only if its safe to do so.

PS....sorry moderator for swearing, but its been one of those weeks.

 

[Yooj]

Found out who Mark Coles is at the IET...He happens to be the Chief Engineer there and he also wrote one of the Guidance Notes...GU2 I think...Well, basically, what the hell does he know anyway.

If his article is to be followed as verbatim, then the alteration originally mentioned in the OP thread would require the OP to replace the whole circuit, as presumably it is in Red and Black and the whole circuit would need to be changed for Blue and Brown in order to comply with the 17th...Furthermore, if the existing circuit has been designed, and installed and inspected and tested by others, likely to be buried within the fabric of the building etc, then surely how can you validate the design and erection method, installation method, grouping factors, environmental influences, etc, of the installation and would you really want to?

Take another example...A multi-layered industrial installation with several tiers of distribution all installed to the 16th edition...would an alteration to a final circuit, say just adding a socket, at the furthest tier from the main supply, mean that every circuit in terms of Mark Coles' 'line-of-sight' analogy need to be upgraded to the 17th edition....I'll leave that one for discussion.

I think that Mark Coles has got 'His' interpretation of the regs wrong...reading through the regs he cited, and in fact the regs I cited earlier, the key aspect is that the existing installation should be adequate to handle the addition/alteration, rather than 'Any circuit modified should comply in it's entirety to the 17th edition'

Yooj

 

[Risteard]

If his article is to be followed as verbatim, then the alteration originally mentioned in the OP thread would require the OP to replace the whole circuit, as presumably it is in Red and Black and the whole circuit would need to be changed for Blue and Brown in order to comply with the 17th...

The 17th (and indeed the 2004 amendment to the 16th) permit the use of both red & black and brown & blue (or red, yellow, blue and black and brown, black, grey and blue) as long as a warning notice is displayed at the distribution board and so long as the interface is marked in a three-phase installation. So it's not really a deviation, so long as the alteration or addition is in harmonised colours.

 

[Yooj]

The 17th (and indeed the 2004 amendment to the 16th) permit the use of both red & black and brown & blue (or red, yellow, blue and black and brown, black, grey and blue) as long as a warning notice is displayed at the distribution board and so long as the interface is marked in a three-phase installation. So it's not really a deviation, so long as the alteration or addition is in harmonised colours.

Come on, give me some poetic license! And to be fair to Mark Coles....he did point this out in his article.

However, I think you can understand the spirit of what I was intending to get across.

Yooj

 

[Risteard]

Come on, give me some poetic license! And to be fair to Mark Coles....he did point this out in his article.

However, I think you can understand the spirit of what I was intending to get across.

Yooj

Fair enough!