Unqualified, inexperienced badged "electricians"

[highspark]

How can we put an end to this drivel? Why is there people out there unqualified and inexperienced bluffing their way into work. Taking work from fully qualified time served lads?Theres a couple in my area. Driving round in vans with schemes tatooed all over them. They look the biz - the outfit. But I know they are not electricians. They are chancers bluffing their way through. The 17th Edition minimum requirement to have a schemes backing...its a farce. The problem I have is the customers can't differenciate from a fully qualified. 17th edition, 2391, tech cert nvq3 electrician from a 17th edition short course idiot! It boils my blood

 

[grimysparks80]

I think youve got to be careful that this doesent turn into bullying on here lads. Im not in favour of the 5 week courses as they stand, but the fact that DNS1 comes on here shows that he must care about his proffession.

Ive spent the last few months putting right work done by people off these short courses and seen some pretty appalling work. But that doesent mean every1 whose done one is a cowboy.

Ive known plenty of time served sparks who did shoddy work, deliberately broke regs ect and didnt have the excuse of poor training.

If youre just going to do Domestic then I dont see why you cant do the theory side in a 5 week intensive course. I just think there should be a requirement for a certain amount of experience as well before you go off unsupervised.

 

[p11jor]

Worked with one last week, 62 years old, bin at it since 16,

Notches joists, doesn't even think twice about ip ratings around the board, I done a calc for a shower feed and had it at 6mm he argued "it's got to be 10mm it's a shower"
Didn't know how to do a continuity of ring final, didn't know how to do a Ze reading, just a nightmare yet me at the age of 24 is down the pecking order from this guy to the consumers as "he is older, more experience" and I have my 17th, 2392, 2391, 2330L3, part p approved, good fault finder etc, so it's swings and round abouts.

 

[DNS1]

part p shower ****e,,,,,sisters just had conservatory put on back house, plonker di thinks great ile just spur of the nearest skt outlet for these four doubles and plonk a fcu into it for the lights,,,mmmnot bothered to dwn rate the skts just went ahead and spured off a spur off a spur etc etc,,so i take a look into the double skt that his taking his spur from and find he has split the downstairs ring and crimped one leg and taken it out to feed the additions in the conservatory.....needless to say silly ole industrial spark will have to srt it out,,,,,not saying all di are bad just seem to go behind any that do work for people i know,,,and i personally hate twin and sling,,

Some people will always be idiots regardless of the training.

The vast majority of short course installers will know this isn't compliant from day 1.

 

[needasparks]

Worked with one last week, 62 years old, bin at it since 16,

Notches joists, doesn't even think twice about ip ratings around the board, I done a calc for a shower feed and had it at 6mm he argued "it's got to be 10mm it's a shower"
Didn't know how to do a continuity of ring final, didn't know how to do a Ze reading, just a nightmare yet me at the age of 24 is down the pecking order from this guy to the consumers as "he is older, more experience" and I have my 17th, 2392, 2391, 2330L3, part p approved, good fault finder etc, so it's swings and round abouts.

But then i've seen policemen nick you for speeding then drive off at a 100mph perhaps they can't drive either.

 

[Octopus]

And last week I had to remove 2 x spurs off a spur installed by a non Corgi registered boiler installer!!

 

[UNG]

part p shower ****e,,,,,sisters just had conservatory put on back house, plonker di thinks great ile just spur of the nearest skt outlet for these four doubles and plonk a fcu into it for the lights,,,mmmnot bothered to dwn rate the skts just went ahead and spured off a spur off a spur etc etc,,so i take a look into the double skt that his taking his spur from and find he has split the downstairs ring and crimped one leg and taken it out to feed the additions in the conservatory.....needless to say silly ole industrial spark will have to srt it out,,,,,not saying all di are bad just seem to go behind any that do work for people i know,,,and i personally hate twin and sling,,

These DI's are probably good at new install from scratch but breaking into an existing installation is where a lot of the problems crop up

I think youve got to be careful that this doesent turn into bullying on here lads. Im not in favour of the 5 week courses as they stand, but the fact that DNS1 comes on here shows that he must care about his proffession.

I agree that there is a fine line in bullying but I see this as a debate over what is qualified or not DNS1 is trying to defend IMO an untenable position with regard to qualification and what is an electrician I don't see this as care for his profession more trying to defend his lack of qualification and justify why he doesn't need it

Ive spent the last few months putting right work done by people off these short courses and seen some pretty appalling work. But that doesent mean every1 whose done one is a cowboy.

Ive known plenty of time served sparks who did shoddy work, deliberately broke regs ect and didnt have the excuse of poor training.

If youre just going to do Domestic then I dont see why you cant do the theory side in a 5 week intensive course. I just think there should be a requirement for a certain amount of experience as well before you go off unsupervised.

There is good and bad in both camps but reading the Part P consultation document it makes interesting reading as to the number of people registered with part p schemes at 39000 but makes no mention of the levels of training to get registered. The document declares that safety has improved since part p but makes no reference to the introduction of the 17th edition regs and the effect this may have had on distorting the figures

If you can do all the theory in 5 weeks I'd be surprised as I don't see that you can cut it down that much just because it's domestic as you still need all the underpinning knowledge to support what you are doing

Worked with one last week, 62 years old, bin at it since 16,

Notches joists, doesn't even think twice about ip ratings around the board, I done a calc for a shower feed and had it at 6mm he argued "it's got to be 10mm it's a shower"
Didn't know how to do a continuity of ring final, didn't know how to do a Ze reading, just a nightmare yet me at the age of 24 is down the pecking order from this guy to the consumers as "he is older, more experience" and I have my 17th, 2392, 2391, 2330L3, part p approved, good fault finder etc, so it's swings and round abouts.

To be honest I would tend to put 10mm² in for a shower as the shower that is there now may well be replaced with something larger at a later date

 

[telectrix]

To be honest I would tend to put 10mm² in for a shower as the shower that is there now may well be replaced with something larger at a later date
but by that argument, you could use 2.5mm for lighting in case they want to fit 60 50w halogen downlighters.

 

[DNS1]

Here's my story guys seeing as everyone seems so interested.

I'm currently in employment but looking to start something on the side. I've always enjoyed doing electrical work (admittedly sometimes now completely legit, but always on my own properties) so want to get the necessary qualifications to do domestic electrics (installs, fault finding, minor works etc).

I've got to get my quals done alongside my current job which is going to be tough regardless of which ones I do.

I've made the decision NOT to do the 2330 because a) it's not feasible with my job and shift pattern b) it would take years and c) it's not necessary for domestic work.

Does this make me a bad person? I personally don't think so. ALL of my work will be done as a registered person and in line with the regulations.

I think we need a middle ground between "electrician" and "domestic installer". As people have said, the former implies industrial/commercial work but the later implies only very basic domestic work.

Domestic Installer isn't a very nice way of describing someone who is qualified to inspect, test and fault find on installations.

 

[Dave 85]

youd like to think that times are changing end of the day your a domestic installer NOT an electrician and nowhere near being one i think sparks are bored of you lot tbh like a broken record talking about being sparks when your not youve been let in the industry by a loophole to do domestic electrical work big whoop you do know that anyone can do electrical work in their own home following proper procedure lol you are just a glorified DIYer haha

Punctuation is your freind

 

[grimysparks80]

I've made the decision NOT to do the 2330 because a) it's not feasible with my job and shift pattern b) it would take years and c) it's not necessary for domestic work.

Does this make me a bad person? I personally don't think so. ALL of my work will be done as a registered person and in line with the regulations.

I think we need a middle ground between "electrician" and "domestic installer". As people have said, the former implies industrial/commercial work but the later implies only very basic domestic work.

Domestic Installer isn't a very nice way of describing someone who is qualified to inspect, test and fault find on installations.

I kind of agree with this but I think the middle ground should be for those who have done the 2330/ 4 year apprenticeship but have no industrial or commercial experience.

 

[grimysparks80]

Punctuation is your freind

As is good spelling. lol.:joker:

 

[Dave 85]

I think everyones missing the point a bit here. Training is just one of several factors that make a decent electrician.
For an industrial/maintenance electrician training is a crucial factor but this is irrelevant because no company would take on a Electrical Trainee for this type of work.
This thread is about self employed domestic electricians right.
Firstly the debate about who's an 'electrician' and whos not....
Who cares, as far as the paying clients are concerend everybodys an electrician, the term has no clear definition anymore.
The factors that make a good domestic electrician/DI/DIYer/Electrical cable runner whatever we're calling them nowadays are:
Experience
Intelligence
Training
Knowledge
Drive
Personality

In roughly that order IMO

Now
Someone who knows nothing about physics/maths elctricity who has never worked in the building trade...
If they do a 5 week course, no, they are not going to be an even remotely competent electrician.
But exactly the same can be said of the same person doing 2330
Either way it doesn't matter, neither is going to be able to go out and start doing serious electrical work simply because they won't have a clue where to start, and if they do they arn't gonna get a very good rep when any other trade sees them trying to work out how to get a floorboard up.

On the other hand
If you had someone who's been an electricians mate for 3 years, or even a builder/plumber or experienced DIYer etc with a bit of intelligence and knowledge of physics, then IMO they will probably be able to do a 5 week course and come out as a reasonably competent domestic electrician.

A lot of you guys like to pretend that the variable of intelligence doesn't exist.

Some 19 yr old kid who isn't too sharp, doesnt really care about his career but manages to scrape through a full electrical apprenticeship may well be completely useless as a self employed domestic electrician because although he has the factors of training and experience, he lacks intelligence, knowledge drive and personality.

And Im starting to wonder if a lot of you guys going on about the 2330 have actually done it because I have and apart from testing, inspection and current capacity its largely irrelevant to a domestic electrician.

I dont know what they teach on these 5 week courses and it does seem quite short but I am fairly confident that If I had done it instead of 2330 it would make virtually no difference to the standard of the work I am carrying out.

 

[Dave 85]

As is good spelling. lol.:joker:

Lol fairplay, you got me there

 

[grimysparks80]

I dont know what they teach on these 5 week courses and it does seem quite short but I am fairly confident that If I had done it instead of 2330 it would make virtually no difference to the standard of the work I am carrying out.

I think youre right. Ive often thought to myself id be just as good with my standard of work (if not my understanding of it) without the 3 years of college, but useless without the 4 days a week on site.

 

[Guest112]

Lol fairplay, you got me there

not the sharpest knife in the drawer are you