Hager Metal Consumer Units

[Essex_]

No, the admittance of 5 day wonders on to the schemes registers is the problem!

Could not agree more.

 

[ipf]

No, the admittance of 5 day wonders on to the schemes registers is the problem!

All for the sake of cash.....who's bothered about cu's causing fires?....there's more to be made.

 

[Guest77]

You may have misunderstood me. I am not disputing the figures at all. And I agree with your reasoning. My point with that post was that E54 in the first paragraph said the figures are BS and then in the second paragraph used the same figures to slam Part P.

I fully believe that lack of checks and short courses are to blame for these fires. For me the only way to change this would be a license approach. If people could loose the right to work within their trade standard would improve. But that debate is not for this thread.

No misunderstanding at all, UNG has you summed up lol.

 

[richy3333]

Statistic are like a woman in a bikini. They reveal a lot but hide the essential facts.

I've seen no more hard evidence that these fires are attributable to Electrical Trainee than they are to Martians. If anyone has any links to some proof then I'd be interested to read it. Maybe all these fires were caused by eastern Europeans doing cut price electrical work and maybe not?

This year I've seen the results of one C U fire. The usual ****ty plastic MK dual RCD £30 nonsense. Fitted by a 60 year old apprenticed 'been a spark all my life' and still think MK is as good as it was 30 years ago bloke. The cause of the fire was a loose neutral.

Nah, stuff it, its all the fault of Electrical Trainee

 

[HappyHippyDad]

1. Because people these days have some sort of natural aversion to charging for what they're worth. Mainly because there are so many people out there who aren't worth jack $h!t so prices remain low.

2. You haven't really been paying attention of late have you? What is required is a board made of non-combustible material. Steel is an example of such a material, nothing more. In fact, if a board complies with BS EN 61439-3 then it is by definition non-combustible. There are numerous plastic boards that comply with this standard.

It does look like a nice bit of kit, I can't argue with that. What I will say though is that it's a complete and utter waste of money considering Hager's current plastic boards also comply with AMD 3.

Buy it and all you do is play in to the hands of the manufacturers who are doing all in their power to perpetuate this myth that new boards 'have' to be steel. Put it this way, come January, unless we as a trade start to wise the f**k up, where the board manufacturers are concerned, all their Christmas's will have come early!

Read his post again.


Regulation 421.1.201 states that the CU has to comply to BS EN 61439-3 AND be made from non-combustible material, so I cant see how if the unit complies to BS EN 61439-3 that means it is non-combustible otherwise they wouldn't have added the 'AND'. BS EN 61439-3 costs a fortune so its impossible to get a look at it, although I think you have access to it Mr DS so some actual facts about why complying to BS EN 6139-3 implies that non-combustible materials have been used would be interesting and useful to see, and a reason as to why you think reg 421.1.201 feels the need to put in the word 'AND'.

 

[Delboybully]

No, the admittance of 5 day wonders on to the schemes registers is the problem!

So what you and ENG54 are saying is that all CU fires are caused by 5WWs. Is there some evidence for this or is this your assumption. If all CUs that have caught fire have been installed or worked on by 5WWs then I will agree with you otherwise I think you should keep to evidence based statements.

Have you considered the cause of these fires may be due to the inferior quality of modern day CUs?

 

[D Skelton]

Read his post again.


Regulation 421.1.201 states that the CU has to comply to BS EN 61439-3 AND be made from non-combustible material, so I cant see how if the unit complies to BS EN 61439-3 that means it is non-combustible otherwise they wouldn't have added the 'AND'. BS EN 61439-3 costs a fortune so its impossible to get a look at it, although I think you have access to it Mr DS so some actual facts about why complying to BS EN 6139-3 implies that non-combustible materials have been used would be interesting and useful to see, and a reason as to why you think reg 421.1.201 feels the need to put in the word 'AND'.

It's all explained in this thread here: http://www.electriciansforums.co.uk/electrical-wiring-theories-electrical-regulations/99771-amd-3-hopefully-busting-myth-metal.html

As for why they included the word 'and' in 421.1.201 I couldn't say?

BS 7671 and BS EN 61439 are written by different people, so maybe it's because many of those involved in the decision making process of Regulation 421.1.201 haven't actually read the product standard in full, instead they've been given just the general jist of it?

Maybe it's because BS EN 61439 itself doesn't actually define 'non-combustible', instead it details just the very specific set of criteria that equipment manufactured under it must meet, therefore those writing 421.1.201 simply didn't follow the paper trail to the harmonised standard that does actually define 'non-combustible'.

Maybe it's because the final draft of Regulation 421.1.201 was created in a matter of minutes on some fella's desk, it was then dictated and the dictaphone handed to an office lackey to type up and somewhere, things got lost in translation.

Or, maybe, the word 'and' was just added to emphasise the point. The fact that 99.9% of sparks aren't going to have access to BS EN 61439 could contribute to the decision to make it damn clear in 421.1.201 that the enclosure must be non-combustible even though by meeting BS EN 61439 it already will be. Giving steel as an example is essentially one way of saying "look, we're not expecting you to do your own research here, so install steel and you'll definitely be fine".

Who knows?

All I know is that 1. steel is not the only non-combustible material on the planet. And 2. The IET aren't exactly well known for their ability to put things on paper in plain English!

 

[D Skelton]

So what you and ENG54 are saying is that all CU fires are caused by 5WWs?

Show me where I've said this please?

 

[D Skelton]

Statistic are like a woman in a bikini. They reveal a lot but hide the essential facts.

I've seen no more hard evidence that these fires are attributable to Electrical Trainee than they are to Martians. If anyone has any links to some proof then I'd be interested to read it. Maybe all these fires were caused by eastern Europeans doing cut price electrical work and maybe not?

This year I've seen the results of one C U fire. The usual ****ty plastic MK dual RCD £30 nonsense. Fitted by a 60 year old apprenticed 'been a spark all my life' and still think MK is as good as it was 30 years ago bloke. The cause of the fire was a loose neutral.

Nah, stuff it, its all the fault of Electrical Trainee

In the last year there has been a 500% rise in Romanian nationals in the capital. In the same period there has been a 100% rise in cash point fraud. Are those statistics hard evidence that Romanian criminals are contributing to this rise in cash pint frauds? No, but it sure as hell is pointing a rather large finger in their direction!

Bury your head in the sand all you like mate, ignore what the statistics are suggesting, that's your look out. I for one see quite a worrying correlation though, and the fact that the whole weight of the justification for your point rests on the shoulders of one experience suggests that it is you that is making the snap judgements here, not I.

 

[GB.Kayak]

Read his post again.


Regulation 421.1.201 states that the CU has to comply to BS EN 61439-3 AND be made from non-combustible material, so I cant see how if the unit complies to BS EN 61439-3 that means it is non-combustible otherwise they wouldn't have added the 'AND'. BS EN 61439-3 costs a fortune so its impossible to get a look at it, although I think you have access to it Mr DS so some actual facts about why complying to BS EN 6139-3 implies that non-combustible materials have been used would be interesting and useful to see, and a reason as to why you think reg 421.1.201 feels the need to put in the word 'AND'.

Damien Skelton has already posted on this subject:

http://www.electriciansforums.co.uk...99771-amd-3-hopefully-busting-myth-metal.html

He is the one person to have brought together the relevant parts of the applicable standards in a single thread. Unfortunately, his conclusion is that a CU that is self-extinguishing is the same as a non-combustible CU.