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Thomas Nagy and Paul Meenan discuss the wiring regs · The Electrical Show

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  The Electrical Show with Thomas Najie sponsored by Boss Professional Powerful power Tools sort for
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  measuring tools and experts accessories. Welcome to the Electrical Show on Thomas Najie and
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  with me as always for the next hour is Paul Meanan. Now Paul is
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  going to be taking the driving seats on this show. I'm merely a passenger
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  along for the ride because on today's show we are going to be talking about
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  B seven six seventy one, which is of course, are wiring REGs and
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  Paul, what are we going to be discussing over the course of this hour
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  Because you are the secret well it's not actually a secret. You are the
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  bookworm of the electrical industry. So it feels right then you are in the
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  driving seats of this show. I know other book worms. Yeah. So
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  very recently, the corregendum has been released to Amendment two of the Wire and
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  Riggs also known as the Big Brown Book or B seventy six seventy one,
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  and the cor agendum is from the Latin verse of courage here, which means
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  too correct. So, for some wind reason and I don't know why,
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  every single time the Wire and Riggs comes out, a couple of months later,
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  there is a corrigendum which is not an amendment, which is an upbreath.
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  It's a we've fixed some errors, although it's now been marketed beautifully as
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  feedback from our industry partners. You're poking a bear here, I can feel
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  it. No, not well, we are going to talk about what you
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  should know, what amendments are coming, and what needs to be done,
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  what needs to be changed The Electrical Show on fixed radio. You're listening to
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  the Electrical Show with Bosh Professional and Thomas Najie, and today we are talking
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  about the wiring rags. Now, Paul, what is changing? Okay,
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  So there's the courage Endum has been issued to just correct a few little bits.
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  I jokingly call it Amendment two point five because it does introduce a new
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  regulation, which I didn't think you were allowed to do. But hate the
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  committee do what they want, and they have introduced a new regg But there
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  is he's a little bit, isn't it. So generally it's not, there's
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  not that many massive changes, but there is one huge change in the heart
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  of it. I mean, there's some additional clarification on protected escape routes.
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  So when Amendment two of the Wine Reggs came out. There was all of
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  this concern with cables can only be installed in escape routes that are there to
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  serve the escape route. So everybody panicked because every building would be non compliant
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  and it would just lead to this massive billion pound cost or industry to fix
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  something. Because a guidance note changed in folks, just put it into context.
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  B A seven to sixteen one is a guidance note in law. It
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  can be used, amongst many other standards to beat you with when you're being
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  prosecuted for breaches of other health and safety laws. So when people say it's
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  regulations and standards, how can a standard be a regulation in the same context
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  it's it's a marketing title. It's a guidance note under law. So they've
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  issued a courage chander. And the biggest change is the requirements for surge protection.
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  So regulation four for three four one as used to state the overvolt which
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  protection was required where an over voltage could result in the failure of a safety
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  service. Now what happened was everyone's going, well, what's the safety service.
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  It must be emergency lighting, it must be this, it must be
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  that. And there was a couple of indents that was listed in the regulation,
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  and so in this courage endum they've deleted the second indent. And now
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  everybody seems to think that we're not putting surge protection in on domestic houses,
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  which is just fundamentally wrong. A safety service for just pretty voids it out.
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  Is an electrical system for electrical equipment provided to protect or worn persons in
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  the event of a hazard or essential tier evacuation from a location. Now,
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  since Search protection has come out, it's been ninety quid cost to put it
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  in a new board. I ain't doing it. I'm being underpriced. And
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  there's been a massive problem. Now that's from the one man bans, the
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  sole traders, but from a client perspective and asset owner like social housing,
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  because this is where this came from. Was if you own, say,
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  oh no, one point eight million homes social housing, all of a sudden
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  you've now got put search protection in every single board, you're bankrupt. You're
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  completely bankrupt straight away. And remember the required for search protection was about protection
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  from transience, and more importantly, it was it was required if there was
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  a safety impact or the economic value of all your equipment in your house melting
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  was too great. So it was a discussion between the electrician and the homeowner.
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  Vault. My voice was always just stick it into the cost, don't
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  tell them, just do it if they want to save that ninety quid or
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  whatever it costs. Nowadays they could sign a waiver that says, I understand
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  why not in search protection. I can't come back to the electrician and do
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  this. But what happened was because it's a safety service and you have smoke
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  alarms in houses. Now, smoke alarm was deemed a safety service, so
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  it's called chaos and mayhem. So every time you go along and you do
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  a retrofit onto a smoke alarm, do I now change the board put surge
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  protection in. It got ridiculously cost prohibitive, and so the industry kicked back
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  and kicked back hard. Lots of huge debate, and now we've some people
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  think we've backtracked. We haven't. What they've done is just deleted that indent
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  too. To make it clearer, it's still down to you and your engineer
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  in judgment and the risk appetite of the client as to whether you put surge
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  in. And that's what that courage ender was stimulating. So it doesn't mean
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  I don't fit it. It's just no. It doesn't mean don't fit it.
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  It means you're the engineer. You're making informed judgment based on the risk
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  profile to the building, your due diligence of understanding. What BS six two
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  three oh five is Lightning protection surges is how you would select an installation to
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  protect against transience Do you know what a category one, two and three surge
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  devices? So, for instance, when I'm in London and I put a
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  type two searge protection device in, do I need it? Whereas if I'm
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  out in the Sticks, I'm putting a combined Type one and two if it's
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  fed from an overhead line. Realistically, if you didn't do that the Sticks,
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  you'd be stupid. If you did it in London, you didn't fit
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  it. Not so much as an issue because on a tower block you've got
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  a huge lightly protection system, you've got transient arrestors on the mains. Where's
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  the value add And then genuine engineering conversations have been had by the people who
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  only assets rather than going bankrupt. All right, well, look, let's
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  talk about why these changes have been introduced. Next The Electrical Show with Thomas
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  Nagie on fixed radio the Builders Station. I'm Thomas Nagie with Paul Mean here
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  on the Electrical Show in this afternoon we are what Paul is discussing. We're
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  talking about the wiring rags, which are of course the national standard used in
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  the UK for electrical wiring. Now, Paul, why has this been changed?
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  Why so every three to five years of iron rings needs to be reviewed.
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  Anyway, Generally B six and one will go through an Amendment one,
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  Amendment two, an Amendment three, and then there'll be all revision under BS
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  zero. If anybody's interested, you can Google download it for free. And
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  so when there is a mistake and an air art there is a core agendum
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  for some weird and strained reason. Every single amendment has had a cor agendum
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  going back to the seventeenth edition. Now, so I don't see that as
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  a badge of honor. I just see that of we issued an amendment,
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  we made a mistake, or we've had feedback, and that to me tells
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  me that there might not be synergy between the sparks who are doing the work
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  and the people who make indecisions. Somebody once said to me that wine ranks
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  is like the manufacturers are gos catalog and I really agree with that because it
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  is a mindset for you. If people now think we're not required to do
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  search protection, who's going to go back to the manufacturers and everybody else who
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  mandated it almost or they perceive was mandated and asked for a refunds. It's
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  a wording change to stimulate debate. If it's a safety service, still ensure
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  you put it in, but you need to understand what you're considering. And
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  also one of the risks to me is a lot of change in the wine
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  rings puts the risk on the client. Now if the client isn't informed,
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  say like missus Jones in our home I love signed out a bit of paper,
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  is there any comeback on you? Yeah? I mean talking about it?
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  Comeback the kind of accountability? What kind of accountability do et Electrician's face
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  now because like them removed surge protection. But it's just you have to make
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  your own judgment call if you have to use your expertise. They've remove that
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  bullet point to try and make it a little bit clearer because the first bullet
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  point said safety services and the next one mentioned dwellings or smoke alarms ET cetera,
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  gave examples and of course that one word smoke alarm caused this multimillion pound
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  dilemma. So and in fairness, there's obviously been a good debate behind it,
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  to be honest of you. But yeah, the trouble is in our
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  industry, we as an industry tend to do what the CBS is tell us
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  rather than applying our own logical thought, which is a dangerous place because we
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  could be very much liable. And remember we're in a digital world now,
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  so when you issue that certificate to missus Jones or Joe Bloggs builders digitally,
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  that'll exist for forever. And if you think you've walked away in two years
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  later you've got away with something, or something goes wrong. Its seven years
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  to get to a court. Now, seven years from from time of incident
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  to get to a court to a prosecution ser So that's how long it takes,
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  seven seven to eight years. I was literally with a judge a couple
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  of months ago, not for any reason, but we were doing a mock
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  trial and she she said, it's a construction industry. Now it's seven to
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  eight years before you actually go to trial. That's astonishing. Yeah, this
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  is why you hear if there was an electrician killed on the railways in Scotland
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  six years ago and only last week did they publish the prosecution the fines and
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  he fell off a ladder and got impaled on a conjuct. This is about
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  six years ago. Only now has the fines been released and the case being
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  concluded. It's it's very slow prosecutions in their industry, So don't think for
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  a minute. Buy should a bit of pa that you're gone and done and
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  dusted. Fix Radio time to crack on. This is the Electrical show here
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  on Fixed Radio on Thomas Naji with Paul Meanan, and we have been discussing
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  the wiring REGs, the what do you call it, Paul, the corrigendum
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  corrigendum. He's taken the driving seat. As you've been listening, you'll know
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  this. My producers find it's highly funny that I'm in the passenger seat today.
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  Hello, don't care. I'm big enough to say that I've got time
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  to read all of this focus on risk managements, because that's part of this,
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  isn't it, Paul? Yeah, Unfortunately, risk management is something that
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  I've been doing quite a lot of in my day day job. Risk management
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  is not a new term. It's something that people do well. Let's be
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  honest about every single tradesman does risk management. They just don't realize it's risk
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  management. Clients do risk management all the time. There's actually an ISSO standard.
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  ISSO thirty one thousand is the international standard for risk management if you want
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  to corporately become accredited. But risk management includes everything from creating health and safety
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  set of rams in your day to day toolbox talks. It's very very dynamic.
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  But what's happening and I'm glad it's happening now is I've said this for
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  years and years. The Wine regulations is a guidance note, engineering judgment.
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  You cannot substitute good engineering charge. If you can have an engineering debate on
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  the application of a guidance note or regulations as you want to call it,
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  You're never ever going to sit in front of a judge because you're doing what
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  is reasonably practical and risk management is part of that is time cost risk balance.
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  So when you're doing risk management, you're actually saying, do I spend
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  a million pound to go and do something that's I don't know, put a
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  socket at a two hundred meter height and it's going to cost me a million
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  pound of access or do I just put it low level and do it proportionate?
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  Do you know what I mean? We're not very good at is an
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  industry because we're too busy listening to the bad issuers and the cardholders. And
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  we need as an industry. In my personal and professional opinion, every single
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  person there needs to be able to stand their own and have an end engineering
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  debate and understand that there is an infinite amount of money to do everything that
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  we want. So this is where using the standards as a guidance. Note
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  somebody said to me from the it standards are a ceiling at a floor,
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  not a ceiling. You stand on a standard and you look up. Works
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  such an interesting way of looking at it. Yeah, it's not well.
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  Most people in trade they argue over Oh b sev six said one clause four
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  one one two three La la lah. You ain't done that, so you're
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  an idiot. No, come off it. It's guidance. Why did I
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  apply and why did I choose not to apply it? Because in seventy six
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  se one you can depart from any claus you want because it may be cost
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  prohibitive. But you need to be able to stand in front of the moment
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  a curly week and go, this is why I didn't do it. You're
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  not And this is my justification and my control measures, and I deem them
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  suitable. And the judge may turn someone like me and go what do you
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  think? Or and I'll go, yeah, he's bang on. Actually,
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  as long as you can have that defense in a court, or you can
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  do what you want, use the standards as guidance, because that's what they
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  are in the eyes of a court. There, guidance. Just don't let
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  will beat them with you. Beat them, yeah, beat you with them.
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  Sorry, you're listening to Fix Radio the build a station, Fix Radio.
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  That's it for today's electrical show, where Paul has been discussing the wiring
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  REGs. I've had cups of tea, I've had biscuits while you've done all
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  of the talking. Policy were wonderful? Any final words, Paul, pearls
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  of wisdom. Yes, if you listen to all these wonderful things and you
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  see stuff online about changes in amendments and you go, oh, it's really
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  stupid. Is constantly changing? Stop moaning? Actually log onto the it website.
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  If you go onto the it website, there is a fantastic article by
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  Michael Peace which details all the changes. And for those of you who ever
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  have the conundrum of a customer ringing you up and saying, my wife's going
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  to give birth in my front room in a birthing pool, do not worry
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  because B seven six seven one has got your back. And so every now
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  I've removed the ambiguity about sockets and medical locations and all the birthing pools,
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  so they've they've they've come to a normal realization that people will have birthing pools
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  in their house if they have home births. And no, you don't have
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  to remove all the sockets to fully comply with the intent of seven ten of
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  the wine regulations. So common sense can prevail. So I have faith,
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  and last bit of advice, if you're not happy with the wine riggs,
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  do sing about it. Comment. Every single edition is put out for public
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  comment, and last year was the highest number of comments on amendment to ever.
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  It really annoyed the committee. I think, please keep doing it because
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  there are reggs. You're poking a big brown bear head just saying so what
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  I heard you want access, by the way, to competitions, much and
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  exclusive content. All you've got to do is sign up for the Electrical Show
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  Community in newsletter. When you do that instantly you get a little video of
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  me every single week coming up. Head over to fix radio dot co dot
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  uk to register me.