Petition form wanted for
electrical licensing changes

I’d like to respond to Peter Cairns’s letter in the Mailbag pages of the November 2000 issue. I’m glad to see that by pester-ing his boss he has managed to squeeze his way into what is currently a closed shop.

I notice that process control is one of his skills; I do hope that this doesn’t involve any programming of computers or PLCs. You see, I don’t think he has listed that as one of his formal qualifications. But any time that he wants to get "legal" in computer programming he can go to university and do a 3-year degree, just like I have.

I don’t think that anybody is seriously knocking some form of training but let’s get real and dare I say it, be Australian about it and give everybody a fair go. So please publish a peti-tion form in the next issue and start to liaise with the relevant politicians. Help us SILICON CHIP, you’re our only hope.

I’d give my name, but seeing as I don’t want a visit from the plug and socket inspectors, I’d prefer that it not be pub-lished (Name withheld at writer’s request).

Licensing reforms
not desirable

Oh dear, you do seem to have opened a can of worms with the electrical licensing debate. I feel that there are a few things that should be said before you start picketing the politicians to get the licensing laws tossed into the bin. Firstly, I must admit that I am a licensed electrician but I can see that the non-licensed fraternity has raised questions that deserve thoughtful answers.

My personal opinion is that, where a mains-powered kit has been designed and outfitted by professionals and where there is information on correct wiring and layout provided, then ‘unli-censed’ constructors should be allowed to do their own mains wiring within the kit. That type of informed work presents a minimal hazard and most constructors would follow the instructions for the 240VAC stuff as well as they do for the extra-low voltage wiring.

Similarly, if home handymen (handypersons?) want to replace a power cord or plug to an appliance and the plug or power cord comes with information about its proper installation, then they should be allowed to do it – on the understanding that if they get it wrong, then they are legally responsible for the death, injury or damage that they cause.

When it comes to fixed wiring (the stuff installed inside the walls) however, I have seen too many jobs done by people who really didn’t have the proverbial clue – a job, for instance, which had the Active wire connected to the metalwork on a chande-lier and which had the chandelier’s switch turning all the other lights in the house off when it was turned off. There was another job that involved a replacement light switch which, with Actives and Neutrals looping at the back of the switch, took out the pole fuse after the un-handyman managed to put the Actives into the common terminal and the Neutrals into the normally open terminal on the switch.

The first time he turned the switch on, it ‘popped’ the 15A rewireable fuse, so he put three strands of 20A fuse wire into the fuse carrier. The second time he turned the switch on, the pole fuse blew and the supply authority had to replace it – after getting the wiring fixed.

How about a handyman-added socket-outlet (power-point) that had the Active and Earth swapped? The only reason that didn’t kill its installer was that the ‘electrician’ only tried plugging double-insulated stereo gear into it. Or how about a wiring setup in a shed that involved a severed earth wire "to stop the safety switch from turning the light in the car pit off sometimes"?

No, there’s more to maintaining the high level of electri-cal safety which we currently enjoy than knowing how to ‘pull the wiring through the conduit’, as Mr Hoolhurst suggests. That attitude seems to me to suggest that, because I know the theory of flight and I can start a Cessna’s engine, I don’t need to demonstrate that I’m a competent pilot, with a license, before I get let loose on the airways – and I don’t think anyone would agree with that attitude.

If you propose doing away with licensed electrical workers for household wiring, then you will also have to agree that there’s going to be a case to do away with licensed plumbers working on mains water, sewage and other waste water around the house. And of course, there will also be no need for licensed gasfitters in domestic premises either. (That crashing noise you just heard was our insurance premiums going through the roof!)

It would be interesting to know if the number of electrici-ty-related deaths, fires and electric shocks has, in fact, risen in New Zealand in the last eight years. Mr Hoolhurst made the statement that "the extremely low level of fatalities and the fact that none of the fatalities are related to incompetent house wiring or appliance repairs by householders makes the claims of the electricians’ lobby look ridiculous".

Mr Hoolhurst, can you please inform us of the reference for that rather sweeping statistic?

Brian J Spencer,
Seaford SA.

Comment: we hate to tell you this but plumbing and gas fitting by householders is also permitted in New Zealand. We also have a copy of "A Review of the Safety Regime for Electrical and Gas Work" carried out by the NZ Ministry of Commerce in March 1999. Total number of electrical fatalities in 1998 was 8; in 1997, it was 9 and in 1996 it was 6. In 1992 it was 7.

These are extremely low figures and they are not showing any sign of rising. Everyone has seen horrible examples of wiring done by householders but the facts seem to be that few people die because of it.

Vintage radio is old hat

Now that I have joined the WWW, I have to get this off my chest. The Vintage Radio pages in your magazine are well past the use-by date. I have spent some time in my youth with this tech-nology but I adapted happily to the transistor age. I don’t like reading about revival of corpses; that’s what these old valve radios are.

I like the rest very much and I have been a subscriber for a considerable time.

Alfred Fischer,
via email.

Comment: we like your attitude. Vintage Radio is still popular though. We stated some years ago that we would never publish a new design for a valve amplifier (regardless of how they might be revered by some audiophiles) and got up some peoples’ noses because of it. What do other readers think?

Household electrical work
will become legal

Your call for everyone to be able to legally do their own household wiring is bound to happen. Since the early 1970s the number of electrical trade traineeships seems to have fallen markedly. Given that many electrical people give up household work from their forties, the numbers of available electricians are due to fall.

Another problem is obtaining electricians with the right qualifications; my builder went through five electricians to find one that could work on the house lead-in wiring to collect power from the drop cable from the street pole.

Terry Collins,
via email.

House wiring inspections
are a joke

I too have always been somewhat bemused about the level of restrictions surrounding simple house wiring. However, having just had a new house built last year, I’m now left wondering just what level of expertise they are protecting.

Before the power could be connected, the new wiring had to be "inspected" which, on the face of it sounded reasonable enough, although it meant I had to take a day off work to let the inspector in.

The "inspection" turned out to consist of a "lightning tour" of all the rooms to ensure "there were no bare wires or power points hanging off the walls", followed by a check that none of the circuit breakers had tripped when the mains was applied! The justification for this truncated procedure was that: "if anything didn’t work properly, you’d soon let us know . . ."

Well, fair enough, but do we really need an electrician to tell us that? And no, it seems the guys who are entrusted with attaching 3-phase power to the house from the street main aren’t qualified to check house wiring either!

As for the wiring itself, long gone are the days of cables being neatly stapled along the ceiling beams. It was all just "duct-taped" to rough strips of wood, (presumably scrounged from the site’s trash pile), crudely nailed to the rafters.

Unfortunately, when governments have spent decades rigor-ously enforcing what are essentially bogus regulations, it’s very hard for them to turn around and admit that it’s all been a waste of time.

Remember all that bureaucratic garbage you had to wade through to get ANY sort of transmitting license? Now CB radios and many other simple communication devices don’t need any sort of license at all and our civilization still stands, but what a struggle that was.

It wasn’t all that long ago that you could have been jailed for fitting a "non-PMG" telephone to a standard phone socket. Maybe you still can.

Keith Walters,
Riverstone, NSW.

House wiring
in the USA

With regard to the current debate on house wiring, I thought you’d be interested to know that when I was in Ohio, USA for work at the start of the year I was speaking to a friend who lives there. I was intrigued to discover that in Ohio (not sure about the entire USA) they are permitted to do their own electri-cal wiring but not permitted to do their own plumbing! Obviously this is because water is so much more dangerous and deadly than electricity.

Stephen Wilkey,
Sydney, NSW.

Comment: probably they don’t let people do plumbing because it also involves gas-fitting. Also sewage back-flow into drinking water seems to be more of an issue in the USA.

Comment on the
New Zealand experience

The recent Publisher’s Letter "Anyone should be able to do their own house wiring" in November 2000 issue has created dis-cussion at my place of work which is an electrical trade training school. I feel the problem of differences between New Zealand and Australia requires an alternative viewpoint and a social analysis based on some understanding of the academic philosophy of "democ-racy". A philosophical analysis in this debate seems to have been neglected.

Your "Letter" quite rightly argues that New Zealanders are similar to Australians in many respects and a tourist will agree with that sweeping statement. I have been fortunate to work and live in New Zealand in the 1960s and the 1990s; the latter occa-sion as part of the air-conditioning commissioning team at Har-rah’s Sky City Casino, Auckland.

On the job and during extensive travels, I was able to com-pare and contrast New Zealanders with Australians. I was able to look, listen and analyse aspects of New Zealand society at work and play; aspects that are usually overlooked and glossed over by outsiders who are content to generalise about the culture of a country, and by "culture" I mean the "way we do things here".

The core issue I argue is that New Zealand society is a much kinder, fairer, gender-equal and more protective of civil liber-ties than we are in Australia. It seems to stem from decades of New Zealand rural farm life where there was a strong "repair and fix" attitude of self-sufficiency, brought on by the seagoing isolation in the antipodes from the industrialised countries in UK, Europe and USA.

The strong work ethic and individualism brought by the NZ pioneers from the United Kingdom were reinforced in the isolation of NZ hinterland, increasing the concepts of self worth, egali-tarianism and the importance of the individual to be self-directing. Thus many civil liberties are protected by the "cul-ture". For these reasons, NZ "pollies" and regulators are reluct-ant to write and enforce restrictive regulations.

Australians have allowed AS/NZS 3000-2000 Wiring Rules to be interpreted in a legalistic manner. Little imagination is needed with the Australian interpretation to see the work of insurance underwriters in league with powerful legal lobbies and with industry associations and employee unions for the stated purpose of "safety". But the bottom line is dollars: income from electrical trade employment, consultants’ fees and legal argument and minimising the insurance companies’ liabilities and payouts for bodily injury and property loss.

Quite rightly your "Letter" comments that New Zealanders are not dying like flies from electrocution and I add that if many NZ houses were burnt down due to electrical wiring faults, then restrictive regulations would be enacted.

It seems to me that if the governments of Australia were really concerned about stopping "illegal" electrical work then every hardware shop in the country would be banned from selling all electrical cable for fixed electrical wiring, and all switch-es, socket outlets, batten holders and junction boxes. These items are exclusively made for fixed wiring installation. As everyone knows, these are available in "bubble packs" for retail sale to any person regardless of age, gender or qualification. Perhaps supermarkets should be banned from selling replacement light globes.

The Australian community would not tolerate such an outra-geous and preposterous erosion of our liberty to "have a go" to make our own repairs.

Your "Letter" mentions the need to lobby our politicians to get restrictive electrical worker regulations scrapped but our "pollies" only act on the advice of technical specialists when the "pollies" see it is to their electoral advantage.

I suggest that until we change Australian culture to be more like the New Zealand model, we will keep on the legalistic path (as USA copycats) of more control by bureaucrats who believe more control is good for its own sake. Sadly, it is unlikely Australian culture will change to ameliorate many of the problems this forum is airing.

I. Morrison,
Marleston, SA.