Bad Engineers

[digitel]

Today i went to an inlaws family friend to service there system which has not been touched since about 1998 (date on bat) so i was expecting to charge " mates rates " anyway but the shock when i got there.

Texecom V8c as we know ungraded, pirs were medusas and bell box was a c type with no tamp or sab and no contacts.

Apart from that the bit i was most shocked by

1- no fused spur

2- cable was 1.5t&e into the back of a 32 amp socket

3- MOST SHOCKING PART OF ALL the 1.5t&e was run from the socket in a bedroom along the skirting board ACCROSS a door threshold by the side of the carpet gripper and was warn where it had been walked on so you could see the old cable colours red & black.( i wish i had my camera ).Just for the record 1.5 twin&earth can take up to 36 amps depending on the load but it does depend and i say this sparingly ,what else is on the circuit and no doubt it was not tested .

It was installed by a company from gildersome in leeds whom are still going and after telephoning a few contacts ,have been told they have been to court for this sort of thing before.

OK there excuse is we use sub contractors ,to install the systems whom im told by a very reliable source have no qualifications at all .

My point is as we know this could kill someone and i think its about time this industry was properly regulated as we all know where all pricing out of the same books now that we have graded systems depending on where you live price wise .

My thought would be to have it properly policed like corgi do for gas and stop the cowboys for good .

I just want to know your views and what the rest of you think ,its ok saying we install to the regs but anyone could say that weather there NSI or SSAIB or not

let me know because i was properly discusted at what i saw thanks guys

[jptaylor]

There needs to be some form of regulation to cover this, it does'nt just affect the installation side - believe me there are many service engineers are capable of making a mess of systems especially when it comes to programming G2/3 - these are the chavs of the alarm industry, who just are happy to earn a wage but have no conscencious attitude to maintaining a high service level, these are the type who use the engineer code to reset policed alarms rather than attend site, something has to be done to weed this type out of our industry. (Rant over)

[james.wilson]

agreed

but i dont think under any circumstances 1.5mm will take 36A mate. well unless its doubled up.

We are approved and i see this often from unapproved companies setup to be cheap and dissapear after a couple of years as a rule.

There are some excellent unapproved companies but most people in this market i beleive are looking for cheap.

your mate i assume went for this option.

James

[A-G]

Maybe this would be better discussed in the trade area? Not wanting to hide anything as such but answers would be more honest if not in the public area

[james.wilson]

i wont move it though, but start a new one and ill lock this one