Energy Consumption metering

[MMM]

Sorry I don't lie, never said any thing about meters being illegal nor am I confusing any meters, never mentioned smart meters, never mentioned any thing about bare tails, it is you who are putting words in my mouth, I only stated a licensed person must do electrical work.
I stated Rules & Regulations must be followed.
Here in Australia you must be a Registered & Licensed electrician to do any electrical work, no one else except for other trades with restricted electrical licenses for their specified field.

Since you are saying home owners can do their own electrical work then I will say this, UK Health & Safety laws regarding electrical work is so antiquated compared to our own Health & safety laws here in Australia it beggars disbelief, enough said here.

 

[cb600fshornet]

Since you are saying home owners can do their own electrical work then I will say this, UK Health & Safety laws regarding electrical work is so antiquated compared to our own Health & safety laws here in Australia it beggars disbelief, enough said here.

Home owners can perform their own electrical work provided it passes an inspection. Now, if it turns out their work is competent and safe, and no foreseeable issues are spotted, it passes. Why is that a bad thing? Why is having a so-called certified electrician performing the work better? The end result is exactly the same... satisfactory and safe.

Your country must be behind the times in rules & regulations in safety, not often tails are exposed with modern meters on switchboards & it would be illegal to open up electrical installations, matter of fact it is illegal to tamper or attach electrical devices to the providers equipment in switchboard enclosures.

Current monitoring devices that are legal to be used by a non qualified person are ones that plug into power points or could be attached to appliances leads only.
The two original links you provided are clearly for equipment to be installed by qualified electrician.
The last link is still illegal in Australia as electrical devices are not allowed to be attached to consumer mains.

I do not do ignorant replies since I'm a qualified electrician that understands rules & regulations stipulated by my governing authorities in my country, I think you should inquire with your relevant authority as to what is legal.

Oh I would imagine UK, & USA rules & regulations would be on par with Australia.

The above quote would have been better had you have removed the dick measuring comments highlighted in red above.

 

[connchri]

Sorry I don't lie, never said any thing about meters being illegal nor am I confusing any meters, never mentioned smart meters, never mentioned any thing about bare tails, it is you who are putting words in my mouth, I only stated a licensed person must do electrical work.
I stated Rules & Regulations must be followed.
Here in Australia you must be a Registered & Licensed electrician to do any electrical work, no one else except for other trades with restricted electrical licenses for their specified field.

Since you are saying home owners can do their own electrical work then I will say this, UK Health & Safety laws regarding electrical work is so antiquated compared to our own Health & safety laws here in Australia it beggars disbelief, enough said here.

not often tails are exposed with modern meters on switchboards

Note: I said inferred, and the statement above, due to the topic of conversation, inferred that bare tails were required for CT's, otherwise you would not have stated this in reply to using such CT's.

The last link is still illegal in Australia...

No, this is not illegal, and yes, that is a direct quote - you did indeed say it was illegal.

Further statements about flexes and such that you made, it's not exactly high quality, and having a dig at engineers is hardly professional.

Since you are saying home owners can do their own electrical work then I will say this, UK Health & Safety laws regarding electrical work is so antiquated compared to our own Health & safety laws here in Australia it beggars disbelief, enough said here.

That's your opinion, but if you are right in claiming that you need to be licensed to replace a flex on an applience, IMO it's not the UK's laws that are antiquated. They are apt - and again, all wiring still needs to be done to a set standard and checked by a local authority if required. In what world is this not adequate?

---------- Post added at 03:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:10 PM ----------

Enough said here, too, unless you still have further, unsubstantiated, points to make.

 

[MMM]

Home owners can perform their own electrical work provided it passes an inspection. Now, if it turns out their work is competent and safe, and no foreseeable issues are spotted, it passes. Why is that a bad thing? Why is having a so-called certified electrician performing the work better? The end result is exactly the same... satisfactory and safe.

A home owner (poorly trained in knowledge & understanding) performs his own electrical work thinking it might be done correctly, not signed off correctly or reported to be inspected by relevant authority then a mishap for example house fire, death or what ever, that is why electrical work should be carried out by a qualified person to ensure this does not happen.

You tell me honestly which is better when electrical work is performed, either someone who is licensed or some one is not.

We had similar laws where home owners could do restricted electrical work until it was scrapped due to poor & illegal work carried out.

 

[connchri]

A home owner (poorly trained in knowledge & understanding) performs his own electrical work thinking it might be done correctly, not signed off correctly or reported to be inspected by relevant authority then a mishap for example house fire, death or what ever, that is why electrical work should be carried out by a qualified person to ensure this does not happen.

Aw c'mon. So, now it's if someone does something illegal then it's best to have an electrician? Anyone willing to run the system without getting a certificate is breaking the law either way, and wouldn't give a flying monkeys what the rules and regs say, so why would the bother with the hassle of an electrician - so your point is??? Your hypothetical situation has bigger issues than the regulations.

You tell me honestly which is better when electrical work is performed, either someone who is licensed or some one is not.

Depends what it is - sometimes there's no difference, and cocky electricians do make mistakes. I had to repair my mothers consumer unit because a licensed electrician wired the neutral that should have went to the RCD'd protected side of the consumer unit to non-RCD'd protected side. Meantime your beloved Electrician refused phone calls. What is the difference. Infact, seriously, in the case of attaching a CT to fully insulated tails for an energy meter - what is the actual effing difference? Especially in the case of an electrician like youself, who I assume is licensed, yet evidently wasn't fully aware of the system I was talking about or how it fully functions - otherwise that exposed tails statement wouldn't have surfaced...

It's not the most technical thing in the world to do. Anyone who knows what they are doing could put in a spur, or change a light fitting, or wire up an outside light wired to the mains. Provided it's checked, as it should be, what's the issue?

I'm building an outbuilding at the moment - myself - I don't need a joiner in order to correctly make trusses for the roof, I've did that myself using the correct procedures, nail plates, etc. I don't need one for the timber frame, or the windows, or anything else for that matter. Once I'm done, I'll be wiring the thing up to the mains too. No electrician, builder, joiner will be required - and it's not the first I've did it either. And, strickly speaking, for all I'm a competent person and all, I'll still need the authorities to go over it for my certificate. Are you saying that I shouldn't be allowed?

And, getting back to the point, what has it to do with a energy metering system that is perfectly legal, and safe, for someone in the UK and Down Under to fit? You've not really got back to me on that point. There's no interfering with the circuit, and again, you're at odds with all these big energy companies with their legions of lawers, engineers and electricians.

Thank god you're not a legislator electrical regulations. As you alluded to earlier, by extention, we'd all need an electrician to plug in a toaster for us!

Give up already...

 

[cb600fshornet]

A home owner (poorly trained in knowledge & understanding) performs his own electrical work thinking it might be done correctly, not signed off correctly or reported to be inspected by relevant authority then a mishap for example house fire, death or what ever, that is why electrical work should be carried out by a qualified person to ensure this does not happen.

You tell me honestly which is better when electrical work is performed, either someone who is licensed or some one is not.

We had similar laws where home owners could do restricted electrical work until it was scrapped due to poor & illegal work carried out.

How can you even use that as an argument? Let me sum up what you just said:

"A home-owner completes his own work and doesn't have it inspected, an electrical fire occurs, that's why work should be carried out by someone qualified."

No... the work has to be inspected, if it's not inspected it's ILLEGAL, the UK requires the work to be inspected, if you don't then you're breaking the law.

That argument was like me saying to you... "What if someone non-qualified does the electrical work in their house in Australia?" Again, that's illegal so doesn't apply...

In the UK the work can be performed by one person and certified by a third party. In Australia the work is performed and certified by one person. The end result is the same, the work is certified!

 

[root]

Wow... there seems to be a complete miss-understanding of what's actually involved here. -maybe that's just not looking at the posts properly...

First.
the ebay links provided:
Kilowatt Hour kWh Meter, Energy Submeter, External Current Transformers CTs #24 | eBay

This clearly shows pictures of installation to L1, L2, and L3 (marked as Junction), as well as split core current transformers that clip to the wire.

If these were installed before the meter point, then that's messing about with their (the electric boards) property.
you can't make any changes to any wire before the meter, not only is it not your wire to be messing about with (and therefore illegal), it's also a pretty dangerous thing to mess about with, in the UK household supplies used to be 240 60amp, now they are closer to 100amp, this kind of power will happily melt quite thick steel tools. there is no fuse. no RCD etc. industrial supply to business may be greater power, with multiple phases, or may be just a regular single phase supply...

no regulations part, P health and safety law etc applies here.

not least because the only regulation involved is don't mess with property that is not yours. but also, because Part P does not apply to business installations...

you cannot splice the cable before the existing site meter, it's dangerous and illegal.


the second link shows a split ferrit transformer, these ARE perfectly fine to clip onto the think wire that goes into the meter.

not only is this a "normal" thing, it's completely "safe" and energy companies in the UK send these out to customers to help them monitor their energy consumption.

The CT transformer ideally clips to the meter feed (i.e before the meter), (not the tail coming out), but may clip to the tail coming out into the consumer board if the feed into the meter is buried in the wall.

These are supplied by the energy companies and are designed to be installed by home users, and read current use, and transmit this data wireless to a receiver that sits in your lounge making you worry about the bill.... the transmitter part normally works on batteries, though may use a wall wart thing to provide the low voltage required to work the transmitter...

in the UK.
You do not need any qualification or certification to clip a split ring transformer to a wire.

same as you don't need a qualification to plug in a radio.
at home.
you don't need a qualification to change the flex on an appliance. nor do you need a certification to buy equipment with a Euro style (shaver type) plug, or Ozzy plug, and cut that off an wire on a UK 3 pin plug.

Plugs are sold to consumers anywhere and everywhere in the UK.

You don't need qualification or certification to change a fuse, or change a socket plate. regardless of where that is.

You don't need qualification of certification to wire in a cooker. (unless you need to put in a new circuit.)

In fact, most "light" work is not covered... for example putting a new outlet onto a spur or ring is not covered, and does not need approval.

BUT replacing a circuit or installing a new consumer unit would be covered...

covering these things basically means that they are certified as safe.

there are three ways to do this, either:
get an electrician to do it.
go on the course to get certified to do this.
do the work yourself and have the work inspected by a buildings inspector, or by a qualified person who can certify your work.

from a legal and practical standpoint there is no difference to calling in an electrician who will know the correct wire guages etc, and be qualified to certify work. or doing the work yourself and getting someone to say "yes that's exactly how I would have done it".

the regulations in the UK Part P are not and never were intended to stop people doing DIY work.
They were intended to make sure that those who do DIY work get it inspected.

However, the regulations are there for a reason, and that's to ensure the safety

regulations are different for business.

Basically for the UK at least: At home and businesses

Your country must be behind the times in rules & regulations in safety, not often tails are exposed with modern meters on switchboards

wrong, they mostly are actually exposed. at least enough to get a small toroid clipped on.

& it would be illegal to open up electrical installations, matter of fact it is illegal to tamper or attach electrical devices to the providers equipment in switchboard enclosures.

Yes, it is, but nobody talked about opening or tampering at the supplier side, anything AFTER the meter is yours to do what you like with.
clipping on a split ring is fine.

Current monitoring devices that are legal to be used by a non qualified person are ones that plug into power points or could be attached to appliances leads only.

wrong, split current transformers may be installed anywhere, even on the meter feed on the leccy boards property.
in fact the suppliers often send out these meters and suggest that consumers can clip the ring around the feed themselves.

The two original links you provided are clearly for equipment to be installed by qualified electrician.

no, the first one was, the second was not.

The last link is still illegal in Australia as electrical devices are not allowed to be attached to consumer mains.

the OP isn't in Australia, so Australian laws don't apply.

As for exposed tails, we are not talking about bare, non-insulated, tails. Current Transformers do not require direct contact.

remember exposed does not mean bare...
in the UK it's common for a mains feed to be available in terms of the visible wires which are obviously insulated.
the meter then usually has tails that visible come out. and go into the consumer board so they are exposed (though insulated) in a lot of new developments is is not usual for this arrangement, instead wires feeding the property are covered in casing, the consumer unit is positioned so that the tails are not even visible.

Perhaps you could explain why you would need a qualified installer? These don't require you to break into any wiring, and if done as per instructed, then it is safe.

Look at the diagrams, there are clearly points marked junction!
the one you linked would need to be installed by a professional, AFTER the meter.