Just thought i'd let you know I am a competent D.I.Y.er but I have just come across a problem that had not entered my head. I have just completely wired a house in Ireland only to be told by the local electricity board when they came to do the main meter connection that all Irish wiring has to be Blue Brown and earth and not Red Black and earth as in this country (these are eec regs and they appear to be right and us wrong)Seeing as i bought all my wire from Screwfix it proved very costly and a time waster I should have checked
Yo - with a 2-year changeover period. See http://www.iee.org/Publish/WireRegs/cablecolfaq.cfm Can you buy cables with the new colours yet?
typical.they go on and on about safety and then change the colours which will probably cause death to some poor sod who has used red/black and green all their life.bet they dont publish those figures.and what are the colours used in three phase wiring?
curently they are black Neutral red phase blue phase yellow phase they will be black phase blue Neutral brown phase and it has been proposed that grey will also be used as a phase conductor
I suppose if all cores were made the same colour then no assumptions could be made and a lot more checking would be done first?? Would that be safer?
well like dadysparky said in the last forum about this, people should be testing anyway, Especially electricians BR
This was the 'logic' that many commercial vehicle maufacturers (such as Leyland)used to apply - and it caused absolute havoc. Brumspark (newbie) PS - A NB with spellcheck now there's novel.
What you have to take into account is that we already use brown (live) and blue (neutral) in flexible cables, the new changes are for fixed wiring and are a natural progression to european harmonization. Gray is indeed to be one of the phase colours along with brown and black (this was an almost unanimous decision and will mean that all countries will have to change the colour coding for 3 phase circuits) To any competent electrician the new changes should not present a problem.
TO GET BACK TO IRISH WIRING IF YOUR TALKING ABOUT NORTHERN IRELAND THEY FOLLOW THE SAME RULES (IEE) AS ENGLAND. IF YOUR TALKING ABOUT THE SOUTH BEFORE THEY GIVE YOU A SUPPLY YOU WILL HAVE TO GIVE THEM A REGE. TEST CERT. FROM A REGESTERED CONTRACTOR. I DID A HOUSE OVER THERE LAST YEAR AND I USED RED BLACK SO UNLESS THEY'VE CHANGED THE RULES I WOULD DO SOME CHECKING
I have a mate who is colour blind, so green to him is red or reddish or brown, to him <u>grass is red</u>, he asks me to check any wiring he does at home, so the new EEC regs regarding colour coding would suit colour blind sparkies and certainly DIYers
Red-green colour blindness is the most common form, ironically, given that red used to be phase, and green earth. The switch to blue/brown/greenyellow was a good move, and I've never understood why fixed wiring didn't go the same way. I can see how changing black from neutral to phase might be problematic, but we can console ourselves with the thought that there aren't many amateurs working on 3-phase systems, and professional electricians should be able to cope. Re colour-blind electricians, it is unfortunate, but maybe in the same way that it is unfortunate that someone with vertigo can't become a steeplejack, perhaps people who are colour-blind shouldn't become electricians...
just cannot wait (not) to have a job with a mixture of the old and new cols and have stray neutral (blue is a phase col on the old wiring system,whereas blue is the neutral on the new)apart form that,I cannot see the col swap a prob.
A pox on Screwfix and their crappy forum application! That should, of course, have been Don't worry - the circuit breaker will let you know if this happens...
Not such a competent DIY ER any moor mate stick to nocking nails in and leave the skilled trades to the tradesmen