On 08/10/2018 21:32, wrote:
On Sunday, 7 October 2018 20:34:40 UTC+1, John Rumm wrote:
On 07/10/2018 01:40, tabbypurr wrote:

John insists that while the connections may be bare & live and
that's ok, the lampholder absolutely must be earthed.

No, the wiring regs have insisted on this since 1966, it was not
something that I just thought up.

they have. The point was that you're convinced it's necessary.

Indeed I am, as are many informed people. Necessary on two levels - the
regulatory; that is what the regs say, so that is what you need to do,
but also practically, that you will reduce the number of electrical
injuries, and house fires as a result of the measure.

You are also missing the bigger picture, The lighting point must
have an earth provision, but this is not particularly for the
benefit of the lamp holder, but for the vast array of class I lamp
fixtures with exposed metalwork.

Yet again, decades of experience of all types of light fittings on
unearthed circuits shows otherwise.

The only justification you seem to be able to produce for this claim is
that there is not a substantial death rate directly from electrical
installations. However that was also the case in 1966. So why do you
suppose the requirement was introduced then?

It was wholly reasonable to
insist on earths when disintegrating rubber wiring was common, today
it's not like that.

Rubber wiring was not commonly in use in 1966, and the 14th edition was
not going to apply retrospectively.

There are plenty of multi "arm" style chandelier fittings where
its almost impossible to change a lamp without handling the
metalwork of the fixture. These really do need earthing, and are
also quite prone to becoming live under fault conditions (typically
when the retaining nut on the lamp holder gets loose and allows
someone to rotate the who lamp holder multiple times when trying to
get a stuck bulb out. Eventually fracturing the wire internal to
the fixture).

I wouldn't choose to leave the chandeliers I had years ago unearthed.
That's all historic equipment though, not modern regs compliant.

Ah, realisation dawns.

Does all this historic equipment suddenly vanish, or is it still out there?

Class I fittings are still "regs compliant" anyway, and still freely
available for sale. In many cases the quality of the available gear has
not improved.

There are plenty of lethal scenarios we can imagine - some
happen repeatedly IRL, and some just don't.

And some people come up with half baked ideas to save the world by
focussing on the wrong statistic.

That's unrealistic. Lots of people come up with lots of ideas to save
money. Some work out, some don't. It's one of the major drivers of
improvement of quality of life.

Well lets leave this one shall we. I am sure I am not going to change
your mind.

Personally I feel you are flogging a dead horse here. ISTM that using
bell wire or similar in mains installations would have negative safety
implications, and more importantly end up costing more overall rather
than less in real life. It would also make house wiring less easy to
adapt and extend.


--
Cheers,

John.

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