It's seems difficult and expensive to get British Standards. I know I
can view them in my local library but if I want a copy for home I have
to pay big money.

For example the latest version of BS 5440 parts 1 and 2 together would
cost me over GBP 200 for a hard copy.

You cannot actually purchase an electronic copy of a single standard.
You have to subscribe to a whole "module" - for example "Energy and
Heat Engineering" which then allows you to view or download all the
standards within that module. Subscriptions costs for this service
start "at a 4 figure sum" (according to the guy who answered the phone
when I called them).

This is quite infuriating. It seems BSI are trying to hide information
and not disseminate it. Compare this with ANSI where any american
standard can be downloaded for a few dollars with a few clicks and a
credit card number.

I don't see the reason for keeping British Standards secret!

Mr F.

P.S. If someone would like to email me BS5440 "illegally" - I'd be
interested :-)

I agree. It used to be a lot easier pre Thatcher and all that crap. You
can borrow a copy from local library but you might have to wait for
them to get hold of it or I think you may be able to see it at your
nearest HMSO office.

Are "We" in a Freedom of Information or a Data Protection mode these days.

It is the Great British lack of business acumen.

Surely if someone wants you to abide by a set of rules they must provide
those rules for you.

Chris.


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Mr Fizzion wrote:

P.S. If someone would like to email me BS5440 "illegally" - I'd be
interested :-)

All the electronic BS documents are clearly watermarked at time of
download with the original date and identity of the downloader. This
watermarking cannot easily be removed. If copies started floating
around then the BSI would be after another pound (or 200) of flesh.

sarcasm
Of course it is a well known fact that every CORGI registered fitter
has a copy of all relevant British Standards on file, has read them
cover to cover and fully understands them.
/sarcasm



--

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 13:29:32 +0100, Matt wrote:

Mr Fizzion wrote:

P.S. If someone would like to email me BS5440 "illegally" - I'd be
interested :-)

All the electronic BS documents are clearly watermarked at time of
download with the original date and identity of the downloader. This
watermarking cannot easily be removed. If copies started floating
around then the BSI would be after another pound (or 200) of flesh.

sarcasm
Of course it is a well known fact that every CORGI registered fitter
has a copy of all relevant British Standards on file, has read them
cover to cover and fully understands them.
/sarcasm

Surely. The copies at gas training schools and assessment centres are
virtually chained to the desk.

There is a great deal of stuff in there which is outside the ordinary and
every day scope of domestic gas fitting. Much of the really important
stuff has been transcribed into various gas fitting books which are
available for a modest cost.

I agree that making the BSI documents unaffordable is very counter
productive when things like the electric and building regs are available
at reasonable cost of for free.


--
Ed Sirett - Property maintainer and registered gas fitter.
The FAQ for uk.diy is at http://www.diyfaq.org.uk
Gas fitting FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/GasFitting.html
Sealed CH FAQ http://www.makewrite.demon.co.uk/SealedCH.html

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 17:14:54 +0100, Ed Sirett
wrote:

Surely. The copies at gas training schools and assessment centres are
virtually chained to the desk.

There is a great deal of stuff in there which is outside the ordinary and
every day scope of domestic gas fitting. Much of the really important
stuff has been transcribed into various gas fitting books which are
available for a modest cost.

The stuff that isn't important might still be interesting. I find
myself reading computer and interenet standards all the time as you
can't totally trust the books.

I agree that making the BSI documents unaffordable is very counter
productive when things like the electric and building regs are available
at reasonable cost of for free.

What's really annoying is that if you buy something from screwfix for
example and it says "to BS xxxx" in the description, then you have no
idea what it means, and no cheap way to find out.

Mr F.

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 08:58:11 +0100, Mr Fizzion
wrote:

On Wed, 10 Aug 2005 17:14:54 +0100, Ed Sirett
wrote:

Surely. The copies at gas training schools and assessment centres are
virtually chained to the desk.

There is a great deal of stuff in there which is outside the ordinary and
every day scope of domestic gas fitting. Much of the really important
stuff has been transcribed into various gas fitting books which are
available for a modest cost.

The stuff that isn't important might still be interesting. I find
myself reading computer and interenet standards all the time as you
can't totally trust the books.

I agree that making the BSI documents unaffordable is very counter
productive when things like the electric and building regs are available
at reasonable cost of for free.

What's really annoying is that if you buy something from screwfix for
example and it says "to BS xxxx" in the description, then you have no
idea what it means, and no cheap way to find out.

Mr F.


Even if you had the document, you may have no inexpensive way to find
out whether the product meets the standard.

There are often weasel words like "designed to meet" which doesn't
mean a thing.

In any case, British Standards are becoming less and less significant
as they are either adopted or adapted in/from EuroNorme standards.
Those aren't free either, although you can sometimes purchase
individual ones.

Even the CE mark doesn't help that much. For most classes of product,
it is the manufacturer's self declaration that the product meets the
relevant standards for the product class. There should be a
Declaration of Conformity certificate listing the standards used, but
except in a limited set of cases like machinery there is not a
requirement that a test should have been done by an independent body.

Having said all of that, there is a huge cost in the preparation of
and testing to standards. It is reasonable for much of that cost to
be borne by those wishing to access and use that information in the
same way that we pay for other intellectual property like books and
music.



--

..andy

To email, substitute .nospam with .gl

In article , Andy Hall
wrote:
Having said all of that, there is a huge cost in the preparation of
and testing to standards. It is reasonable for much of that cost to
be borne by those wishing to access and use that information in the
same way that we pay for other intellectual property like books and
music.

Fortunately HMG has decided otherwise wrt legislation, SI, Building
Regs Approved Documents etc. The key documents you need to be an
architect are free, those you need to be a gas fitter cost £££

--
Tony Bryer SDA UK 'Software to build on' http://www.sda.co.uk
Free SEDBUK boiler database browser http://www.sda.co.uk/qsedbuk.htm
[Latest version QSEDBUK 1.10 released 4 April 2005]

On Thu, 11 Aug 2005 09:52:25 +0100, Andy Hall
wrote:


Having said all of that, there is a huge cost in the preparation of
and testing to standards. It is reasonable for much of that cost to
be borne by those wishing to access and use that information in the
same way that we pay for other intellectual property like books and
music.

Well in that case there is no reason to pay more for a British
Standard than an EN or ISO standard.

Thankfully with computer standards, there is little or no cost.
Demanding four figure sums would instantly put smaller players out of
the game and every bit of software in the world would be developed by
Microsoft or Oracle. Consider the enormous cost of validating a C++
compiler to ISO 14882. This involves many man years of testing.
Preparation of the standard itself took a decade and the committee
still meets regularly with the aim of revising the standard every 10
years. Yet it only costs USD 18 in PDF format.

Mr F.

Mr Fizzion wrote:
It's seems difficult and expensive to get British Standards. I know I
can view them in my local library but if I want a copy for home I have
to pay big money.

High-res camera-phone and a distracted librarian?

Owain

"Mr Fizzion" wrote in message
...
It's seems difficult and expensive to get British Standards. I know I
can view them in my local library but if I want a copy for home I have
to pay big money.

For example the latest version of BS 5440 parts 1 and 2 together would
cost me over GBP 200 for a hard copy...

The members' discount on buying standards usually more than pays for the
cost of membership.

Colin Bignell