🚀 go-pugleaf

in article <519@bit.UUCP>, grego@bit.UUCP (Greg Sanguinetti) says:
> You don't need a licence in the States to wire your house.

Hmm... and how many people are electrocuted in the US each year?  How much
are house insurance premiums?  How often to houses burn down through
electrical faults?

> Anybody reading sci.electronics should have more than enough basic knowlege
> to figure out house wiring. It's real easy. Sorry Brendan but I found your
> tone a bit condesending.

Yes, well I thought house wiring was trivial before I did my electricians'
course and I have an Electrical Engineering degree with Honours from a 
university.  I now know differently.

There's more to it than identifying which wire is the active, especially if
you're doing an entire house installation from the switchboard.

There's a whole range of practical subleties, ranging from how often to
support a wiring installation, how to derate it in the presence of insulation,
how to properly terminate connection, how to earth correctly, how to maintain
proper insulation at junction blocks, under what conditions you can safely run
a phone line with a power line, where double insulation is required, etc etc.

It's not just a matter of electrical theory, and tinkering with a breadboard
(or reading sci.electronics) doesn't qualify you to safely play with 110V or
240V.  A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing, an in the case of house
wiring, deadly.

There's nothing worse than someone who doesn't know what they don't know.
At least now I know what I don't know, and am much more respectful of mains
electricity.

> Anyway, the color codes you described are unfortunately opposite US N.E.C.
> codes and are therefore very dangerous to use.

I mentioned quite clearly they are the IEC codes.  If the US doesn't follow
international conventions then that's the US's problem.

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