zarniwoop
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 30/12/11
- Messages
- 264
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Well it been a while and no-one has come up with evidence showing that you cannot work on non-fixed mains equipment outside of Qld so by the rules of the internet I'm going to call this myth busted.
Back to the OP's question; this all comes down to liability and your insurance policy. As one poster mentioned products that are built and sold need to be built to a standard and this is quite true, most electrical products have to comply with electrical safety standards as well as other standards about what that product is supposed to do if it serves a specific function. Difference here is that you are building this for personal use and frankly I have no idea (and I really doubt anyone else on here does unless they're a lawyer dealing with this area) about how this applies to the various standards (no guesses on this please).
As you are legally allowed to do this it becomes a grey area, if you build a product professionally and it kills someone then you need to prove that you built it correctly and that it's not your fault if you're prosecuted. I'm a engineer which gives me the qualifications to build this but that would not be enough as a defense if I built it, sold it and it killed someone, an electrician would have even less of a defense as they are not as a rule trained and experienced in design, but regardless the person defending would need to show they built it correctly which is why we have standards for commercial products. (Actually I think the prosecution would need to show they didn't build it to standards but it's basically the same thing).
But as you've built it for personal use and you're not selling it an insurance company would need to show that it caused the fire, you built it incorrectly and it voids the policy. It's not just enough for them to say "sorry buddy but you're not trained in this area and it looks like it caused the fire so tough luck", you're not doing anything illegal so they need to prove it's your fault. Now to be honest provided you don't do anything stupid like keep your collection of ancient antique newspapers in the control box and install 100A fuses protecting wire that will burn up at 10mA you're going to have to try to burn the thing down, and to a degree an insurance policy will have to pay out against accidental damage like this or else they'd never pay out on things like people leaving candles burning etc.
That's the technical liability side of things which is just my basic understanding, I'm happy to be corrected by someone involved in the area if this is incorrect. What you really need here is the opinion of someone who knows about insurance law and policies, what does a company pay out against? What does your policy exclude? How much wiggle room do they have? etc etc. The reality is much of this is case law (i.e. decided by the court not written in legislation) so it's a difficult area to understand. Despite internet tradition I will not start to pontificate on an area that I have no real knowledge of. Personally I'd go ahead and build it.
As a final comment a number of people have mentioned they don't agree with the legislation allowing people to work on mains equipment who aren't electricians, this, and the issue of allowing people to work on fixed mains wiring as they do in the UK, NZ and the USA, is one of those arguments that you can have on the internet that go on forever with no end and just end up as a slanging match between the various groups, even though I have strong views in that area I'm not going to get involved in that one as I'd rather spend the time worrying about why my FG is constantly high on my last few brews and besides I can cut out the middle man and just smash my head into a brick wall myself.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to go and help my mate wire up an orphanage
h34r:
Back to the OP's question; this all comes down to liability and your insurance policy. As one poster mentioned products that are built and sold need to be built to a standard and this is quite true, most electrical products have to comply with electrical safety standards as well as other standards about what that product is supposed to do if it serves a specific function. Difference here is that you are building this for personal use and frankly I have no idea (and I really doubt anyone else on here does unless they're a lawyer dealing with this area) about how this applies to the various standards (no guesses on this please).
As you are legally allowed to do this it becomes a grey area, if you build a product professionally and it kills someone then you need to prove that you built it correctly and that it's not your fault if you're prosecuted. I'm a engineer which gives me the qualifications to build this but that would not be enough as a defense if I built it, sold it and it killed someone, an electrician would have even less of a defense as they are not as a rule trained and experienced in design, but regardless the person defending would need to show they built it correctly which is why we have standards for commercial products. (Actually I think the prosecution would need to show they didn't build it to standards but it's basically the same thing).
But as you've built it for personal use and you're not selling it an insurance company would need to show that it caused the fire, you built it incorrectly and it voids the policy. It's not just enough for them to say "sorry buddy but you're not trained in this area and it looks like it caused the fire so tough luck", you're not doing anything illegal so they need to prove it's your fault. Now to be honest provided you don't do anything stupid like keep your collection of ancient antique newspapers in the control box and install 100A fuses protecting wire that will burn up at 10mA you're going to have to try to burn the thing down, and to a degree an insurance policy will have to pay out against accidental damage like this or else they'd never pay out on things like people leaving candles burning etc.
That's the technical liability side of things which is just my basic understanding, I'm happy to be corrected by someone involved in the area if this is incorrect. What you really need here is the opinion of someone who knows about insurance law and policies, what does a company pay out against? What does your policy exclude? How much wiggle room do they have? etc etc. The reality is much of this is case law (i.e. decided by the court not written in legislation) so it's a difficult area to understand. Despite internet tradition I will not start to pontificate on an area that I have no real knowledge of. Personally I'd go ahead and build it.
As a final comment a number of people have mentioned they don't agree with the legislation allowing people to work on mains equipment who aren't electricians, this, and the issue of allowing people to work on fixed mains wiring as they do in the UK, NZ and the USA, is one of those arguments that you can have on the internet that go on forever with no end and just end up as a slanging match between the various groups, even though I have strong views in that area I'm not going to get involved in that one as I'd rather spend the time worrying about why my FG is constantly high on my last few brews and besides I can cut out the middle man and just smash my head into a brick wall myself.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to go and help my mate wire up an orphanage
h34r:
