The Grumble Thread - No energy for a full on rant.

[jsabine]

a ‘competent person’ is very clearly defined by the HSE
 

A competent person is someone who has sufficient training and experience or knowledge and other qualities that allow them to assist you properly. The level of competence required will depend on the complexity of the situation and the particular help you need

A competent person has sufficient qualities to do the job competently?

Like I said, carefully undefined - that "definition" is so circular it might as well be the Life of Pi.

It’s nice to think that a competent person is someone with sufficient intelligence and common sense, but in this regard it isn’t.

Meh. If you've got enough intelligence and common sense to read and interpret the standards and seek advice when you're unsure, and the skills to do the work properly, then I struggle to see how that's an insufficiency of "knowledge and other qualities"

[Mrs Pingu]

Umm Dunning Krueger effect?

[T42]

In our club we used to have a chap who was renowned for being thick, deaf and stubborn.  I ran into him yesterday at a local event. He was interested in my bike motor so I explained it to him.  He then says "you home tomorrow?"  I nod.   "I'll be round at 10 to see it" and was utterly unstickable.  O horror, horror, horror.

Well he's not getting a coffee.

[Feanor]

I’m sorry jas but a ‘competent person’ is very clearly defined by the HSE

For DIY work in your own home, the HSE doesn't come into it.

Domestic premises are exempt from HSE legislation for work you do yourself.

A contractor working on your premises does fall under their scope, however, since they are 'at work'.

[mrcharly-YHT]

I've done quite a bit of gas work on my boats (replumbed the gas piping on 3 boats). If the boats aren't residential, then this doesn't need to be done by a gas safe engineer (just like caravans). Our boats were residential, however we had BSC inspections done by a surveyor who was a pedant on the gas pipework, appliances and fittings. Said he'd had to give evidence on gas explosions too many times.

Never had an issue with my gas work.

House stuff - I've redone pipework for mains gas (moved a stove), then had a certified engineer test it. Oh, and repaired a combi boiler. In current house I've plumbed in the gas cooker to bottled gas. MrsC then looked it over. She worked for British Gas and is paranoid about gas leaks.

Much of gas work is common sense, regulations are there for a reason and it is easy to test. Well worth reading the regs.

I think electrics are more difficult to test and much more complex.

[T42]

In our club we used to have a chap who was renowned for being thick, deaf and stubborn.  I ran into him yesterday at a local event. He was interested in my bike motor so I explained it to him.  He then says "you home tomorrow?"  I nod.   "I'll be round at 10 to see it" and was utterly unstickable.  O horror, horror, horror.

Well he's not getting a coffee.

Well. he's been and gone.  Had to explain everything 4 or 5 times and ended up promising to help him fit one if & when.

[Kim]

I think electrics are more difficult to test and much more complex.

I think that's true.  Stuff that flows in pipes is mostly about it  a) not leaking  and  b) delivering enough flow,  both of which are intuitive enough to troubleshoot, and easily avoided by competent use of the appropriate fittings.

Electricity is more subtle, and it's entirely possible to cock things up in a way that never poses a danger in practice, until either the use-case changes (hence all those tales of woe with 13A EV chargers) or some other fault occurs.  The regulations are more of a moving target, too.

That said, I think it's too easy to fixate on the safety of permanent electrical installations.  There isn't an epidemic of electrocutions due to non-compliant bathroom installations (which would be considered normal and ordinary in most of the world) or fires due to split ring mains.  The real risk is from appliances that are either shoddy by design or unsafe through wear and tear, but you don't employ tradespeople to purchase those.

[T42]

One such risk an electrician chum noticed recently was a power lead of inadequate gauge for the rated current of the heater it came with.

[Kim]

One such risk an electrician chum noticed recently was a power lead of inadequate gauge for the rated current of the heater it came with.

Power leads have been shrinkflating for a while.  Used to be that a kettle or heater would come with some sturdy 2.5mm.

Obviously the Chinese knock-off manufacturers take this to another level with CCA and/or misleadingly thick insulation^[1], particularly on IEC 'kettle' leads which they assume will be used to power some low-current computing device where it won't be a problem.


_{[1] Which I recently learned was also standard practice among manufacturers of Leftpondian extension leads, albeit with small print warning of the current rating (but, obviously, no fuse to enforce it).}

[T42]

They probably reckon that kettle flexes won't melt before the kettle boils.  Heaters, though...

[T42]

Meanwhile, I just realized that the flashy overhead effects are not due to lightning but a quarter of my last remaining LED striplight turning on and off of its own accord. Rats.

Oh well, at least there's none of that "maybe it's the starter" havering.

[perpetual dan]

I got a letter today about some planned roadworks on the A27 near me.
The roadworks finished on 20th.
The letter was posted on 10th, in darkest Kent (Maidstone).
I’m not sure why they’re spending money on letters, and even less sure why they’re spending money with the Royal Mail when the service is this shitty.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Was it actually posted on the 10th or just dated then?

[ian]

The garden looks like it's five months into No Mow May and the gardeners, I assume, have become bear snacks. Or they will, because the workshy fuckers have yet to turn up or call us back, which I guess means they don't want to do the garden but in that passive British way, they won't tell us that, they'll just agree to call back (never).

I didn't like them anyway, since they had trouble discerning between the actual garden plants and the not actual garden plants (aka weeds), which I think is an essential skill for a gardener. Also, they would often leave having half done the garden. It's really not our problem if you didn't leave enough time before your next job. I guess we nagged them once too often. Or I'll find bones in a couple of months' time and feel bad. The bears are hungry this kind of year. Or maybe they went to the top and the yeti got them. I warned them. Beware the pampas grass.

Where now in the stage of ringing others to have them not call back. Ironically, the one that did ring back, did so to cheerfully tell us he's moved back to Poland, thanks.

I did think the bear had eaten the last window cleaner, but it turned out he'd simply given up window cleaning to take up smoking dope full time.

[Polar Bear]

Our garden is more than 5 years into No Mow May.  It's absolutely bouncing with wildlife at the moment.  I found myself on a bit of an expedition to find the garden shed at the far end earlier in the week.  It's amazing and wonderful.

[ian]

We do purposefully leave some of it wild (estate agents would optimistically describe it as a 'cottage garden', which they did when we brought it, and it featured wrist-thick brambles that tried to get into the house to strangle us while we slept) and I'm deliberately withholding the strimmer till the flowers have gone, but there's stuff that needs doing like trimming the conifers out front and battling some of those brambles before they achieve malefic sentience again. One of my annoyances with the previous gardeners was their senseless mowing and pointless leaf-blowing. Not to mention removing plants for no good reason. I mean, try asking, we're literally in the house.

It's pretty cool out there at the moment, we have a family of foxes that provide regular entertainment (a mother and four cubs) bouncing around the top lawn.

[Beardy]

We’ve not seen the foxes or the deer since the begging of no mow May, but that’s probably becasue we can’t see over the tall grass to the bottom of the garden whey they frolic. We need an upstairs window in the back of the house really.

[perpetual dan]

Was it actually posted on the 10th or just dated then?

Dated then. But as the information was time sensitive, it seems reasonable to assume it was posted on 10th or 11th. If they’d posted it as they unloaded the traffic cones it’d still be late arriving today. There was also a letter from the bank triggered by the base rate change on 11th, and a card that should have arrived on 14th / 15th.

I might email cc our MP suggesting they ask for a refund of the postage for the whole lot. I presume this was paid for with tax.

[hellymedic]

Supermarkets don't want people walking there.  You can't carry enough shopping away with you for them to make a tasty profit on you.

I was quite happy to pu 20kg groceries in my back pack and Mum does that with a trolley.

Mum likes high end fruit & veg, which aren't too good in supermarkets, mind.

[Beardy]

You’d think that after nearly 50 years of it, I’d at least be used to being a sweaty blob after any amount of activity. I’ve just mowed the front lawn and now literally have sweat running down my face and body. Yuck. It’d be easy to blame my corpulence for the excess of leakage, but it was ever thus, (since puberty) and sweat was an irritant even when I was at my flying weight.

[Kim]

I've had that problem since well before puberty.  It's more annoying in the winter, on account of how hard it is to stay warm in wet clothing.

[Cudzoziemiec]

At 1.19pm today I received an email telling me that a parcel was due to be delivered by 1.02pm. I know it's only meant to be a rough estimate but what's the point of saying anything more than "today"?

[Kim]

At 1.19pm today I received an email telling me that a parcel was due to be delivered by 1.02pm. I know it's only meant to be a rough estimate but what's the point of saying anything more than "today"?

Either it's lazy programming (rounding to something human-reasonable would be an extra step) or it's psychology.  AIUI if you give someone an appointment for 14:28 they're more likely to turn up on time than if it's 14:30, for example.  But similarly, if you give someone an estimated delivery time of 13:02 they're more likely to believe the parcel is actively being tracked by your super parcel-tracking system than if you say "13:00".  See also those fake maps they put on tracking sites.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The email must have been triggered by something – the parcel being put in the van, perhaps – that happened at 1.19. That's 17 minutes after the latest delivery estimate in the same email. That's the silly thing. I'm sure they could have an email triggered along the lines of "Your parcel is expected to be delivered between [current time + 30 minutes] and [current time + 8 hours]." Or just "Your parcel is in the delivery van and on its way to you today!"

[Cudzoziemiec]

However, an email from "Avon Needs Trees" has topped this. It asks for feedback – from something that's happening tomorrow! But they're just a little charity, they're allowed little slips.

Ed: They've just sent a follow up apologising for the error!