A few COC notes

[Isetech]

Once again we are faced with a recently purchased property (Cant electrician get this COC thing right)

A few challenges we are facing:

1/ Spot lights mounted on a beam, it sounds simple, it is, each light has a connector block next to the fitting screwed directly to the beam and even though the spotlights are metal, no earth wire connected. Some might argue that they are out of arms reach and a ladder is required to gain access to them.

2/ Downlights with "exposed wires", one of the most common things you will see on domestic properties. Why are they a code violation, because the wire is not double insulated, and they cannot be compressed in the wire clamp.

3/ Looped neutral, this is an interesting one. The red wires are connected to 3 circuit breakers, but there is only one neutral wire. there are ceiling fans and no double pole isolators, therefore they must be connected to the ELU.

4/ Mixed wires, alarms wires, Cabtyre and Twin all in the same conduit. This is also becoming a common practice, people pulling the alarm down the switch conduit, then drilling a hole out the box to fit a door mag or PIR.

5/ Junction boxes with no IP rating buried in the ground, full of mud. They dont trip because it must have been tripping so all the earth wires are cut.

the list goes on......

[Thys LOW Elektries]

Regarding the COC's a quick question
Jo's electrical services installs a PV system and phones you to come and do a COC on the work they had done.
Question 1. Do the house have a valid COC so that I can do an amendment?
Question 2. Who did the work and what qualifications do they have?
Question 3. If they are qualified electricians but not contractors under who's general control did they work?

Now let us see, do the inverter have a dedicated breaker that supplies the inverter with power? Also do the feed from the inverter goes through a dedicated breaker?
Does the breaker protects the inverter and wires, as specified by the inverter manufacturer, all the way

If it is a split db, is all the labels in place?
Do I need warning lights to indicate that a part of the db is still live?
Then there is the neutral/earth issue, is it done correctly?
Do the earth leakage trip at the plugs when testing?
If mains is of, do the inverter still feedback to the system?
The bridge to the supply breaker of the inverter is it 10mm or thicker?
Any other things to look out for?

Finally do I have to COC everything from the Db to the inverter AC side and back to the DB and everything in between?
An inverter that can handle 30 Amps need at least 4mm wire and have a 30Amp breaker and nothing larger than that.