Quote Originally Posted by Dave A View Post
One of the problems to my mind when it comes to enforcement is the DOL is hellbent on prosecuting the people who are doing the electrical work. However, the owner/lessor/user of the electrical installation is not being held responsible for who they use to carry out electrical installation work. And reality is many are knowingly using people who are not suitably qualified and not working under the general supervision of a responsible person, and not registered as an electrical contractor.

When I raised this at an electrical safety forum held in Durban (about 2016 or so), I was told by Pieter Laubscher that they do not pursue the user/lessor because they are reliant on them to be evidence providers in the DOL's prosecution of the "electrician" who did the work. He said they might consider prosecuting the owner/user/lessor afterwards. And confirmed that they never had pursued an owner/user/lessor yet for contravening the Electrical Installation Regulations up until then.

As long as the owner/user/lessor gets a free pass on who they use, they will not pay attention to compliance with the Electrical Installation Regulations.
DIY home owners and home improvement depot electricians with a card "electrician" has become a major problem. At the the end of the day, the budget rules.

People dont need doctors or trade test electricians, you can become a doctor or an electrician in less than an hour if you have Google or youtube The sad part is I have spent around 300 hours maybe even more, doing research, watching training videos and reading up on solar requirements and regulations and almost 40 years hands on experience yet I am still not qualified to do solar installations because I dont have a green card. I have taken the time to learn so that I can identify bullshyters.

Like thermography, I have about 15 years of hands on experience and 5 years on/off of doing research, yet I am not qualified to issue reports, then I get reports from a person who has no experience in the elctrical field with a hot spot, I just smile and bill the customer for the repairs, 2 weeks later there is smoke coming out of a different panel, the insulations is burnt off the wire and the circuit breaker keeps tripping. The person who did the report indicated that at the time of test there was no hot spot detected.

As we have learnt from past experience even using a member of an association doesn't guarantee a suitably qualified person or inspectors is gonna visiting the site and carry out tests.

Much like "insurance approved contractors", since the riots, looting and flooding man you get to meet the worse of the worse incompetent contractors that I have ever seen.