First ever legit COC

[Isetech]

oops my mistake,

My brain is in the clouds today doing my least favourite thing, admin work.

I just checked mine, I registered in 2022 and it expires in 2025.

You are correct, its either 1 year or 3 years.

I would then ask why 3 years and not 5 years, everything else is 5 years ?

I am not aware of a 5 year registration period - As far as I know it is a mx of 3 years

If you have not renewed then you cannot be a contractor and therefore cannot issue COC- May be a bit of leeway if you can prove that you have paid and submitted in time

Mine expired this year and I renewed in under a week

[GCE]

oops my mistake,

My brain is in the clouds today doing my least favourite thing, admin work.

I just checked mine, I registered in 2022 and it expires in 2025.

You are correct, its either 1 year or 3 years.

I would then ask why 3 years and not 5 years, everything else is 5 years ?

The Electrical Installation regulations in the OHSA actually stipulate annually and do not actually allow for renewal every 3 years - I think the 3 years was brought in due to there originally being such a back log .

Maybe the 3 years was to match with Annexure 3 - If it was Annexure 5 maybe we would have got 5 years , who knows how these things come about some days

EIR 2009

Electrical contractor
6. (1) No person may do electrical installation work as an electrical contractor unless that person has been registered as an electrical contractor in terms of these Regulations.
(2)
Any person who does electrical installation work as an electrical contractor shall register annually in the form of Annexure 3 with the chief inspector or a person appointed by the chief inspector.
(3)
An application for registration as referred to in subregulation (2) shall be accompanied by the fee prescribed by regulation 14.
(4)
The chief inspector or a person appointed by the chief inspector shall register any person referred to in subregulation (1) as an electrical contractor and enter such registration into the national database: Provided that such person
(a)
has a fixed address and a telephone; and
(b)
employs a registered person in a full-time capacity, or is himself or herself a registered person.

[Isetech]

Once again more confusion in the industry.

We wonder why people take the electrical industry with a pinch of salt.

[Isetech]

It was really close, I received a copy of a COC for a site one of my customers purchased recently, the form was almost filled out correctly, just imagine that, there was hope. Got to site and started testing to create the electrical layout schematic, and just imagine that, all the socket outlets upstairs were conencted to a mixed circuit, labelled as "lights" and not on earth leakage.

Just when I thought, only one issue, there were new weatherproof boxes installed, a new pool DB, labeling and even DB blanks covering all the spare spaces, that was close, all the lights in the building are not connected to the earth leakage unit, unfortuntely all the room had ceiling fans

What does this mean, it time to strip all switches, lights and plugs, and as expected, we found surfix plastered into the wall connected to house wire in which had been platered into the wall and tiled over boxes.

The same with the old stove point, plastered into the wall with 4 mm surfix connected to the hob and ELO

Today we start checking the roof space, I just know we going to find a whole lot of crap

Buying a new house and trust the estate seller has your best interest at heart, think agian, even better get your estate agent to recommend the inspector to check your elctrical installation.

I am going to say it again and and again and again... deo sign the transfer paaper until you have had someone check the COC is filled in correctly and the electrical installtion is "reasonably safe".

Take a little ownership/responsiblity for the electrical installation, once eyou purchase the property, you, yes YOU become the responsible person for that electrical installation and that solar installtion and all the other elctrical stuff on YOUR property.

[Isetech]

As expected it just got worse, stripping tiles to trace the original 4x4 boxes to expose the joints.

Then we started checking the circuits, imagine that, I switch off light circuit 1 the lights stay on, switch it back on, switch off light circuit 2 and the light stay on, switch it back on switch off light circut 3 and some light go off. Switch off light circuit 1 and 2 and the some of the light on the gorund floor switch off and some on the first floor. You know what they means, now we have to strip the light circuits and find the issue.

While opening some of the plugs boxes, I found something rather interest 2 red wires and only 1 green and one black. Back to the DB to check, found 1 red wire connected to plug circuit 9 and the other to plug circuit 10 and only one green and 1 back in the DB.

While removing plug wires, I found something that is a big concern, black copper, pulled the wire out and checked the wire, it was brittle and black all the way. that means it was overloaded.

What do we have learnt from these types of jobs, the original installation must have been done by qualified experienced electricians who took pride in their work, then the property must have had a hit and run builders electrician come in and for a kitchen revamp, back when we still use surfix. then it looks like at some point ther emight have been a problem with the lights or additional ligts installed and the elctrician had no idea about 3 phase, 2 way switching and the like and some how got the light circuit linked together, I bet my holy socks, we going to find neutral issues when we strip the lights to identify the problem.

People wonder why they buy a new house and now have to spend R45 000 to make the property electrical installtion compliant, which has just been sold with a COC.

We could contact the AIA and spend R10 000 plus to get them to tell us that the installation is non compliant, then spend the R45 000 getting me to fix the problem they find, and the problems I find as I strip the installation, then anotehr R50 000 on lawyers fees to sue the contractor who signed the COC.

I am going to say it agian, you need to get your property tested before you sign the tranfer papers, then non of this becomes your problem, you can negotiate the price

The day you sign the transfer papers you start paying to open an investigation.

Or you could do what most people do, just ignore all the non complaint stuff and one day when you ready to sell, get an electrician to fit one single socket outlet and makes sure they issue COC for the job, and hand it in as the COC nobody would know the wiser.

[Isetech]

I believe the test reports/COC for property sales should be scrapped.

I believe it is creating a false sense of safety for people buying houses.

I also believe there should be a more effective method of policing the industry, I dont beleive the AIA method is working.

I also believe ever single COC/test report should be filed on a cloud based platform and random checks should be carried out.

Inspectors or whatever you want to call them, who issue fraudulant COC's should have their license suspended until they yave completed a training course and reuired to pass a test to verify that they understand the regulations.

Every single signle phase tester, IE and MIE should be reuired to attend refresher course and get credits to keep their license.

[Isetech]

Why would you want to pay an AIA to come and tell you that your electrical installation is non compliant and then have to pay another electrical contractor to work on your property, then pay a lawyer to sue the contractor who probably couldnt afford to pay all the costs.

Is it me or does this just sound ridiculous.