DOL says AIA are legal

[Sparks]

There are prescriptions for an "existing" installation too. Just because it is "existing" does not mean that a COC can be issued "willy nilly".
"Reasonably safe" means safe to use without undue risk or having to take special precautions.
If there is any "unnecessary" danger or non-compliance of the regulations that do apply to "existing" installations, the COC must not be issued.
Being the man on the spot you would know a lot more than Dave's guys Murdock. If they had concealed anything at the time of the inspection Daves guys can not be held responsible.
Maybe they preferred to pay Dave rather than you. Especially if you took on the same tone that I do with hard-arse clients.

[Dave A]

they (corrupt aia) had loads of photos and stuff, we had nothing.

All I can say is whenever you issue a COC, take photos - lots of them. Even if everything is fine and dandy. When you think of the cost of electrical test equipment, a small digital camera is peanuts nowadays.

The rest is just discipline. At the end of each day, or first thing in the morning load all those photos onto your PC and file them into a folder system where each property has its own folder.

i have just had a similar thing but apparently daves company came to the rescue and signed over the coc...i refused to because they could not product a valid documentation of a registered person carrying out or supervising the repairs...so the company i was dealing with got hold of alcocks...who then treated the installation (nothing wrong with this because they dont know the history of the installtion) as an exsisting installation and i would assume they signed off if all was correct...saved me the hassle...because the installation was bad.

Could you PM me the address, Murdoch, so I can satisfy my curiosity and run over the paperwork from my side. Occassional QA checks never hurt.

[Sparks]

At the end of the day what the hell can DOL or AIA do?

The COC issued by mr Bornman of Volta Electrical has been officially declared as invalid by the "powers that be".

Where does that leave the new homeowner?

Volta Electrical is still going strong. I have no idea by whom mr Bornman is "highly recommended", but I do know that whoever they are to recommend him, they know jack sh*t about SANS10142 which seems to be the extent of mr Bornman's knowledge thereof too and if that is the last contractor in town I would be shooting either him or myself.

How many more invalid COCs' has he issued? Must someone first die?

[murdock]

ever heard the saying if you cant beat them join them...who gives a sh!t...there is some good money to be made out there...if you are like i use to be 3 hours doing an inspection report...hello...time to wake up and smell the roses...there is some good money to be made...now i am in and out in 20 minutes...R450 and hour is more than i charge for actually doing work...cocs are money for jam...and if you are even smarter you will get some other fool to do your inspection reports...so that you are not liable...i do them because i am hoping the likes of the DOL or AIA will take me to task...in fact i look forward to the day...i have even tried using names and numbers like jack sparrow as the registered person...10810 as my registration number just to make a mockery of this joke of a system...but i still to this day have never had a come back...i dont use the new coc...i still use the old ones and attach forms...nobody knows the wiser.

the moral of the story...if the public are stupid enough to pay for this joke of a document...make the money while its available...i cant see it getting any better any time soon...they dont have the expertise nor the manpower to enforce the COC....with a goverment that beilieves that hiding in the bush...speed trapping will save lives how on earth do you thing they would understand that electricity kills...the durban metro electricity department and city council has decided that illegal connections are no longer an issue...how would an installation done by an electrical contrator and signed of by a registered person ever be dangerous...just remeber we live in a 3 rd world country...red lights mean slow down to 100 km/hr in residendual areas...orange (emergency) lanes are for taxis...copper is gold and cocs are for making money...who cares if 1 or 2 people are electricuted on the odd ccasion...i saw 10 people die on the N2 in one accident...let me not even start with stats.

[murdock]

by the way it takes the durban electricity department up to 5 years to realise there is no coc issued...and just to make it worse...i had a customer contact me because he was threated that if he did not issue a coc for a job which was done 3 and half years ago...he was told they would switch him off in 14 days bad idea...he contacted me.

the work was done by one of there own electricians moon lighting on weekends and to top it all the work was carried out on the metro side of the meter...so now i asked the question will there be an enquiry and the person prosecuted because of him doing work on the weekends...they have gone very quiet.