Iwanted to write another ‘funny’ column, since they are so much easier to read, but I am going to be serious – well, a little bit serious.

You will not believe how much rubbish qualified electrical people have to put up with. Or, more accurately, believe how much rubbish qualified electrical people have to put up with.

The fact is, out there, out in the darkness, are a massive herd of stupid unqualified ignorant people who think that they are electrically qualified. So many times I have to deal with them.

A typical scene: I am asked by a client to evaluate the switchboard in building. They are all 40-plus years old and use combined fuse switches. The fault current for which they are rated is hopelessly less than the available fault current. If a rat runs across the bus bars, there will be one almighty explosion, which will probably cause a fire. (Okay, if anything ran across the bus bars, even a quantity surveyor or a Natal graduate, there would be an explosion).

The switch boards are so dangerous that I tiptoe around them, anxious not to loosen a rusting bolt or an old corroded termination. I write to the client. I tell the client that the switchboard has reached the end of its useful life. It is over. It is no more. It is nearing its period of eternal rest. It is on its way to heaven. It is about to join the way of the spirits.

I tell the client that a new one will cost money to supply and install. I wait. Not long afterwards, the client will call me and ask for a “quick meeting on site”. What ‘quick meeting’ means is that the client will waste my time and not offer to pay for it. When I get to site, the client will introduce somebody who is an electrician (or not even that) who will meet me and the client and who will tell me, no problem, he/she can fit a circuit breaker here and a busbar there and stuff and . . . And it will all be working okay for another 50 years.

I will tell the client and the electrician that, unfortunately, the switchboard will not conform to SANS standards if it is just rewired and that what the electrician/unqualified one suggests may be cheap but it is not legal. The electrician/unqualified one will argue and, ultimately, the client will take the electrician’s view and mutter about “engineers who are out of touch” and I will have wasted my time. Sometimes (it does happen) the switchboard blows up a bit later and then I am asked to drop everything and come up with a solution. Do I then charge the client like a wounded buffalo? You bet.

But now the eternal being of all mankind has looked down upon us humble servants and has changed the law. The Occupational Health and Safety Act now requires, if it is contemplated to feed more than five consumers/ subdistribution boards from a single switchboard, the design has to be approved by a person who has either an N5 or a T3 technical qualification or is a registered professional engineer or has a university degree and has had two years’ experience or is a certificated engineer. So much safer!

This news may be underwhelming but it has huge ramifications in the commercial world. In my practice, we see about two electrical fires each year and these are always caused by switchboards which have been modified unsafely. Normally, the insurers just pay out and take it on the chin. This need no longer happen – they can refute the claim if the board has been illegally modified or go after the qualified person who approved it for costs. Altogether, things will become much safer and there will be fewer fires.

Finally, it has happened. No more will I have to go to some switchroom which doubles as a storeroom and have to try to restore power to a switchboard which is dangerous and liable to blow up and burn or blind me. Hallelujah!