Facebook Fails to Unplug Dangerous Devices

- Coming up on this week's news, electrical safety campaigners slam Facebook over its failure to act on dodgy devices, electricians get to grips with the clarifications to the 18th edition and a network circuit fault leads to fires at homes in Essex. Welcome to "Electrical News Weekly."

Whether you're listening in the van, on site or down at the wholesale counter, I'm Joe Robinson and I've been through the best of the electrical industry news to save you the trouble and as always, if you think you've spotted the two words, that I've been challenged to slip into this week's show, comment with them below for the chance to win a prize.

Electrical safety campaigners have slammed Facebook over its failure to act on dodgy devices listed for sale on its marketplace. The consumer charity, Electrical Safety First says, "That dangerous and substandard listings of electrical goods remained for sale on the platform for more than seven weeks after the company was alerted to their existence.

10 products were flagged to parent company, Meta after a wide-scale probe into suspect goods on sale via five major websites, eBay, Amazon Marketplace, wish.com and AliExpress all responded swiftly to alerts by removing the listings. However, goods that expose householders to risk of electric shock and fire remain for sale on Facebook Marketplace nearly eight weeks on.

Electrical Safety First Chief, Lesley Rudd said that, "Meta had failed to act when presented with its evidence leaving shoppers exposed to avoidable harm. In doing so, Meta has distinguished itself for all the wrong reasons." The products listed include a non-compliant e-scooter charger and an unsafe pair of hair straighteners. The listings were no longer active since Thursday last week, so maybe Facebook won't become the charity's nemesis after all, we'll wait and see.

Electrical safety was also under the spotlight in Essex this week as a network circuit fault set off fires in a number of homes in Romford. Firefighters attended blazes which it attributed to the electrical issues in the area. There were no reports of any injuries. A power cut followed the incident and left homes in Dagenham, Romford and other areas without electricity, engineers from UK Power Networks are investigating the cause of the fault.

An investigation into another fire, this time of an electric car has stalled, no pun intended, after the remains of the vehicle mysteriously disappeared. A BMW i3 belonging to Londoner, a Dina Samani erupted into a fireball in a car park in Wembley in the northwest of the capital. It led to a huge blaze, which destroyed eight businesses and took firefighters seven hours to control, hopefully passers by at least had an umbrella to stay dry from the hoses.

All that remained of the motor afterwards was a warped aluminum frame and molten lithium battery, the carbon fiber body work had completely melted. The charred carcass was allegedly collected by a recovery firm acting for BMW investigators, but now the recovery firm has gone bust, the car's disappeared and BMW is denying it ever arranged for its collection. Samani is currently negotiating with her insurers over recovering her losses related to the incident.

A BMW spokesman said that, "The number of fires involving its electric models in Britain last year were in the single digits."

Electricians across the UK this week are starting to get to grips with some clarifications to the 18th edition of the Wiring Regulations. The Institution of Engineering and Technology, which writes the regs last week issued a range of corrections to the 18th edition. The main changes are to the rules about cabling and electrical equipment in protected fire escape routes.

Also, the rules on SPDs protecting safety services have been relaxed which should lead to fewer headaches, when installing Grade D smoke alarm systems. The Institution said it wanted, "To correct misunderstandings, remove perceived barriers and ensure that safety comes first." The corrigendum is available to download for free from the IET website as of today, I'll leave a link to it in the show notes.

In product news this week, Marshall-Tufflex is introducing what it terms, "Van-friendly lengths of mini trunking and conduit." The 2.4 meter long profiles are designed to make it easier for contractors to get lengths of product into the back of a small van. The new lengths include self fix mini trunking, which are made from recycled PVCU materials. Also available in 2.4 meter are heavy gauge conduit in both 20 mil and 25 mil sizes.

This range is designed for industrial and commercial applications.

The big news in smart homes this week is the announcement that the Nest thermostat has been updated to work with the Matter intelligent building standard. It's a game changer as Nest can now integrate into the Apple Home Platform. Better still, if you have a Nest thermostat, you don't need to do anything as it should already have received its over-the-air software update.

The compatibility means that Nest owners can adjust the temperature with other apps, such as Amazon's Alexa and Samsung's SmartThings. Gordon, our resident geek and let's face it, the smartest one of us has been trying to get Nest and Apple's Siri to talk to each other for a decade. You can see his method in a special video, that he made earlier, I've popped the link to that in the show notes.

And if you're in the marketplace for an apprentice, make sure you watch the College Connection video, that Gary and Marcus recorded live, where they discuss the ins and outs and pitfalls of the process including Marcus' own personal experience of what it's like to take one on, again, the link is in the show notes.

ThermoSphere has unveiled an underfloor heating cable, which it says is, "The first and only on the market to use TwistedTwin construction and InLine hot to cold technology." What is it and why is it important? Well, many faults occur around the cold tail joint of a heating cable, because the joints which are normally heat shrink wrapped, are three times thicker than the cable.

This requires electricians to chase out concrete and cut into the membrane and insulation, risking damage to cables and joints. The company has managed to incorporate the hot to cold joint connections into the manufacturing process creating invisible joints and a cable that's uniform in thickness from end to end. This improved the installation process by stopping cable failure and preserving the waterproof layer of the decoupling membrane.

A startup company in London has begun printing its lights to order. LumiAdd has created a new range of luminaires using an industrial 3D printer. Even better for the environment, the pendants are made with a special plastic, which is biodegradable, so when you're finished with the lights, you can put them in the compost.

And remember, you can see lots more innovations at the InstallerSHOW in June, big brands at the event include Tesla, Easee, KNIPEX, Milwaukee, RIGID and Ring. The eFIXX team will be there too, so if you see us, come and say hello. It takes place at the National Exhibition Center in Birmingham on the 27th, 28th and 29th of June. And just before we get to your favorite bit of the show,

where I reveal last week's challenge words and winners, we want to thank our premium partners. We couldn't make the news without you.

First up, for all your circuit protection needs, they're like having an Italian star striker in your Premiership team, it's Lewden Palazzoli and the best thing to come out of Yorkshire since stainless steel, it's Doncaster Cables, the home of EV-Ultra and other groundbreaking and quality cables and one of the biggest lighting companies in the world, because their capital is always Dublin, it's Irish lighting manufacturer, Robus, home of great quality and innovative lighting products.

Big thanks to you all, we really appreciate your ongoing support for the news. Now, if you think you know the words I've smuggled into this week's show, pop your guess into the comments and we'll dig out a goodie bag prize to the first to get the right answers. Last week's words were spindly and quintessential and while the latter was easy enough to spot, it seems the former threw people off quite a lot.

So the first person to get both right and he really was in a minority last week was Dan Sheppard, really well done to you, Dan, make sure you click the link in the show notes to claim your prize. Thanks for listening to this episode of "Electrical News Weekly." Make sure you subscribe to receive the next update, thanks for listening and until next time, have a great week. Stay safe out there and remember, there's no such thing as a torque calibrated arm.