Landlord Packed 12 Students in Flat With Deadly Wiring

- Coming up on this week's news. A landlord is banned from renting property after 12 students were found living in a flat with exposed wiring. A farm is fined 60,000 pounds over the electrocution of a lorry driver and we meet the robotic dog trained to hunt out power cable faults. Welcome to Electrical News Weekly in association with the electric heating company.

Whether you're listening in the van onsite 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.

A landlord has been banned from renting accommodation after 12 students were discovered living in a flat with exposed wiring. Ashiq Rasul was struck off the landlord register after his property in Glasgow was branded a recipe for disaster. Alex Wilson, chairman of Glasgow City Council's licensing committee said the combination of the bare cables and a lack of smoke alarms were massive causes for concern and could easily have led to a fire.

The committee heard that the electrician who worked at the property said some of his recommendations were absent from the documents received by the council. There were also issues with the condition of the boiler and the gas hub. Rasul did not have a multiple occupation license which is required for such properties. The committee decided that he was not a fit and proper person and removed him from the register of private landlords.

Clearly even duffel coat wearing, Lambretta driving student mods deserved to live in safe accommodation.

Still on safety, a court has find a farm 60,000 pounds after a lorry driver was electrocuted. Patrick Rice was killed in 2021 after his tipper truck touched an overhead power line on Littlecombe Farm in Crediton, Devon. He was delivering stone to repair farm tracks when the hydraulic arm of the lorry came into contact with the 11,000 volt cable.

A health and safety executive probe into the incident found that VB Farm's LLP of Love Street Chester had failed to carry out an assessment of how the work could be done safely. At no stage did it consider the dangers involved with working near an overhead power line. VB Farms was found guilty of breaching the electricity at work regulations at Exeter Magistrate's Court. The company was also ordered to pay costs of 11,000 pounds.

As always, our thoughts and condolences go out to the family and friends of Mr. Rice. Again, another tragic and avoidable accident.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the courts a company which was ordered to pay over half a million pounds after their electrician employee was killed has begun appealing what it describes as the disproportionate fine. Building firm Linbrooke Services Limited of Netherland Sheffield received a punishment after Matthew Mason fell from a stepladder and was impaled on metal piping. The company was fined 550,000 pounds and was also ordered to pay the dead man's family 200,000 pounds in compensation.

Mason was fatally injured while installing a PA system at Bearsden Train Station in June, 2018. The 20 year-old was trying to free speaker cabling that had become stuck when he fell backwards from a stepladder onto a section of metal piping that was being used as a handle for a cable drum. The piping pierced his side causing internal injuries and he was pronounced dead at the scene.

In the original trial, the prosecutor said that the company had failed to assess the risks involved with pulling cables through a conduit at height. However, at the high court this week, Linbrooke Services limited argued that Mason had contributed to his death. He used a shortcut cabling method and had attached a fish wire to the cable in a wholly inappropriate manner, said Linbrooke, presumably because it was quicker.

The company said that the process he used for unreeling a stretch of cable was unauthorized and a device had been available that he could have used. The judge rejected the argument. He did, however, rule that the fine be reduced to 400,000 pounds but the compensation order remains the same. And again, our sincerest condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Mason.

In other news, the phased ban on fluorescent tubes takes full effect this week. The workhorse T8 lamp is now banned both in the EU and Great Britain and the slimmer version, the T5 will follow suit next February in Britain, however, existing stocks from suppliers of these lamps will still be available until they are exhausted.

While there have been reports of wholesalers stockpiling the light sources in anticipation of higher prices, it's expected that overall availability will diminish in the next few years. So what do you say to customers who want you to maintain their fluorescent lighting? Well, you can take some inspiration from a new install video that Gordon and Gary have put together. I've popped the link to that in the show notes. Also, fresh from the oven is their review of the beast That is the MEGA X1.

They answer the simple question is this really the ultimate multifunction tester? Again, the link is in the show notes. Spoiler alert, they liked it. Another innovation that we think is tastier than

a Banoffee cheesecake is the new TPN disk boards from Fusebox. The boards have three, seven, 11, and 15 usable ways. There's a set of 10 KA devices including MCBs, RCBOs and RCDs, and all the units come with a factory fitted 125 amp, four pole main switch and a T2 surge protection device as a standard. They've really thought of the installer here with a chunky pan assembly with device N stops and large easy to terminate earth and neutral terminal bars.

There are shrouded neutral terminal bars and removable glam plates at both the top and bottom with smooth edge cable entry. In terms of accessories, you can get an extension box and a coin slot door lock. More info at your nearest fusebox stockist. Now, how much do you know about under floor wiring systems?

For instance, why can we connect 32 amp unfused tap offs to a 63 amp bus bar? Just what is a Clean Earth system and how many conductors can I install in trunking? These are just some of the questions I answer in a special online CPD training course that I've just put in the can. I explain access floor systems in commercial and educational projects in collaboration with the experts in under floor wiring at Marshall-Tufflex.

All you have to do is watch the series of video tutorials and answer the accompanying multiple choice questions. You'll then receive a PDF certificate for your records and you can count an hours CPD towards your annual requirement. The link, as always is in the show notes. In other product news,

the EV charger maker, myenergi has teamed up with online Car Marketplace Cinch in a deal which the firm says aims to bring home charging to the masses. Cinch customers will get significant discounts on both the purchase and installation price of the Zappy range. Myenergi says drivers can expect to see savings of up to 280 pounds on both tethered and untethered models.

Now, this is the first News Weekly in safe for September, the month when we all redouble our efforts to put safety front and center in everything we do. This is of course the time of the year when many new people join our industry starting apprenticeships or college courses. And we at eFIXX are big supporters of Safe for September, especially safe isolation practice which could save your life one day.

Even if you are a grizzled old hand at this, I'm thinking about Gary, obviously, it's always time well spent to brush up on the latest safe isolation procedures to help motivate you. We've teamed up with the experts at TIS. Here's the deal. Take the eFIXX Safe Isolation Training module and get the certificate which will contribute to your annual CPD requirement.

You'll then be entered into a draw to win a TIS Safe Isolation Kit and in the remote possibility that you are not one of our winners you can still take your certificate down to the wholesaler for 10% off the cost of this top of the range kit. A perfect start to Safe September, I'd say. And finally, engineers have come up

with a novel answer to the problem of cable inspections in narrow underground tunnels. They've developed a robotic dog who does it in half the time that humans take. Nicknamed Spot, the robot is about the size of a Labrador and he's now helping UK Power Networks to keep the lights on in London. He has special motorized legs which keep him steady on wolf ground and an array of sensors that prevent him from barking up the wrong tree.

As you'd expect, a robot dog isn't cheap, but happily UK Power Networks managed to renegotiate the terms of his leash. His leash, leash. Seriously, Ray, you're gonna have to stop putting these in. It's like dad jokes on steroids.

Anyway, 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, they're the people who've created the Swiss Army knife of solar inverters along with all weather batteries, very much the Boy Scouts of the solar industry, it's SUN SYNK.

Up next for all your circuit protection needs, they're like having an Italian star striker in your premiership team, it's Lewden Palazzoli. Next, they're your one-stop solution provider for EV installations from domestic to large DC public chargers, it's the ingenious and gifted GARO. 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 to fix all that gear together and to surfaces, you need fasteners that would win a gold medal, it's Olympic Fixings. And finally, celebrating their 100th anniversary of literally creating connections in the electrical industry this year, rising from the flames like some kind of mythological, avian, it's Phoenix Contact. Big thanks to you all. We really appreciate your ongoing support for the news.

If you think you know the words that 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 Budgerigar and Mohawk and the first person to get both right was our old friend and serial winner, Mark. Just Mark. Very well done to you, sir. Make sure you click the link in the description to claim your prize.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Electrical News Weekly in association with the Electric Heating Company. 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 talk calibrated arm.