- Coming up on this week's news, contractors are warned not to use insulation piercing connectors for charge points. An electrician is engulfed in a fireball of hot oil as a transformer explodes, and tragedy as two electricians die in one week in separate workplace accidents in Australia. Welcome to "Electrical News Weekly" in association with The Electric Heating Company, 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 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. The NICEIC has issued a stark warning this week against the increasing use of insulating piercing connectors on meter tails. Some installers are using this method as a way of creating a branch for an EV charge point. But experts at the NIC say the connectors are designed for overhead cables, not insulated and sheath meter tails. Because meter tails have more insulation and copper strands, not aluminum, they make poor connections. Combined with the high current of an EV charge point, the connections can end in heat buildup and joint failure. The experts also contend that the use of insulation piercing connectors for this purpose is a breach of BS 7671, and that's because the conditions for protection by double insulation are not met. We featured these devices in quite a bit of content about two years ago now, including a live stream, a full-length video, and a short. So, have a look at all of those for our take on them. The link, as ever, is in the show notes. In other news, an electrician is said to be lucky to be alive after his van was engulfed by a fireball from an exploding transformer. Alan McIlwraith was showered with 60 liters of burning hot oil from an 11,000-volt transformer as he was driving along a country lane in West Yorkshire. Self-employed McIlwraith said it was as if someone had thrown a petrol bomb at his windscreen. It melted the paint work and almost fried him inside the vehicle. The freak accident happened when the oil which is used to cool the coils somehow ignited. McIlwraith says he intends to make a claim against Northern Powergrid who run the electricity supply in the area. Meanwhile, in Australia, two electricians have died in separate accidents. One 53-year-old man who has not yet been named was found dead still clutching the live cable, which it's believed may have killed him. He was underneath a client's home in Callala Bay in New South Wales. Ambulance paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene. The police say his death is not being treated as suspicious. In the second incident, a 60-year-old electrician, again, not named, died when he fell from a ladder. The man was installing cables in a building in the Greenvale district of Melbourne when he plunged from the third to the ground floor. It's understood that he died at the scene. Victoria state inspectors have opened an investigation into the circumstances of the death. The two incidents take to 44 the number of workplace fatalities recorded in Australia this year. Again, our thoughts and condolences go out to the family and friends of those two men. That is absolutely tragic. Back in the UK, electricians are being bused to a job accompanied by security guards after residents in a Dundee Council block allegedly turned abusive with some verbal diarrhea. Earlier this month, sparkies walked off the site at Elders Court in Lochee after one was reportedly threatened with violence by a resident. Unite Union spokesman, George Ramsay, said the aggressive behavior of some tenants meant his members had no choice. He said it was a sad state of affairs when tradesmen needed protection to go about their work, improving the fabric of buildings. Police say they are investigating complaints of threatening behavior towards the electricians at the site. In Ireland, the government has opened the country's first school for electrical apprenticeships. The result of a 4-million pound investment, and if all our Irish followers could please forgive me at this point for my pronunciation, Drogheda College is the first further education and training center specializing in the electrical field. It's designed to produce over 300 skilled young people every year. It's all part of a plan to accelerate the move to renewable energy and electrification, and the renewable revolution is certainly gathering pace. A project has just started in Portsmouth, which we'll see the installation of a whopping 9,000 photovoltaic panels. The project at Lakeside North Harbour Business Park will see 1,800 panels put on five buildings and 7,000 put above car parks. Portsmouth City Council said they were expected to provide enough power to run 1,300 three-bedroom homes for a year. The work is expected to be finished by Autumn 2024. In product news this week, Easee has unveiled a charger which can be controlled without a connection to the internet. Instead, users of the Charge Lite will use Bluetooth to talk to the unit. In a first for Easee, the charger requires external type A earth fault protection. This follows the controversy earlier this year when Swedish safety chiefs banned two Easee chargers, saying that the firm's integrated electronic RCD wasn't compliant with the regulations. Since then, the company has had a troubled summer. Founder Jonas Helmikstol quit as CEO, and more than half the workforce was axed. However, investors have stumped up millions of pounds in a mark of optimism that the Norwegian firm has turned a corner. Now, some of you inquired about where to get FuseBox's TPN dis boards after an item last week. The company has 1,300 stockists around the UK, and there's a handy locator on the website where you simply pop in your postcode to find your nearest outlet. The new boards have 3, 7, 11, and 15 usable ways. There's a set of 10kA 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 standard. The pan assembly has device end 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. Audio joint, Sonos, has announced that it's returning to EI Live! with its biggest presence to date. The brand will be showcasing its range of professional audio integrations, which are designed to deliver exceptional experiences for customers. EI Live! takes place from Wednesday the 13th of September to Thursday the 14th of September at Farnborough International Exhibition Centre. If you can't make it to the show, don't worry. Sonos has unveiled a webinar called,"Introducing Sonos for Professionals," which takes a deep dive into its audio. It's perfect for electricians that are new to the brand or are curious to find out more. The free webinar hosted by Stephen Rhead of Sonos will explore the range, give some market insights, and show how the kit can enhance audio setups for your customers. It'll walk you through speakers, components, partner platforms and services, and show you how you can get them to work seamlessly together. I've popped the link to that in the show notes. And of course, don't forget that we're attending EI Live! here at eFIXX over those two days. So if you see a red shirt hanging around, then please do come over and say hello. And speaking of live events, don't forget, we're also going to be joining the Luceco Group on their stand at Screwfix Live on the 22nd of September. We'd love to see you in person, and there's bound to be giveaways and goodies to be had from us as well. And not only will you get to see myself, Gary, Gordon, Rick, and Joe 2.0, you'll also get to meet the newest member of the team who starts with us on the very day that this episode has gone live. You may recognize him from a few videos that he's already made for us and to be fair to the cracking Joe on, but you're going to be seeing an awful lot more of him in the future. Now, you're not gonna believe this, but his name just happens to be Joe. Full name, Joe Hammond. So we started with myself, original Joe or OG Joe on the streets, then we added Joe 2.0, and now we have a third Joe in the mix. So if you can think of an appropriate nickname to differentiate our third Joe, please let us know in the comments and let's keep it kind. Anyway, you can pop down to Farnborough International Exhibition & Conference Centre, and you can meet all the Joes and the rest on the 22nd of September at the Luceco stand. We're really looking forward to seeing you there. Also, if you happen to be called Joe and you're looking for a job, then get in touch. It seems to be company hiring policy now and it won't hurt your chances apparently. And finally, a video of a cat has gone viral this week after the pet was seen to fix a problem with a flashing lamp. The tabby correctly identified that the problem with the compact fluorescent lamp was that the Edison screw base was not fully engaged. It then reached up with its paw and rotated the light source slightly enough to fix the annoying flicker and provide bright continuous light. So, we featured ferrets and cats doing electrical work in recent episodes. No doubt next week it'll be a chihuahua doing a rewire wire. Now, I know some of you are expecting a weak cat pun at this point, something about cat 5 cables perhaps, but this is a serious news broadcast and I'm no longer kitten around. Well, I didn't wanna disappoint you, and yet somehow, I feel like I have, or at least Scriptwriter Ray has. 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 Sunsynk. 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. 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 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 banoffee and Lambretta, and the first person to get both right was MarcusNailor who came sweeping in with the very first comment, actually. His comment is showing as edited. However, we detected no foul play, so we're going to show some trust in our fellow human and assume he edited the emoji at the end there. So, well done to you, Marcus. Click the link in the show notes 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 torque calibrated arm.