oh guys what are you up to
extra socket out there that we discussed
in a meeting just popping that in today
oh yeah we did discuss that didn't we we
said we need an extra socket remember as
well we said that from now on we're
going to install all of our work up to
the 18th edition standards and one of
the things that we just need to think
about is how are we going to protect
this cable from the premature collapse
of the wiring system because of course
we know we've got to think about cables
above ceilings so if there's a fire the
cables don't collapse down out the
ceiling
but we've got a bit think about all the
cables now whether they're in a ceiling
or coming down the wall that's a good
point got a metallic clip above the
ceiling i've absolutely no metallic
clips within the trunking itself so it
would as you suggested there fall away
from the actual wall itself yeah exactly
and of course it's quite a safety issue
for firefighters when they come into a
building uh if it's filled with smoke
and the lights have gone off it's all
dark they'll often navigate by putting a
foot around the base of the wall and
navigate around the room that way so if
there's a cable hanging off the wall
there's a serious chance of them getting
entangled in it have you got a solution
to the problem we do have a solution to
the problem as it happens so should we
bring the camera in and have a look at
these handy little clips that we've got
going on okay yeah brilliant let's do
that so can you show me these firefly
clips then joe yeah absolutely i've got
an example of one here
these have been very kindly donated to
us by david burt of marshall tufflex
along with some trunking which we'll
discuss in a moment and we're just going
to have a quick look at how these can
help us to meet the latest regulations
so we've got our piece of marshall tough
flex trunking already fixed on the wall
here
and if you have a look at this bit you
can see on the back
that this piece of trunking it looks
like it's been peppered with holes now
the reason for that is we've got our
normal fixing holes which would secure
the mini trunk into the wall with and
we've also got an additional little hole
next to each one and that's been
pre-drilled by the manufacturer in order
to accommodate the insertion of the
firefly
clip
now what we want to think about very
carefully is when we come to start
fixing these clips onto the fabric of
the building we want to make sure that
whatever we fix it with is also fire
resistant so for example if we were to
fit this fire resistant clip to the
fabric of the building using just a
normal screw and wall plug arrangement
if a fire was to break out potentially
the plastic raw plug could melt and then
we'd end up with this being completely
useless so we've got a solution here at
the college one thing that we're
investigating at the moment is the use
of this type of screw now this type of
screw this has been donated to us
by dewalt it's their wall dog range and
the idea is that this can screw directly
into the fabric of the building and that
you don't need a wall plug in order to
make that work so what we're going to do
is we're just going to drill a five mil
hole into the wall and then we're going
to fix this using the wall dog screw
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see that first clip went in pretty
effortlessly what we're going to do now
is put our second clip in
so we're just a little bit higher up on
the same piece of trunk in here so again
five mil hole going to be drilled into
the wall we'll do that now taking all
relevant safety precautions in terms of
ppe etc
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so that's our five mil hole drilled in
no problem and now what we'll do is
insert the clip into the trunking as you
can see i've just pulled the wire out of
the
way there temporarily
so these simply clip into the trunking
quite easy to get in there
and then what i like to do is if you
leave the
clip just hanging over the side there
that makes it a lot easier to get your
cable put behind it and then using
the wall dog screw
we just screw that directly into the
fabric of the building
that pulls in
just make nip that up you don't want to
over tighten these and strip out the
fabric of the building but if you just
nip that up that gives you a nice secure
connection
and then it's simply a matter of just
pulling the cable behind the clip
nice and gently make sure you avoid any
nicks and scrapes to the surface of the
cable
and then the clip just goes inside the
trunk in
like so
and as you can see that is really nicely
retained behind there
should fire break out in this area
the trunking will melt
the cable insulation will melt but these
clips are here for the duration now and
that's going to help prevent that from
falling out just meeting up with the
latest requirements the 18th edition
so at the moment there's no official
guidance on how far apart these clips
are going to be spaced it's very likely
there'll never be any official guidance
on how far apart these clips are to be
spaced it'll be down to the judgment and
experience of the installing electrician
what we've done here is we've spaced
these quite close together just to
illustrate a point here if we were going
to install these on site as electricians
we've taken the decision that we would
rotate the orientation of the clip now
if you look at the clip you can see
there it's got a little return leg in
order to hold the cable in the
horizontal position as well so that's
going to stop the cable from falling out
to the left or to the right but by
rotating the position of the clip the
orientation of the clip we're just
maximizing the potential of the clip
we're making sure even more so that it
won't fall out to
either side and then fall forward so we
think that's quite a good way to go
well that seemed really really easy in
order to fit a clip that wouldn't cause
the wiring system to collapse in the
event of a fire hopefully therefore
saving lives yeah absolutely it's a big
problem simple solution
marshall tufflex have done that for us
okay so that we've got the firefly clips
we've got the pre-drill holes in the
actual trunking itself yep and as a new
installer i'm going to do something like
that or a similar solution totally agree
with that however
lots of trunking systems out there or
warring systems that can collapse and i
would suggest at this stage this is one
of those um regulations that we're not
going to say that we won't apply it
retrospectively i believe that fire
officers will go around installations
and say there's a lot of surface mini
trunking a lot of cables up there that
will come down in the event of a fire is
there a solution for an already fitted
system we've got a retrofit we have got
a solution for that guys and we can have
a look at that right now okay so joe
what we've got going on here well if we
look on the ceiling here we've got a
piece of existing marshall tufflex
trunking that's been screwed onto the
ceiling again we're in a similar
situation if fire breaks out this is
going to fall off the ceiling could
cause entanglement and the loss of life
for fire fighters
so what we want to think about in this
circumstance is
are the regulations to be
retrospectively applied
normally we would say no
we feel that in this instance it's
likely that fire officers will look at
situations like this and say that's a
hazard it needs sorting out
rather than removing miles and miles of
trunking lid and retrospectively fitting
the firefly clips we were just looking
at
firefly have produced a separate type of
clip which we've got here
and this clip is designed to be fitted
over the outside of the trunk in as a
retrofit solution so we've got one here
this has again been fixed directly to
the structural fabric of the building
using
screws that don't have any kind of
plastic element to them there's no wall
plug here this is screwed directly into
that so that again if fire breaks out
there's nothing there to melt and
collapse and as you can see the clip
just fits over the trunk in and holds it
in place there should fire break out now
again this nicely illustrates the point
we were talking about a moment ago which
is if this trunking should melt then the
cable could potentially slip out that
way it's unlikely but it could happen so
again we
if we were installing these on site we
would take the decision that we would
alternate the rotation of the clips so
the next one along would be positioned
that way round and that would then
prevent the cable from slipping out in
either direction
so as you're watching this video maybe
the 18th edition has now been launched
and you can see how manufacturers and
the electrical industry are taking the
collapsing of wiring systems in the
event of a fire really seriously is
there any other products that we can
show the people out there yeah so far
we've looked at the solutions for mini
trunking but firefly also manufacture a
whole range of these clips for different
sizes of trunking which is really handy
so here we've got an example that would
sit inside a 50 by 50 piece of trunking
and that forms exactly the same function
as the previous clip that we looked at
just on a larger scale it'll hold the
cables in there solidly and securely and
prevent them from falling out of the the
installation in the event before it's
really good we're not a two-man team now
so max just walked past so we'll just
grab him and he's really tough to make a
guest appearance in the video what
you've been up to matt um this this
we've been doing ocu's for the assassin
um i've got a couple more videos on site
coming out on top of the mats we've got
a few more on side man so look out for a
few more onsites with mats as we keep
trying to shoot those as well joe's
joined the team i'm still in the team
matt's still with us and we hope this
video has been somehow