AECB

[K78]

Has anyone on here joined the AECB?

 

Is it worth the £60 membership fee?

[Triassic]

I looked at joining a few years ago, decided  it wasn’t  worth it. Save your money for the build, if you have a question, ask it here, it’s free!

Edited July 14, 2019 by Triassic

[K78]

You’re right. 

 

I was interested in the silver standard section drawings of solid wall build ups, but £60 seems a bit steep. 

[gravelld]

You get Passivhaus Plus, which is a pretty good magazine.

[Jeremy Harris]

For whatever reason, it seems that the AECB has gradually closed down to "outsiders" over the past few years.  Years ago it had a thriving forum, with a great deal of useful discussion.  Then came the "passive house/burning stuff" rift, and things seemed to gradually get more closed off.  I was friendly with a couple of fairly prominent AECB local members, and my take on what happened is that the AECB chose to become more like a closed shop for consultants.  It's certainly now dominated by those who run consultancy-type businesses, which isn't in itself a bad thing, but it does mean that the AECB is of little value to ordinary self-builders.  This definitely wasn't the case 8 or 10 years ago, when I was pretty active on their forum.

 

Passive House Plus (not Passivhaus - that's a registered trademark of the PHI I believe) is a pretty good magazine.  I used to subscribe back when it was only available in Ireland, then took out a subscription for the UK version, and it does give a pretty good overview of passive house projects.  Unless it's changed recently, though, the magazine tends not to give the sort of detail that many self-builders might want to see.  It's still good for getting an idea as to what's possible, though, and for checking out new products aimed at energy efficient building.

[Gone West]

I was a member of the AECB for several years a while back. Our local group is still thriving and they used to arrange interesting meetings at local pubs and visits to low energy buildings. Ten years ago the forum was a good place to pick up useful information but it has gradually declined over the years and is now useless. I did download a lot of their silver and gold construction details many years ago.

[Carrerahill]

All these organisations are just a body that bring together some information that is almost always available through some research or talking to the right people or engaging a consultant etc.

 

All these memberships and subscriptions, whatever they are for and for all trades, are just a money making machine, they are all the same. A boys club, people who set up a website and have some literature and claim to be an authority on something and are basically self appointed with a false sense of important. They are never government organisations and there is no law that says you must be a member - yet people end up forced into feeling they must subscribe and tick a box and what they actually get for it is very very little. 

 

The only one that is a legal requirement is Gas Safe under the Gas Safety installation and use regs 1998.

 

NICEIC/Select for electricians, again not a legal requirement. In the case of NICEIC/Select they are VOLUNTARY organisations you can join to be told you are competent or not. In all cases they were set up by a couple of electricians who saw an opening to extract money from people and they then grew to a point where their self appointed authority and credentials became gospel. I treat ALL of these organisations with complete contempt. 

 

I recently had the pleasure of sitting in a design meeting where a NICEIC consultant was appointed to come along to offer advice independently to a client - the client had a duty of care to ensure they were getting the best information. Anyway, the guy, who's card is sitting on my desk right next to me, was totally clueless and was totally out of his depth, he was continually corrected throughout the meeting by myself and my engineers present with me. Shortly after the meeting we were advised by our client that they would be disposing of the NICEIC chap as they realised that he really didn't have a clue or a place in the meeting - I advised that all our work would be, as standard on large projects, put out to another consultancy as checking engineers to provide an independent audit, so that satisfied the client. However, the NICEIC chap's report came back to which I line by line dismantled for being grossly incorrect and misleading. This guy, apparently, is fairly high up the ladder and a bit of a go to expert on electrical matters within the NICEIC - it made me think.

 

 

[SteamyTea]

19 minutes ago, Carrerahill said:

A boys club, people who set up a website and have some literature and claim to be an authority on something and are basically self appointed with a false sense of important.

Happened in the Health and Leisure industry.  A few suppliers created an organisation basically to keep some suppliers out of the industry.

That all changed when Local Authorities had to go to competitive tendering.  I don't think the Fitness Industry Association in the UK is about anymore, possibly because it was started by a serial bankrupt and his mistress.

[Carrerahill]

19 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Happened in the Health and Leisure industry.  A few suppliers created an organisation basically to keep some suppliers out of the industry.

That all changed when Local Authorities had to go to competitive tendering.  I don't think the Fitness Industry Association in the UK is about anymore, possibly because it was started by a serial bankrupt and his mistress.

 

Always the same. 

 

I think we could get a group of us from this site and we will start a building organisation and start to control the industry! We will make a fortune - we will make builders believe they must sign up to our organisation to be allowed to build.

Edited July 15, 2019 by Carrerahill

[Jeremy Harris]

Often these organisations start out with good intentions, then run out of things to do, so start making up new rules so that they can stay in business.  I'm inclined to think that the IET is heading this way now, as the last few revisions to BS7671 haven't addressed any real problems, they've just added cost and given people an excuse to rip out perfectly serviceable stuff and replace it.  They seem to have become a self-licking lollipop, where they feel they have to make changes just to ensure they keep drawing in fees.

 

A good example would be the change in the 17th Amd. 3 requiring metal (non-flammable) consumer units.  The problem (a small fire risk) that they were attempting to address had little to do with the flammability of the CU case, it was caused by the combination of manufacturers skimping on screw terminal design and people not tightening terminal screws properly. 

 

Once upon a time it was normal to have two screws on every connection in a CU, made of solid brass, an arrangement that ensured a good connection.  Now we have nasty terminals, often incorporating plated steel screws etc, that will loosen their hold on a wire with the slightest bit of movement.  Had the IET addressed that core problem there would have been no need to switch away from plastic enclosures, and we'd not see the (more dangerous) problem of wires being run through sharp-edged holes in metal enclosures without proper anti-chafe protection.  I suspect the reason we didn't was that industry didn't want to have to make better terminals, they wanted to be able to charge more money for metal enclosures.

[K78]

I read that their section drawings of 140mm solid walls with EWI can help satisfy BC. 

 

I had had a good relationship with my bco, but he has left the local authority for a private company. God knows who will be replacing him. 

 

I didn’t know you could go private, before I instructed council BC.