Basics of BASEC

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Dr Jeremy Hodge, chief executive of the British Approvals Service for Cables (BASEC).

The British Approvals Service for Cables (BASEC) is the recognised mark for independent cable testing and approval. MEP Middle East speaks to chief executive Dr Jeremy Hodge about inroads it is making in the region, and the challenges and opportunities facing local cable manufacturers.

So what is BASEC doing in the Middle East? "British standards have been used in the Middle East for many years, as they have some technical advantages over other standards. A lot of projects specify British standards and codes in general. There is an awful lot of British engineering involvement out here, moreso with the increasingly global nature of many design-and-build projects. So wherever you get engineers who are used to working with British standards and codes, they will specify the same, and we are really the only body providing approvals for this," explains Dr Hodge.

A non-profit making government-appointed body, BASEC has been a leader in product certification for more than 30 years. It provides services for electrical cables, data and signal cables and ancillary products, as well as system assessment and certification for quality (ISO 9001), environmental (ISO 14001) and health and safety management systems (OHSAS 18001). BASEC also offers auditing for process capability in cable making, certificates of assessed design for innovative cable products, and independent testing and reporting in the event of disputes.

"We work mainly with commodity-type cables, where you simply want it to work in the manner specified.

The workhorse cables in this regard are the big armoured power supply cables, which are increasingly low-smoke types, because a lot of construction projects are taking fire engineering into consideration at the specification stage. This means that wherever the fire engineer needs to be confident in cable performance, or there is an issue with the potential of fire propagation, he will specify a low-smoke or similar cable," says Dr Hodge.

Fire-performance

"The other area where we are quite involved is fire-performance cables, such as for fire alarms and emergency lighting. These are generally smaller and more specialized, and do not carry that much current, but are required due to specific fire regulations. What is interesting with the UAE is that there are not many national or fire installation codes. An awful lot comes down to the actual municipality," says Dr Hodge.

"Here it is quite designer-driven. Thus a designer will come up with a good case for a particular building, present it to the relevant officials, and if they are happy with it, up it goes. The buildings here tend to be very high-specification, compared to some we see in Europe and other parts of the world."

"There is generally no shortage of money, and corners are not being cut too seriously. So far, so good. What happens in the medium to long term with the current economic situation, who knows? One problem over here has been fires in buildings during the construction process, but that is largely due to the construction process rather than the design," says Dr Hodge.

Approvals

"What we do is perform specific approvals for a manufacturer. We check the factory in terms of quality management, as we have a number of very specific requirements with regard to cable making. For example, we require all manufacturers to have a very good laboratory of their own, and make sure they are testing their own cable. You will be surprised how many companies never check their cable and just ship it straight out. In this manner we solve most of their problems straightaway."

"The key characteristic of BASEC approval over other types of approval is ongoing surveillance. We will visit a factory every few months to take fresh cable samples, so over a three-year cycle we test every size and type manufactured. That means we keep a close watch on quality and process control. Cable making is not like assembling consumer electronics goods, where you always get the same product at the end. Cable-making is a bit of a black art. How you set up the machines every day determines how the cable is going to come out that day. Apparatus skills, supervision and systems are also critical," comments Dr Hodge.

On a par

"Once they have the quality approval, they are on a par with the rest of the world. To be honest, because they have installed brand new equipment in brand new factories, they are probably going to have very efficient processes and will be capable of making very good cable. Some of the factories we have seen are rather ancient, with equipment dating back to the 1920s in some cases. When we have to retest cable on a regular basis, we issue ‘black marks'. If a manufacturer accumulates a sufficient number, we can suspend their approval. If a failure is so severe it constitutes a safety issue, we can also issue a product recall. There are only about 30 such notices a year, which usually occur when something really goes wrong with a process on a particular batch on a given day," says Dr Hodge.

Sub-standard cable is still finding its way into the UAE and onto major construction sites, as it is such an open market. Dr Hodge comments that what the average building services engineer can watch out for in this regard are cable markings.

"If a marking complies with what it should be, it may well be okay. The cables we have seen that are really dangerous have incorrect markings, and the manufacturer's name is often missing altogether." Looking at typical problems in terms of cable quality, Dr Hodge says the main problem areas are low copper content and the incorrect materials used. "For example, using PVC when it is supposed to be a low-smoke material," he says.

Safety-critical

"The worst example we have picked up recently in the UAE was a bit of fire alarm cable, which is a safety-critical function. In this case, the cores were made out of aluminium and not copper, and hence could not supply as much current. The earth connection was seriously undersized, and probably would not have tripped a residual current device if it had to. The insulation material around the conductors was PVC as opposed to a special silicone material able to withstand the high temperature of a fire. The outside jacket was PVC instead of being a low-smoke jacket."

Dr Hodge concludes that this was a "completely fake" cable picked up randomly from the open market.

"We do quite a bit of ‘mystery shopping.' We have not got a very concerted programme going in the UAE as of yet, but this is definitely an area we want to concentrate on. In the UK we have picked up quite a few major problems with cables, and it is getting worse. The proportion of problems we pick up at the sort of product-recall level has shot up from 40% to 80%. Either we are getting very good at spotting the dodgy cable, or there is an awful lot of it out there. And I suspect we will find a similar situation over here."

Outsourcing

Dr Hodge says problems frequently creep in when the MEP consultant specifies a specific size and type of cable, and then outsources this to a contractor.

"An installer might substitute full-price quality cable for a sub-standard, but much cheaper, product. The consultants need to realise they are being stolen from in this regard."

In order to guard against this, Dr Hodge says that, when the cable arrives on-site, the clerk of works needs to check the product against the original specification.

"Of course, this applies to construction as a whole, and not just cables. However, being a commodity-type item, it is very easy for an unscrupulous trader to substitute a poor quality product, so you have to be very alert. Sometimes a cable has already been installed before it is found to be defective, at which point we have to determine if we need to strip it out or not. It might prove faulty but not be unsafe, in which case it is best to leave it in."

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