electrical regulations

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judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:11 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

I also thought if someone can prove you've violated the new laws you can be fined.

Yep. One of our local cowboys was done a couple of months back!

Quote:

What I want to know is, if you have any work done by a competant persion with all the qualifications and *you* find something wrong I assume then you can fine them several £1,000 pounds?

Well, to be a competent person, you have to be registered with one of the professional associations - NECIEC, etc. They all have complaints procedures.
If you find something wrong with their work, you could also take them to the small claims court to get your money back. Judges also take a dim view of "professional people" who don't do a professional job.

(My OH has just got his Part P, and can bore for Britain on this topic

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:12 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

Judith wrote:

If you are a competent electrician, you will get away with it. Put in a safe installation, no one will be any the wiser and you won't have Big Brother coming round to sort you out. But I am rather glad that some of the real cowboys out there are being required to get their skills up to scratch or driven out of the market.

Not quite, you need to be able to self-certify your work which will cost you even more money. I thought many electricians were not keen on the new laws. I would be more supportive if it wasn't just an excuse for some of the professional bodies to print money. The ones that don't want to know when you find a problem with work done by their members.

Sorry. By "you" in the above, I meant "you" as a householder.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45472
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:16 pm Post subject:

or maybe the manslaughter charges if somthing horrible happened . i am not one for control but i have seen too much dangerous wireing to disagree with this . i am competant at electrics but i always get a second opinion before using it or handing it over to a client . however the last shabby job i saw was a full rewire passed by a council grant department and with a nicee test certificate , it zapped the householder when she painted the kitchen wall with water based paint ,i found 4 dangerous faults and the bloke sent to fix it found 2 more , i hope we got em all .same thought applies to gas fitting ,too late for the wee kid who died in our town recently or the lady who got 240 volts along with her hot water from her new central heating . take care . rant over .

Treacodactyl
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:19 pm Post subject:

Judith wrote:

My OH has just got his Part P, and can bore for Britain on this topic

Congratulations.

Do you know how you go about doing the wiring yourself and getting the buildings regs people to certify? I always intended to re-wire our house and get it all certified for insurance purposes and thought the new law would make it easier. However, not sure if it's just scare stories but there seemed to be a shortage of people who could do such a job.

Will the building regs dept of the council be able to certify, or will the provide a list of people you can use or do you need to find your own contractor? Any help gratefully received.

Leonie

Joined: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 731
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:19 pm Post subject:

Unfortunately there's a minority of rogue traders out there who give tradespeople a bad name and Part P came into force to drive out incompetent people from doing dodgy electrical installations and risking the safety of their clients. It has good intentions but unfortunately it requires expense and time to obtain Part P status. If you're a qualified electrician it doesn't mean you're Part P certified, you still have to pay and take time from your work to get the necessary certification and it doesn't completely rule out shoddy workmanship. Our local building regs inspector admitted to me early last year that they are not qualified electrians themselves so on inspection of an installation they take the part p certified electricians word that the job has been done properly and to safety standards. Just another load of red tape to get in the way of good tradesmen and not a failsafe way of stopping rogues from carrying out work and not even telling their clients about part p (a lot of homeowners have never heard of part p). I agree something had to be done to ensure safety but surely there's a better way, and also isn't there some responsibility on the homeowner to contract a competent electrician, asking to check his qualifications and references etc. rather than contracting the cheapest they can find and then crying when the work isn't done to standard. I'd better get off my soapbox before someone shoots me!

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45472
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:23 pm Post subject:
a nicee test certificate is what is required , i think . who pulled the wires and made the connections is not relevant . i think .

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:30 pm Post subject:

dpack wrote:

a nicee test certificate is what is required

For reasonable price but if you are expected to fork out several hundred pounds then it starts being a little daft.

Any idea what it *should* cost to certify all the wiring in an average 3 bed house?

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45472
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:32 pm Post subject:
usually about 80 quid .

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:34 pm Post subject:

dpack wrote:

usually about 80 quid .

That'll only cover an hours work round here? (If that)

What is entailed in certifying? I would expect all covers to be taken off the fittings and the wiring checked, then all circuits tested for correct earthing and correct wiring.

Leonie

Joined: 13 Sep 2005
Posts: 731
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:35 pm Post subject:
Our building regs charge around £100 for the certificate but they want it to have been installed by a qualified electrician not an unqualified homeowner which is where the expense will come in.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:40 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

As GardenerJ says, your local building inspector probably won't be qualified himself so if you ask him to certify your work, he will just call in an electrical contractor to do the job - it will probably end up costing you more that way.

Any electrical contractor above a certain size will have several non-Part P sparkies who do most of the work and one or two Competent Persons who go around the sites to check and certify. There is no reason why you shouldn't do the wiring, and then hire a qualified electrician to come and certify it - which should satisfy the Building Inspector.
You would probably be best off talking to a company that is bigger than a one-man band - tell them what you want to do, and perhaps even arrange for them to come out a couple of times in the course of the work just to cast an eye over what you are doing.

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:40 pm Post subject:
For us the Building Regs cert depends on the cost of the work, well it did when I last did work (what a joke the final inspection was ). As far as I can tell you are legally allowed to do the work and then get it inspected by the council but I feared what you say GardenerJ, i.e. the council just try and force people to get the work done by an electritian.

Treacodactyl
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Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 25795
Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:43 pm Post subject:

Judith wrote:

You would probably be best off talking to a company that is bigger than a one-man band - tell them what you want to do, and perhaps even arrange for them to come out a couple of times in the course of the work just to cast an eye over what you are doing.

I'll give that a try, do you think they would be happy to do this or just insist they do all the work? I'm quite near London so there seems to be a constant shortage of qualified bods round here to do anything.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:45 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

What is entailed in certifying? I would expect all covers to be taken off the fittings and the wiring checked, then all circuits tested for correct earthing and correct wiring.

That sort of stuff - continuity, earth leakage, etc.
Can't advise on cost - OH is still working as an IT contractor at the moment! - but it would surely be based on the size of the installation.

judith

Joined: 16 Dec 2004
Posts: 22789
Location: Montgomeryshire

Posted: Wed Nov 30, 05 12:47 pm Post subject:

Treacodactyl wrote:

I don't see why it would be a problem as long as you can convince them you know what you are talking about. They are probably doing that sort of service already for people like kitchen fitters.

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