Home DIY and electricity

As some are aware I am in Kitchen & Bathroom Installations Nationally with 400+ Installers registered to us, so this has took some understanding. Part P as it is called is one big buggars muddle, as usual for anything that comes out of the office of the deputy prime minister. For those that are interested here is an idiots guide:
(forgive any ommissions)

1. Only applies to "special areas", namely Kitchens, Bathrooms, Swim Pools, Spas, Garden Sheds, Saunas ina domestic property.

2. Was initially muted as part of "The house buyers charter" to improve Estate Agents, Solicitors, Surveyors etc, who immediately said "how can we be sure of housing stock standards when current leccy standards (IEE 16th Edtion) are only "guidelines" not law.

3. Thus IEE16th to be bought in to Part P of Building Regs, however then Govt abandons house buyers charter but keeps Part P ideas due to pressure from IEE and ECA, electricians "unions". Saw a bit of the same as CORGI profits coming their way!!

4. Approving bodies only appointed in Nov 2004 for full implementation Jan 2005, ie all leccy operatives throughout UK to be certified in a little under 50 days, NOT A CHANCE!!. Thus 3 month stay of execution til end of March 2005!

5. In truth all one has to do as a private individual, we can't do this most of you can, is tell your local building control that you are about to do specific work in your house, pay small fee, wait til they come to inspect. To use their own words at a recent conference "we will react to any accident or fatality retrospectively and check who did work outside IEE16th and hold them liable" in other words they never will check unless it all goes wrong. Just as it was before.

6. Don't get sucked in to the feeding frenzy of bullshit new "agencies" touting prophets of doom if you don't send them cash etc. If you have any work done ensure tests are carried out before and after by qualified sparks, get "small works certificate", (circa) £40, all clear.

7. From a professionals point of view at present anyone working in these areas has to nominate a "supervisor" that is registered with authorising body, to sign off works whilst they get qualified themselves should they so wish.

8. This will and has raised prices for Domestic Contracts, but then so has the skills shortage, just get your children signed on to a Tradesmans course ASAP.

9. Tell me when they are qualified we are currently paying £500 a day plus ex's for Central London!!! and we can't get enough of 'em!!

10. Nearly forgot, to comply with Part P, one has also to comply with Parts A.B,C,D etc. what a bunch of badly thought through b******s, mind you shouldn't be suprised.

11. Any wonder I have just invested heavily in the IDSC which is the next big "Governing Body" for Digital and Aerial Installations, that will be mandatory for the big Analogue switch over, COMING SOON!!!!!. Paul
 
Your absolutely right:

Red Becomes Brown
Yellow Becomes Black
Blue Becomes Grey
Black Becomes Blue.

In other words "Light the blue touch paper and watch the fireworks" plus the costs go through the roof!!! All in the name of harmonisation. When can we harmonise and put 240v 13 amp sockets in Bathrooms then ??? Paul
 
Again, completely crap thinking by HMG, if IEE qualified 3 year inspection if ECA 1 year, what is going on??? We can't keep up, almost impossible to comply at present!! Paul
 
From what I've seen and read so far, you're point 1 is not correct.

These special areas, mean no work can be done that isn't certified. In other parts of the house, you can replace and do general maintenance on existing installations, but cannot do anything new. So, nothing at all in bathrooms etc, and only minor stuff in the rest of the house.

It's a complete dogs dinner as normal
 
<i wd like the main electrickery in a house I buy to be approved in some way, really>

Dunno about that, but I definitely approve of your filament lights...
 
You can do new work as long as it is certified as compliant by a "registered / authorised" person, and certficates issued, particularly after the work is complete. Bit like MOT in a way. Agree complete foul up and totally unecessary in truth more people injured playing tennis each year!!! Paul
 
[ QUOTE ]
This particular set of laws only applies to households not boats.

[/ QUOTE ]
I can remember needing a "corgi" type gas man for the gas on the boat, but from what you say I can legally rewire the old girl.
Thats a bit of a blessing cos my spanish is crap and I would not like to explain that to a local leckie!!!
 
When I took over my boat in 2002 I had to completely rewire due to new lights, instruments and the fact some of the cabling had been subject to water ingress at some point.

I did the work and in some cases am still carrying it out. Somehow my insurance got wind of the fact I had re-wired, I must have slipped it into a conversation. Their reaction was for me to employ a certified lecky to check my work. I told them to sod off in a more polite fashion.

My grievance was that I am a qualified avionics engineer, this means I can sign off electronics as well as high voltage 3 phase systems on aircraft and they wanted me to get someone much less qualified to sign off my work cos they had a boaty certificate of some kind. Maybe they could check my professional work too.

The response after they called the underwriter (N&G) was ok, on this occasion we will make a concession. But they had to telephone first.

The world has gone certificate mad.
 
Re:The three Civil Servant trick

Take 3 civil servants at random.

Remove 2 civil service posts

So how many civil servants are you left with
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|
|
|
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Obvious really

SIX

1 the remaining civil servant from the first 3
2 & 3 from the first 3 now redeployed in a new agency examining ways to reduce the number of civil service posts
4 a new manager brought in to manage the 2 redeployed civil servants
5 a special job created to examine ways in which new IT systems can be implemented to do whatever work the 2 redeployed civil servants used to do before they were redeployed.

6 another special job to employ consultants to do the other special jobs work

I could never understand how Prime Ministers from Pitt the elder to John Major could run the country without a department for their deputy. All of a sudden we have 2 Jags (who could not manage a p*** up in a brewery) having to have a department of 10s of thousands of civil servants.

Amazing
 
Re:The three Civil Servant trick

If it weren't for TwoJags' website, hardly anybody would have known about the 'lecky scam.

And TJ has a lot of other little known info on his site...

Pity 'cos I think most of the Govt: are plonkers...
 
Judging by the work done in my new house . Sparkies do crap jobs . I ran system in my old house to latest IEE regs ,sizing and supporting cables per recommendations, wall boxes with grommets correctly fitted . cables neatly cut etc . Not so with these boys . What cant be seen nobody checks . None of these systems are adequately inspected . None of the contractors have quality procedures to ISO 9000 ? and quality checks let alone any inspectors . its a farce
 
OK Guys - you want to know the real gist of what's going on?

I am the husband of the member "nusiance value" (a name we picked up out of an Ian m Banks book but on further inspection our insurance company is going to look sideways at that name...) I digress.

The truth about part P. I have been working as an electrician, originally trained as avionics (planes to anyone who doesn't know) but given the problems with that sector I re-trained as a "sparky" including the 16th regulations, the certifcate for which I just got through the post last week.

Yes, as of January 2005 you need to have certification proof of extended electrical work - this includes ring main rewires to stop nutters from using bell wire. You can add sockets and change their position without cert, but only if it falls within regs (which means no lower than 450mm and no higher than 1120mm, if I remember). and change and add certain light fittings. ANY work where there is likelyhood of water being present needs certification, ie bathrooms, kitchens, gardens, and I think to some extent garages, though I'd have to look that one up to be sure. So don't go building ponds with fountains unless you want it certed.

Electricians don't need re-certifying every year by IEE body but by ONE of the five governing bodies, eg NIC EIC, though this is not necessary for an electrician to sign off a job as far as I'm aware. An IEE guy can do it, but when he certifies it, he then becomes responsible for it and all the electrocutions and fires afterwards, because his name has to go on the cert.

As for difficulty in passing the course? I stands to reason it's going to be relatively easy for a sparky to pass as it touches on the things he's been trained in. I'm not saying it's impossible for your average DIYer to gain accreditation, but this is no walk in the park B&Q demonstration session and rightly so. It starts with an intensive 3-day course costing 600 quid and that's just for theory...

I hate to sound like a haymaker, but this has been sorely needed. For instance, the house I live in I bought 3 years ago and was proudly proclaimed by the owner to have had a re-wire. The guy had wired up the fuse box so that when you got a neutral / live / earth fault, the RCD would blow - but it disconnected the neutral, making the whole thing live. Bloody death trap waiting to happen. I've also been doing boats for some time now and the amount of horrors I have encountered by DIYers who mean well. Have you seen what happens to a lead acid battery when you short discharge it rapidly? apart from the wopping great hole that suddenly appears around it?

16th doesn't cover boats and strangely nor does it cover marinas themselves, yet it covers caravans. Go figure. Though if you are buying a boat, from past experiences at looking at everyone else's get a qualified sparky to check out your boat. Re-wiring is certainly not cheap and once you get onto the later boats with all their bells and whistles, the work could cost a fortune and take some time.

BTW, in single phase installations, red becomes brown, black becomes blue and yellow stays yellow/green stripe. But if there is a mixture of colours in a house THERE WILL BE A BIG YELLOW STICKER ON YOUR DISTRIBUTION BOARD PROCLAIMING SO.

Grey is part of 3-phase installations and you can do the course yourself for that one. I've got to find somewhere to earn this magical £500 quid a day. You're taking the p!*s aren't you mate? who could get away with charging that? £450 and I'm yours.

Tony.
 
Surely the fact that non-certified (!) people cannot install new ring mains will drive people to add too many spurs to existing rings creating overloaded rings.
 
"BTW, in single phase installations, red becomes brown, black becomes blue and yellow stays yellow/green stripe".

Same as a plug then. Makes sense.
 
"Surely the fact that non-certified (!) people cannot install new ring mains will drive people to add too many spurs to existing rings creating overloaded rings."

Yes that is right. However there are two catches. Regulations state that you cannot have more spured sockets than there are sockets directly in the ring, unless they are fused individually - and if you get a certificate from your electrician after installation or testing, there is a little box on the sheet where we write in how many sockets were on that ring when it was tested...


Bpbpbpbpbpbpb :P
 
single phase colour have already changed. T&E cable that used to be Red, Black and bare earth, is now brown & blue + bare earth.

In a way I agree with the new reg's, not because it could create work for us in the quiet months but because the idiot who owned the house I now own, interfered with the wiring so much that I'm still finding problems 12 years on!. I also know that there is a live cable end buried in a wall and have no idea where its fed from!

kevin
 
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