A friend of mine who is a qualified electrician (but not able to issue a part p certificate) did me a 'guvvy' fitting a new consumer unit and replacing my old electric shower. Having read comments on the forum, I am now worried about the implications regarding Part P, is there anyway around this without going to prison/getting a large fine? By the way is it normal when switching a electric shower on or off for any lights that are on in the house to dim slightly for a split second?
Electric shower/consumer unit installation
- Thread starter tww
- Start date
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I wouldn't worry about part p tbh, as long as it was more than six months ago, IIRC they can't so anything except make anything dodgy be brought upto spec, and if it was installed by a qualified spark, as opposed to a DIYer then its unlikely to be dodgy
I suspect that you might be asked about any leccy work on the house post 2004 if and when you sell your house, I'm guessing all that will come of it, is the house will have to have a PIR (periodic inspection report) done, which would probably cost £100 - £200 which isn't much on top of a house sale.
I'd be tempted to say instead of notifying BC of DIY electrical work, it'd be cheaper to just ignore part p, and worry about it when/if you move house
As for the lights dimming, this is normal, and the extent will depend on the resistance of the supply cables, which depends on the distance from your house to the local step down transformer
I suspect that you might be asked about any leccy work on the house post 2004 if and when you sell your house, I'm guessing all that will come of it, is the house will have to have a PIR (periodic inspection report) done, which would probably cost £100 - £200 which isn't much on top of a house sale.
I'd be tempted to say instead of notifying BC of DIY electrical work, it'd be cheaper to just ignore part p, and worry about it when/if you move house
As for the lights dimming, this is normal, and the extent will depend on the resistance of the supply cables, which depends on the distance from your house to the local step down transformer
Adam_151 thanks for that. The work was actually done middle of this month. I am happy that the work has been done correctly, so would you maintain that it would be wiser not to inform the BC of the work? As a matter of interest, and I'm getting paranoid now, is there anyway anyone, other than me and the electrician, could ascertain as to when the work was done? I'm thinking the meter reader coming alaong and noticing a different consumer unit! Regarding the dimming of the lights, what technically actually happens to cause this, I'm just interested. 
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Sorry for not getting back to you earlier, I missed this
Only if they started pulling stuff apart looking for anything that had a date sticker on, pretty unlikely.
The service cables between the transformer and your house will have a certain resistance, the voltage 'dropped' across a resistance depends on the current, its ohms law Voltage=currentxresistance , now becuase more voltage is being dropped across the supply cables when the shower is in use, the supply voltage at your cu drops (kirchoff's second law - the sum of volatages and voltage drops in a circuit must be zero), which causes your lights to dim.
BS7671 holds people to design circuits so that they drop no more than 9.2v (4% of 230V) at full load, however the electricity supply companies work to a completely different set of regulations
Only if they started pulling stuff apart looking for anything that had a date sticker on, pretty unlikely.
The service cables between the transformer and your house will have a certain resistance, the voltage 'dropped' across a resistance depends on the current, its ohms law Voltage=currentxresistance , now becuase more voltage is being dropped across the supply cables when the shower is in use, the supply voltage at your cu drops (kirchoff's second law - the sum of volatages and voltage drops in a circuit must be zero), which causes your lights to dim.
BS7671 holds people to design circuits so that they drop no more than 9.2v (4% of 230V) at full load, however the electricity supply companies work to a completely different set of regulations
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