Eric, do you think the actual cost to the local authority is only £25 per visit? If not, are you happy for your council tax to subsidise the difference, when your incompetent neighbour needs several return vists?
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- Thread starter hertsman99
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holmslaw
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Nice in theory, but would the cost be only £50 if a) the tester had to come out to your house to test your car, and b) your local authority was performing the test?
If the actual cost to your LABC was greater than £50 would you be happy to fund the difference?
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holmslaw
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That is also my experience, and also I have known of LABCs who have accepted the DIY's proof of ability to design and install and have not required a "qualified" electrician to inspect the work.
The sensible LABCs are primarily interested in getting the work carried out in a safe way.
That is NOT a suggestion that DIYers can do it without FIRST consulting the LABC and getting from them EXACTLY what proof is needed that the design and installation complies with the standards or is ensured to be safe in some other way. Naturally the LABCs will take a lot of persuasion and a lot of proof.
My LABC charge nearly £150 for any electrical work where the person doing the work can provide all the right test results. If the person doing the work can't do the testing then the fee is 50% more - so they aren't allowed by law to charge you for testing, but they charge a higher BC fee 
Since few DIY people are going to be in a position to provide test results (how much is the gear again ?), then that's over £220 every time.
I'm generally in agreement that some regulation was required (especially after having to redo all the electrics in a friends kitchen some years ago*), but I do think Part P goes a bit too far. It's not helped by those that over egg the regulations so as to persuade people that they can't (for example) add a socket to an RFC themselves.
* Yes, it was a classic example of a kitchen fitter doing electrics when he didn't know how
Since few DIY people are going to be in a position to provide test results (how much is the gear again ?), then that's over £220 every time.
I'm generally in agreement that some regulation was required (especially after having to redo all the electrics in a friends kitchen some years ago*), but I do think Part P goes a bit too far. It's not helped by those that over egg the regulations so as to persuade people that they can't (for example) add a socket to an RFC themselves.
* Yes, it was a classic example of a kitchen fitter doing electrics when he didn't know how
It's a pity the electrical regulations don't mirror the gas regulations.
If you want to install your own gas boiler you can do so provided you consider yourself competent. If you install electric boilers all day and every day you can't install your own unless you are personally a member of a recognised body.
If you want to install your own gas boiler you can do so provided you consider yourself competent. If you install electric boilers all day and every day you can't install your own unless you are personally a member of a recognised body.
Wouldn't help me in my rented out properties - though I'd never do any work (gas or electric) without having it tested/inspected afterwards.
An obvious and sensible relaxation would be to allow suitably qualified people to inspect and certify other people's work. I could understand quite a lot of people wouldn't want to do that sort of test/inspection, and that's their prerogative. But I reckon enough would be wiling to do it, for DIYers that could show sufficient aptitude, that it would negate most of the criticisms of Part P. Lets face it, some of that goes on anyway - if you get on well enough with a qualified electrician, then I reckon there's a lot of work done DIY where it's submitted by the electrician as their own work.
Allowing electricians to inspect & test other peoples work would effectively regularise what's going on now.
As it is, I also reckon a lot of work has just gone underground which is worse than before. At least before Part P there was no risk to asking for advice - now you can't really ask publicly without risk of exposing yourself. Is it really sensible to prevent someone who is going to do the work anyway (as some will) from asking advice ?
A sensible relaxation would be a qualification that a DIY'er could get that would allow them to do work on their own home. Something like a City & Guilds in domestic electrics. I would make the additional stipulations that consumer units had to be done by professional electrician and that you had to have a modern consumer unit to do your own work.
At the end of the day the number of people that are killed each year due to faulty electrical installations in domestic situations can be counted on one hand. All this is costing the economy hundreds of millions of pounds a year (the figure I saw suggested £300 million) In addition PartP encourages more dangerous working practice in electrics in the home in terms of overloaded sockets and extensions trailing everywhere as it is too expensive to get in a professional to do the work. This is where the majority of the 700 odd people a year who die of electrocution come to grief.
Personally it does not effect me because I live in Scotland and there is no PartP certification scheme, but it does not stop me considering it a totally inappropriate waste of money.
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Paul_C
jabuzzard said:
Absolutely not. As a basic principle there should never be anything which says that a person cannot carry out whatever work he pleases on his own home. Rules which stipulate that such work doesn't pose a threat to anyone else is one thing, but start legislating that a person is simply prohibited from doing certain jobs and you're on a very slippery slope.
Would it stop there? Once one such prohibition is in place, I think it would be the thin end of what could turn out to be a very thick wedge as successive legislation adds more and more to the "verboten" list, with existing prohibitions being cited as precedent. Give it 20 years and we could find that it's illegal to do much more than change a light bulb or clear a blocked U-bend.
It's only necessary to look at certain threads on this forum to see the effects of that. How many people coming here and asking about something because they are trying to do it properly have gone away because they've been bombarded from some quarters by responses about Part P, you must notify building control, pay fees, etc?
Could you please get your attributions correct - I didn't write that, it was jabuzzard
Indeed.
And then there's that thread on old colour cable - and implicit in some of the comments (including my own) are ways of getting round Part P and it not being provable
Yes, we have some stock of red/black cable at home I get to see two aspects on regulations. At home we have one set of things we are restricted in doing, but then I have a property I rent out which means further restrictions - and things I wouldn't do even if it wasn't prohibited without having it checked afterwards. Should any brown stuff go flying off the fan, then being able to mount a defence that "it was inspected and tested by a qualified person" is far more likely to succeed that "well I knew what I was doing, but no I don't actually have any qualifications to show that".
In the flat I did some work, err I mean had some work done, under Part P. I took the opportunity to upgrade the whole electrical installation to 17th edition so that it would be very hard for someone to claim I'd been negligent.
I'll be doing the same with the house I'm hoping to complete the purchase of next week - it would need, or rather I would need for peace of mind, a full PIR anyway and changing the CU won't add much to the cost. And considering a friend has expressed an interest in renting it, I'd be happier with full RCD protection as he has a rather too interesting history with things electrical
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Paul_C
My apologies - I edited out the wrong part of the nested quotes.
Corrected now.No worries - if that were the worst any of us (including myself) did then life would be a lot less interesting
My apologies - I edited out the wrong part of the nested quotes.
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