I’ve recently carried out a lot of replacement/remedial work on our 38 year old electrical installation. I have:
Replaced the old brown Wylex Consumer Unit for new Square D unit incorporating MCB’s/RCD.
The power supply to the garage was tapped into the old 30A cooker circuit, I suspect because the 4 way Wylex board was full, and the previous owners didn’t want the expense of upgrading. The cooker was moved to the other side of the kitchen and put onto ring circuit when we had the kitchen replaced in 1985. The kitchen fitter replaced the cooker control unit with a standard 2 gang socket for fridge/boiler, so the same 30A fuse protected this and the garage. I put garage onto its own 32A breaker, and converted the supply to the 2 gang socket into 16A radial circuit for the fridge/boiler.
The kitchen fitter spurred off the ring using a junction box under the kitchen to supply BOTH a double socket for the electric cooker/ignition for gas hob and a single socket for the extractor on the same spur. The double socket was cracked and slightly scorched around the live socket hole where the cooker was plugged in. He used a junction box to break into the ring rated at 10-15A, stripped back the sheathing so far so that the red and black wires were hanging way out of the junction box, and connected the earths by just twisting them together with a pair of pliers on the OUTSIDE of the junction box. On opening the junction box I found that the undersized terminals were starting to corrode, and around half of the 7 strands of the conductors of the ring cable (7/.026 imperial cable) were broken severely de-rating the cable. This could have been a potential fire hazard!! I replaced this junction box with a 30A junction box, cut back and re-stripped the cables so all was terminated correctly in the new junction box. I removed the double socket supplying the cooker/ignition so that this spur now supplies only the single socket for the extractor, and ran a new dedicated cooker circuit from a 16A breaker (small cooker) for the cooker and ignition.
Replaced the main equipotential bonding with 10mm earth to incoming gas and water services, and replaced the main earthing conductor for 16mm. Both were previously 7/.044 (6mm). I also added supplementary bonding in the bathroom, which was previously non-existent.
I tested the entire installation for IR, EFLI, PSC, RCD trip time and all the other tests asked for in the 16th edition, all with satisfactory results.
Shortly after completing the work, I discovered this site and started reading about part p and notifiable work. I didn’t notify any of this work because despite from being introduced a year and a half ago, I had absolutely no idea that part p existed, great publicity campaign!!! Although I’m not a fully qualified electrician, I did part of an electrical installation apprenticeship when I left school (as far as C&G 236 pt1) so have done this kind of work many times before in the past (albeit under supervision at work/college) and didn’t at any time feel that I was out of my depth or didn’t fully understand what I was doing. It’s been a few years since I’ve done anything similar, so it was just a case of digging out my copies of the 16th edition and OSG to revise/confirm the test values. I brought all the materials from a local electrical wholesaler which we frequented when I worked for the electrical contracting firm. I can understand the idea behind part p, which is a good idea if it helps to stop shoddy work like the kitchen fitter left, but in our case if I had have been aware of part p, the cost of this work could easily have doubled. This is my parent’s house, who paid for the work, and it took a lot of persuasion for them to shell out the £200 it cost for the materials. They certainly wouldn’t have paid out what it would have cost to have the work notified, so we’d still have had re-wirable fuses, no RCD protection, dangerous kitchen wiring, and I might not have been here to tell the tale because yesterday I accidentally dropped a live extension lead connector into our flooded basement, which I was standing in at the time and would have fished it out with my bare hands (I didn’t realise there was a connector under the water!). But as the work’s been done, it instantly tripped the RCD when the cable splashed into the water…
I’m inclined to leave things as they are as I’m certain that the work I’ve done is fine and has tested out OK. I don’t think it’s fair to expect my parents to shell out another few hundred pounds to have someone from building control do the same set of tests that I’ve already done. If this had been 2 years ago, there would have been no problems with building control. We have no intention of moving house in the foreseeable future (I understand this can cause problems) and if we ever do, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. The house will probably be in need of a full re-wire by then anyway. I myself am glad I was able to do the work as I dread to think the consequences if I’d have grabbed hold of that connector in a flooded confined space, and for peace of mind that me and my family will be protected for any future similar hazards. I wouldn’t want to go back to the old system!
Any comments/suggestions/advice?
Tim
Replaced the old brown Wylex Consumer Unit for new Square D unit incorporating MCB’s/RCD.
The power supply to the garage was tapped into the old 30A cooker circuit, I suspect because the 4 way Wylex board was full, and the previous owners didn’t want the expense of upgrading. The cooker was moved to the other side of the kitchen and put onto ring circuit when we had the kitchen replaced in 1985. The kitchen fitter replaced the cooker control unit with a standard 2 gang socket for fridge/boiler, so the same 30A fuse protected this and the garage. I put garage onto its own 32A breaker, and converted the supply to the 2 gang socket into 16A radial circuit for the fridge/boiler.
The kitchen fitter spurred off the ring using a junction box under the kitchen to supply BOTH a double socket for the electric cooker/ignition for gas hob and a single socket for the extractor on the same spur. The double socket was cracked and slightly scorched around the live socket hole where the cooker was plugged in. He used a junction box to break into the ring rated at 10-15A, stripped back the sheathing so far so that the red and black wires were hanging way out of the junction box, and connected the earths by just twisting them together with a pair of pliers on the OUTSIDE of the junction box. On opening the junction box I found that the undersized terminals were starting to corrode, and around half of the 7 strands of the conductors of the ring cable (7/.026 imperial cable) were broken severely de-rating the cable. This could have been a potential fire hazard!! I replaced this junction box with a 30A junction box, cut back and re-stripped the cables so all was terminated correctly in the new junction box. I removed the double socket supplying the cooker/ignition so that this spur now supplies only the single socket for the extractor, and ran a new dedicated cooker circuit from a 16A breaker (small cooker) for the cooker and ignition.
Replaced the main equipotential bonding with 10mm earth to incoming gas and water services, and replaced the main earthing conductor for 16mm. Both were previously 7/.044 (6mm). I also added supplementary bonding in the bathroom, which was previously non-existent.
I tested the entire installation for IR, EFLI, PSC, RCD trip time and all the other tests asked for in the 16th edition, all with satisfactory results.
Shortly after completing the work, I discovered this site and started reading about part p and notifiable work. I didn’t notify any of this work because despite from being introduced a year and a half ago, I had absolutely no idea that part p existed, great publicity campaign!!! Although I’m not a fully qualified electrician, I did part of an electrical installation apprenticeship when I left school (as far as C&G 236 pt1) so have done this kind of work many times before in the past (albeit under supervision at work/college) and didn’t at any time feel that I was out of my depth or didn’t fully understand what I was doing. It’s been a few years since I’ve done anything similar, so it was just a case of digging out my copies of the 16th edition and OSG to revise/confirm the test values. I brought all the materials from a local electrical wholesaler which we frequented when I worked for the electrical contracting firm. I can understand the idea behind part p, which is a good idea if it helps to stop shoddy work like the kitchen fitter left, but in our case if I had have been aware of part p, the cost of this work could easily have doubled. This is my parent’s house, who paid for the work, and it took a lot of persuasion for them to shell out the £200 it cost for the materials. They certainly wouldn’t have paid out what it would have cost to have the work notified, so we’d still have had re-wirable fuses, no RCD protection, dangerous kitchen wiring, and I might not have been here to tell the tale because yesterday I accidentally dropped a live extension lead connector into our flooded basement, which I was standing in at the time and would have fished it out with my bare hands (I didn’t realise there was a connector under the water!). But as the work’s been done, it instantly tripped the RCD when the cable splashed into the water…
I’m inclined to leave things as they are as I’m certain that the work I’ve done is fine and has tested out OK. I don’t think it’s fair to expect my parents to shell out another few hundred pounds to have someone from building control do the same set of tests that I’ve already done. If this had been 2 years ago, there would have been no problems with building control. We have no intention of moving house in the foreseeable future (I understand this can cause problems) and if we ever do, we can cross that bridge when we come to it. The house will probably be in need of a full re-wire by then anyway. I myself am glad I was able to do the work as I dread to think the consequences if I’d have grabbed hold of that connector in a flooded confined space, and for peace of mind that me and my family will be protected for any future similar hazards. I wouldn’t want to go back to the old system!
Any comments/suggestions/advice?
Tim