It's much easier to prove your installation is safe if you have worked to an approved standard, rather than picking and choosing bits you want to comply with to make your job easier.
Can I do this as a DIYer???
- Thread starter Need Help21
- Start date
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Need help 21,
you should scratch your head for a moment and ask Prentice boy and others about an MWC. It has some bearing on your situation.
Also, i imagine all will be well, as mentioned earlier here, there is now a requirement for RCD's on concealed cables. It may possibly be the case that sockets upstairs wired to the 16th may not have RCD protection.
Why not get a sparky in to do one of the sockets, watch him like a hawk, ask questions and see if you can do the same for the other rooms?
you should scratch your head for a moment and ask Prentice boy and others about an MWC. It has some bearing on your situation.
Also, i imagine all will be well, as mentioned earlier here, there is now a requirement for RCD's on concealed cables. It may possibly be the case that sockets upstairs wired to the 16th may not have RCD protection.
Why not get a sparky in to do one of the sockets, watch him like a hawk, ask questions and see if you can do the same for the other rooms?
P
Paul_C
Such as BS7671:2001, which was current little more than a year ago? I think you'd have a hard time convincing the average person that something which was considered perfectly acceptable 14 months ago has now suddenly become unsafe just because the standard has been revised.
Not just upstairs. There was no general requirement for all sockets - upstairs or downstairs - to be RCD protected under the 16th and previous editions.
Non notifiable work but still needs MWC (Appendix 6 BS7671:2008.)
Now then this certificates asked for the work to be inspected and tested in accordance to BS7671:2008 and to the best of knowledge and belief at the time of inspection complied with BS7671:2008 except detailed departures.
May I ask this question do you think the OP can carry this report out
Lets not mislead the OP in to thinking, it's as simple as adding spurs, extending ring finals and swap single outlets for double
because it ain't
Now then this certificates asked for the work to be inspected and tested in accordance to BS7671:2008 and to the best of knowledge and belief at the time of inspection complied with BS7671:2008 except detailed departures.
May I ask this question do you think the OP can carry this report out
Lets not mislead the OP in to thinking, it's as simple as adding spurs, extending ring finals and swap single outlets for double
because it ain't
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No doubt Need Help21 wishes he never asked the question.
First to the secret squirrel stuff. MWC stands for Minor Works Certificate and is mentioned in the regulations (BS7671) that electricians need to comply with if they self certify that their work satisfies part P requirements. As you are not a member of a self certifiying body you need not bother yourself with this. You are only required to comply with the building regulations which includes Part P. BS7671 itself says it is a non-statutory document.
Paul_c and rebuke have told you it how it is.
First to the secret squirrel stuff. MWC stands for Minor Works Certificate and is mentioned in the regulations (BS7671) that electricians need to comply with if they self certify that their work satisfies part P requirements. As you are not a member of a self certifiying body you need not bother yourself with this. You are only required to comply with the building regulations which includes Part P. BS7671 itself says it is a non-statutory document.
Paul_c and rebuke have told you it how it is.
Oh dear having a bas moment
Minor works:
Not notifiable work Table 1 of Part P;
How ever, non-notifiable work if undertaken as DIy work, compliance with Part P is required. A way of showing compliance would be to follow the IEE guidance and to have an electrician inspect and test the work and supply a MWC. The electrician may not need to be registered with an electrical self-cert scheme but, as required by BS7671, must be competent in respect of the inspection and testing of an installation.
I think that sums it up!
Minor works:
Not notifiable work Table 1 of Part P;
How ever, non-notifiable work if undertaken as DIy work, compliance with Part P is required. A way of showing compliance would be to follow the IEE guidance and to have an electrician inspect and test the work and supply a MWC. The electrician may not need to be registered with an electrical self-cert scheme but, as required by BS7671, must be competent in respect of the inspection and testing of an installation.
I think that sums it up!
P
Paul_C
But the "need" is only stipulated by BS7671, which is not mandatory in the first place.
Which is what the "Approved Document" for Part P says (this being an official document, but still not mandatory). However, it states this as a method of showing compliance. It also clearly states that this is not the only method, and even goes on to specifically give some other examples (e.g. by following equivalent wiring standards from other EU/EEA countries - which is turn does not imply that non-EU standards are unacceptable either).
Exactly. And all that those regulations stipulate are the rather vague requirements to make reasonable provision for safety, etc.
As for "a way to show compliance," seeing as it is non-notifiable work, just who needs to be shown evidence of compliance? Nobody at LABC is even going to know about the alterations unless you tell them.
And although some councils seem to think they can just make up the rules as they go along and demand things which they have no authority to demand, ultimately for DIY work in your own home in which the LABC is involved, you don't have to prove anything. Failure to follow the Building Regs. is a criminal offense, thus it's up to LABC to prove in a court of law that you did not follow them, not for you to prove to LABC that you did.
So are we now suggesting there is no need for a MWC, I am not saying this works needs to be notified, what I am saying that it should have assurance that the work is safe (inspect and test) and whether we use BS7671 or other EU guidelines surely the case is the same.
I'd prefer the use of BS rather EU as most of my training and experiences has given to that, but maybe the polish community disagree!
I'd prefer the use of BS rather EU as most of my training and experiences has given to that, but maybe the polish community disagree!
There is no requirement in Part P to test or document your work.
There used to be, it was taken out. That is highly significant, IMO.
You might not like it, I might have sympathy with your argument, but you are wrong because the law says you are.
There used to be, it was taken out. That is highly significant, IMO.
You might not like it, I might have sympathy with your argument, but you are wrong because the law says you are.
The result of requiring a "100% or it's no good at all" approach to BS 7671 is that nobody can do anything if they are not able to test to Part 6...
P
Paul_C
How many people carrying out work (notifiable) on their own homes actually need a completion certificate? If I did some work and LABC said "We don't think this complies, we're not issuing a certificate," why should I care? I'm still living in my own house, and I'm not going to lose any sleep just because the council refuses to issue some bureaucratic piece of paper that I don't need for anything.
Building Regs. have a relatively short enforcement period - 6 months, although I know a few years ago there was a proposal to extend that to 2 years. I don't know if that was ever done, but even so, unless you're planning on selling your house within 2 years the lack of a certificate isn't going to be a problem, since after that time nothing can be done about non-compliance anyway.
In the case of electrical works, all that might end up happening is that you get a PIR carried out prior to the sale. And bringing this back to the original query, this would be no different from non-notifiable works carried out at some point prior to the sale.
The PIR would show that there are sockets which are not RCD protected and possibly cables buried less than 2 inches which are not RCD protected - Just the same as the rest of the house may well be if it was wired to an edition of BS7671 prior to the 17th.
Corollary: In what way is it not reasonable to work to the current version of the standard?
All those who, in a buyer's market, want to sell their house to someone who demands proof that work complied with the Building Regulations?
All those who have small print in their buildings insurance which says that any building work done must comply?
Far more significantly the proposal was also to change the starting time of the period from commission of the offence to when the offence was first detected. I too don't know what happened .
Or you might lose your buyer, and your chain might collapse, and the costs and hassles of all that might lead you to kick yourself for not behaving lawfully in the first place.
Or you might lose everything if you give your insurers a way to wriggle out from paying a claim.
I don't know how likely any of these are, but it's probably not the wisest course of action to pretend that they are impossible.
ditto bas.
Insurance companies have a lot of money, they like that and want to keep it that way. As a result, they have shiny suited lawyers who will go to their ends to try and find reasons why they should not give their precious money away.
You can argue the toss as to what part of our laws and our non-statutory regulations are applicable to any given scenario.
Alternatively, instead of trying to cimcumvent the rules which, whether you believe it or not, have been put in place mainly for safety reasons, you could just bite the bullet and have the job done properly and safely.
It may not be necessary to provide a certificate for non-notifiable work, but i certainly feel it would be prudent to do so.
That way, in the unlike event that something does go pair shaped and your house does burn down, you have one less skeleton in the closet for the insurance investigators to find and use as ammo.
Imagine the upset at a declined insurance claim for many many thousands of pounds on the basis that a couple of years ago, you decided to use the internet to get conflicting information from a lot of unknown, unverifiable sources on how to do something, just to save a £100ish.
a hamlet moment! (ask your dad if you're not old enough)
Insurance companies have a lot of money, they like that and want to keep it that way. As a result, they have shiny suited lawyers who will go to their ends to try and find reasons why they should not give their precious money away.
You can argue the toss as to what part of our laws and our non-statutory regulations are applicable to any given scenario.
Alternatively, instead of trying to cimcumvent the rules which, whether you believe it or not, have been put in place mainly for safety reasons, you could just bite the bullet and have the job done properly and safely.
It may not be necessary to provide a certificate for non-notifiable work, but i certainly feel it would be prudent to do so.
That way, in the unlike event that something does go pair shaped and your house does burn down, you have one less skeleton in the closet for the insurance investigators to find and use as ammo.
Imagine the upset at a declined insurance claim for many many thousands of pounds on the basis that a couple of years ago, you decided to use the internet to get conflicting information from a lot of unknown, unverifiable sources on how to do something, just to save a £100ish.
a hamlet moment! (ask your dad if you're not old enough)
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