My new home and Part P

[Fish78]

Hello folks,

We are just moving into a new build home and have a couple of questions to do with Part P. I have read the info but I cant quite draw my own conclusions so I thought I would check with you guys.

The garage has wiring installed and the builders have installed a single bulb for lighting, and a double socket on the far wall. My questions are :

1. I would like to change the bulb to a florescent tube running down the center, and one across the back over a bench. Am I legally allowed to do this?

2. I would like to add an extra socket nearer to the door for the mower / hoovering the car, am I allowed to do this and if so would it be a spur or an extension into the back of the current socket. From what I see part P is strict regarding circuit changes.

Any advice a great help, please dont bite Im a little rusty as I have been renting for the last 5 years so havent touched much DIY since before then.

Thanks
Mick

 

[Paul_C]

1. I would like to change the bulb to a florescent tube running down the center, and one across the back over a bench. Am I legally allowed to do this?

You are legally allowed to do anything you like with the wiring of your own home. The restriction is that for certain work the building regulations now require that you notify the local authority (and pay a substantial amount of money in the process).

However, changing an existing light fitting and adding a light fitting to an existing circuit are exempt from notification*.

2. I would like to add an extra socket nearer to the door for the mower / hoovering the car, am I allowed to do this and if so would it be a spur or an extension into the back of the current socket.

Again, adding a socket to an existing circuit is exempt from notification*. Whether your addition would be classed as a spur or not (by the Wiring Regs. definition of the term) would depend upon whether the existing socket is part of a ring or not.


* Subject to these not being in certain locations, none of which would apply to your garage.

The full list of exempt works can be seen here:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/2214/schedule/4/made

 

[Fish78]

Thanks for that excellent reply,
Great information!

What stops people carrying out any work they like anyway? When would it actually get checked? At the sale of the property?

As I said in my first post, I havent owned my own home for around 10 years up until now, so things like this didnt apply they.

Thanks again

 

[Electrifying]

What stops people carrying out any work they like anyway? When would it actually get checked? At the sale of the property?

Or when something goes badly wrong and the insurance company are looking for a reason not to pay out.

Why is it that people will fiddle about with electric - you can't see it, smell it, hear it - but it can kill you at a touch - yet they're never that quick to fiddle with the gas.

The mind boggles.

 

[OwainDIYer]

The garage has wiring installed

Is the garage attached to or integral to the house, or detached?

If detached, then it's notifiable under Part Pee.

 

[Fish78]

It is detached, Pah! Typical.

 

[Monkeh]

The garage has wiring installed

Is the garage attached to or integral to the house, or detached?

If detached, then it's notifiable under Part Pee.

Where does it say a detached garage is a special location?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Is the garage attached to or integral to the house, or detached?

If detached, then it's notifiable under Part Pee.

Owain - that is utter b*ll*cks.

Fish78 - ignore Owain - he's telling you utter b*ll*cks.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

What stops people carrying out any work they like anyway? When would it actually get checked? At the sale of the property?

There are two issues.

#1) When you sell you will (assuming the buyer's solicitor knows the difference between his *rse and a hole in the ground) be asked if any notifiable work has been done, and of so where's the Building Regulations completion notice. If you've not notified something you should, you can then do one of two things.

a) Lie. I leave it to you to contemplate what lying about a material fact in a transaction of a value of hundreds of thousands of pounds might result in.

b) 'fess up, i.e. unless it's a really strong seller's market, hand your buyer a stick to beat you with to get the price down.


#2) //www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=275610

 

[JohnW2]

b) 'fess up, i.e. unless it's a really strong seller's market, hand your buyer a stick to beat you with to get the price down.

Even when it's not a strong seller's market, I would suggest that people always at least try to 'brazen this out', exactly as I would suggest in regards to any other known defects of the property - i.e. tell the truth, but indicate that one has already taken it into account in establishing the asking price, and that one therefore will not accept it as an excuse for trying to knock the price down even further. That's certainly worked for me in my time, when selling properties that needed quite a lot doing to them - but there is, of course, the definite risk that it will put some potential buyers off, particularly with the market in its present state!

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ebee]

Paul C said

"Again, adding a socket to an existing circuit is exempt from notification*. Whether your addition would be classed as a spur or not (by the Wiring Regs. definition of the term) would depend upon whether the existing socket is part of a ring or not."

Actually Page 363 (appendix 15) does call a spur being off a radial too.

Historically though, prior to the 17th, if all cables were the same size we were unlikely to refer to such as spurs unless they were attached to a ring final.

 

[JohnW2]

Paul C said
"Again, adding a socket to an existing circuit is exempt from notification*. Whether your addition would be classed as a spur or not (by the Wiring Regs. definition of the term) would depend upon whether the existing socket is part of a ring or not."
Actually Page 363 (appendix 15) does call a spur being off a radial too.

Only if there is a reduction in cable size. If you look at the top-most branch in both the radial circuits shown on that page, they are not called spurs (presumably just 'a branch').
It's also possible that Paul meant that if it were at the end of a radial circuit, it would not be a spur.

Historically though, prior to the 17th, if all cables were the same size we were unlikely to refer to such as spurs unless they were attached to a ring final.

As above, with your proviso "if all cables were the same size", this actually remains true in the 17th edition - as witness the page you are citing.

I'd never really noticed or thought about this before, but it does seem that the regs only call something a spur if it uses smaller cable than the main part of the final circuit concerned.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[Paul_C]

I was just thinking of a spur in terms of the long-standing definition of the term by the Wiring Regs. as being a branch taken from a ring (apparently a definition which has now been altered somewhat by the 17th edition).

 

[JohnW2]

I was just thinking of a spur in terms of the long-standing definition of the term by the Wiring Regs. as being a branch taken from a ring (apparently a definition which has now been altered somewhat by the 17th edition).

Indeed so. Part 2 of the 17th Ed defines a spur as 'a branch from a ring or radial final circuit'. However,as mentioned earlier, Appendix 15 does not use the word spur in relation to a branch of a radial circuit wired in the same size cable as the rest of that circuit.

I've always understood that a radial final circuit, all wired in the same size cable, can have as many branches as it likes, and it's never occurred to me to call them spurs - which I guess is what you're thinking. However,as I discovered last night, the regs (Appendix 15) do now talk about spurs of radial finals if those 'spurs' are wired in small cable than the 'radial circuit proper.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I've always understood that a radial final circuit, all wired in the same size cable, can have as many branches as it likes, and it's never occurred to me to call them spurs - which I guess is what you're thinking.

You can't really call them spurs.

Here's a radial circuit:

Assuming all the cables are the same size, which socket(s) is/are spurred?

However,as I discovered last night, the regs (Appendix 15) do now talk about spurs of radial finals if those 'spurs' are wired in small cable than the 'radial circuit proper.

That makes sense.