As Part P of the building regulations say all electrical work must be completed by a competent person what is actually meant by that?
I consider myself competent at the work I do because I only do basic electrical work such as swapping switches, sockets and light fittings. The most advance work I have ever done was install a Texacom burglar alarm into an FCU.
I consider myself competent because I know so how little I know in the grand scheme of things, so I know what work I am competent to do e.g I know I can change a switch as well as anybody, but I would never even dream of of touching anything in the consumer unit as that is well beyond my knowledge. I know how a CU is wired up in theory but I also know how dangerous messing about with electrics can be if you don't know what you're doing.
I do have a sort of electrical background, I have a grade B in GCSE electronics, I studied electronics at A level for a short while, and now work as a computer engineer. I know may ohms law and how to calculate what type of cable to use etc for a given installation.
So I am certainly certainly not competent to install a consumer unit or anything like that I know about 10% of what an electrician would know, but does that legally make me incompetent to change a light switch?
Sorry for the long post, I just thought it would be an interesting debate to see what a competent person actually is. I suspect some of it might come down to testing which most DIYers cannot do as the equipment costs £1000s. All I have is a one of them cheap £30 plug socket testers and a £200 oscilloscope/multimeter but I suppose that is still more than the average DIYer has.
I consider myself competent at the work I do because I only do basic electrical work such as swapping switches, sockets and light fittings. The most advance work I have ever done was install a Texacom burglar alarm into an FCU.
I consider myself competent because I know so how little I know in the grand scheme of things, so I know what work I am competent to do e.g I know I can change a switch as well as anybody, but I would never even dream of of touching anything in the consumer unit as that is well beyond my knowledge. I know how a CU is wired up in theory but I also know how dangerous messing about with electrics can be if you don't know what you're doing.
I do have a sort of electrical background, I have a grade B in GCSE electronics, I studied electronics at A level for a short while, and now work as a computer engineer. I know may ohms law and how to calculate what type of cable to use etc for a given installation.
So I am certainly certainly not competent to install a consumer unit or anything like that I know about 10% of what an electrician would know, but does that legally make me incompetent to change a light switch?
Sorry for the long post, I just thought it would be an interesting debate to see what a competent person actually is. I suspect some of it might come down to testing which most DIYers cannot do as the equipment costs £1000s. All I have is a one of them cheap £30 plug socket testers and a £200 oscilloscope/multimeter but I suppose that is still more than the average DIYer has.