Bathroom Electrics

[Rosebery]

Thanks Flameport that just about sums it up nicely.

So what would you do in my position if the Client suggests "just forget the certificate I just want the fan and cabinet installed"? Remember he's paying me to do this.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

You are concerned that you don't know enough to judge what the legal and technical requirements are.

You are concerned that you are not competent enough to take responsibility for work which may create issues of liability in the future.

You are concerned that your lack of knowledge and competence will cause your client to fail in a duty of care.

Do you really need someone else to tell you what to do?

 

[JACKC]

Hi,
Flameport wrote
The steel bath:
Steel baths do not require supplementary bonding, as they are not extraneous conductive parts.
If there is no supplementary bonding at all, this should be installed.

Sorry but a steel bath could be extraneous cond part if it is connected to metal pipework which in turn is MEB back to the MET. You will need to confirm this with a simple insulation test to earth and if less than 22K then it is extraneous. You will then need to check continuity back to the MET and work out if the potential difference will be less than the 50v max permitted. I am sure others will repost if this is incorrect and I have read it wrong. But as you don't have the test gear it can't be done.

 

[Rosebery]

Thank you B-A-S but I think you have either misread what I have written or I have been unclear. I'll assume it to be the latter. So to take your points in turn:

You are concerned that you don't know enough to judge what the legal and technical requirements are.

Not so. My judgement is that replacing like for like is not notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations. My judgement is that replacing like for like does not require RCD protection of an unchanged circuit nor the provison of a three-pole isolator switch for the fan under the 17th edition of the Wiring Regulations. My judgement is that an MWC is not a regulatory requirement in these circumstances although it could be considered advisable. My judgement is that having found there to be no supplementary equipotential bonding in place (which would not be required if the circuit was RCD protected under the 17th) that there should be as there is no RCD protection and that such bonding SHOULD include the new steel bath.

You are concerned that you are not competent enough to take responsibility for work which may create issues of liability in the future.

Not so. I know that I am quite competant on a practical level to do the work. I know that I am not (legally?) competant, being unqualified and not having the correct test gear, to carry out the testing whose results are required to be entered on an MWC and to be able to sign it off.

You are concerned that your lack of knowledge and competence will cause your client to fail in a duty of care.

Absolutely not. If my client (the landlord) chooses NOT to have an MWC - which is fine as its NOT a REQUIREMENT in these circumstances - an that as a result he fails (or is deemed by others at some stage in the future to fail) in his duty of care by not having all his paperwork in a row that it could possibly rebound on me. That is my only real concern

Do you really need someone else to tell you what to do?

No on two counts. First because I haven't asked anyone to TELL me what to do. Second, being unqualified, I'd like someone to confirm whether I am correct or not in my judgements/opinions in what might be considered to be grey areas and / or to offer advice (perhaps from experience) about the one thing I am concerned about (see above) - for example do I really need to be concerned about it at all?

Thanks.

 

[Rosebery]

Sorry but a steel bath could be extraneous cond part if it is connected to metal pipework which in turn is MEB back to the MET. You will need to confirm this with a simple insulation test to earth and if less than 22K then it is extraneous. You will then need to check continuity back to the MET and work out if the potential difference will be less than the 50v max permitted. I am sure others will repost if this is incorrect and I have read it wrong. But as you don't have the test gear it can't be done.

I've taken the view that I don't need the test gear to tell me whether or not the bath is an extraneous conductive part in these circumstances as, there being no supp bonding in place, that such was required and that has been done today and yes, I have included the bath. It seemed the simplest solution.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Thank you B-A-S but I think you have either misread what I have written or I have been unclear. I'll assume it to be the latter. So to take your points in turn:

Or it may have been a bit of both, but I'd like to take this opportunity to say that what I wrote wasn't a criticism.

You are concerned that you don't know enough to judge what the legal and technical requirements are.

Not so.

OK - it did seem to me that you weren't absolutely sure.

My judgement is that replacing like for like is not notifiable under Part P of the Building Regulations.

In this case it isn't but from a general POV some replacements are notifiable.

My judgement is that replacing like for like does not require RCD protection of an unchanged circuit nor the provison of a three-pole isolator switch for the fan under the 17th edition of the Wiring Regulations.

You're right about the RCD, but if you are adding a fan isolator then that is notifiable if it's in the bathroom.

My judgement is that an MWC is not a regulatory requirement in these circumstances although it could be considered advisable.

As sparkyspike pointed out, Part P applies to non-notifiable work just as much as it does to notifiable, and if the way that you have chosen to comply with P1 is to work to BS 7671 then an MWC becomes a regulatory requirement,

My judgement is that having found there to be no supplementary equipotential bonding in place (which would not be required if the circuit was RCD protected under the 17th)

There are other pre-requisites for the omission of supplementary bonding - it's not just RCDs.

that there should be as there is no RCD protection and that such bonding SHOULD include the new steel bath.

That depends on whether the bath is an extraneous-conductive-part or not.

You are concerned that you are not competent enough to take responsibility for work which may create issues of liability in the future.

Not so. I know that I am quite competant on a practical level to do the work.

There's more to it than that.

I know that I am not (legally?) competant, being unqualified and not having the correct test gear, to carry out the testing whose results are required to be entered on an MWC and to be able to sign it off.

That's what I meant - you do have concerns about your overall competence to sign a declaration saying that you're responsible for the work and that it's OK.

You are concerned that your lack of knowledge and competence will cause your client to fail in a duty of care.

Absolutely not. If my client (the landlord) chooses NOT to have an MWC - which is fine as its NOT a REQUIREMENT in these circumstances - an that as a result he fails (or is deemed by others at some stage in the future to fail) in his duty of care by not having all his paperwork in a row that it could possibly rebound on me. That is my only real concern

Whether your concern is prompted by altruism or self-interest doesn't matter - you do have a concern about your client ending up failing in a duty of care.

Do you really need someone else to tell you what to do?

No on two counts. First because I haven't asked anyone to TELL me what to do.

OK - you didn't ask to be told what to do.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having any of your concerns - quite the opposite in fact.

Second, being unqualified, I'd like someone to confirm whether I am correct or not in my judgements/opinions in what might be considered to be grey areas and / or to offer advice (perhaps from experience) about the one thing I am concerned about (see above) - for example do I really need to be concerned about it at all?

I think you should.

Ever thought about getting the Domestic Installer NVQ?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I've taken the view that I don't need the test gear to tell me whether or not the bath is an extraneous conductive part in these circumstances as, there being no supp bonding in place, that such was required and that has been done today

Without testing how did you know that there were extraneous-conductive-parts in the bathroom?

and yes, I have included the bath. It seemed the simplest solution.

But not necessarily the right solution. If you took metal items and made them part of the electrical system when before that they were isolated, i.e. were not e-c-ps, then you've made things less safe.

 

[Spark123]

Hi,
Flameport wrote
The steel bath:
Steel baths do not require supplementary bonding, as they are not extraneous conductive parts.
If there is no supplementary bonding at all, this should be installed.

Sorry but a steel bath could be extraneous cond part if it is connected to metal pipework which in turn is MEB back to the MET. You will need to confirm this with a simple insulation test to earth and if less than 22K then it is extraneous. You will then need to check continuity back to the MET and work out if the potential difference will be less than the 50v max permitted. I am sure others will repost if this is incorrect and I have read it wrong. But as you don't have the test gear it can't be done.

I think Flameport means that a steel bath is not an extraneous conductive part in it's own right - if it is the pipework that is making it extraneous and that pipework has been supplementary bonded then that is sufficient.


They tend to look at shock current when determining if something is extraneous, iirc if the resistance of a person is 1K and the shock current is to be less than 10mA then we end up with 230v/(22000+1000) = 10mA max