Competent person status? What is this?

[AdamW]

I have seen the term "competent person" mentioned several times on the plumbing forum, if I recall it is always to do with gas.

Now, I thought it was illegal for someone to install and commission any gas appliance, even in their own home, unless they were CORGI registered.

From what some people have said it sounds like this is incorrect, namely that one can install a boiler in their own home, legally. Provided of course that they are a "competent person".

Is this true? If so, what are the ramifications? What happens if Joe Bloggs installs his own combi, believing himself to be competent but actually not knowing his microbore from his isolation valve, then the next owners of the house get blown up because he made a pig's ear of it? Is he held responsible and brought up on manslaughter charges?

 

[Plumber Will]

On selling the house........the Benchmark book that records details of "installer" and commisioning engineer would be required to be shown to the surveyor. If it is not available then the system would carry a notice saying "system to be checked by a Corgi registered gas engineer" there may be money to be adjusted on the price of the property?

 

[DP]

There have been instances where a new owner of a house has asked me to carry out a system check on the gas installation. They have successfully persued to have bad work corrected even though the work carried out was well beyond the 12 month guarantee period.

If the installation is ID (immediately dangerous) for which the previous householder is responsible, I suspect the Health and Safety authority would be involved

See plenty gas appliances sourced from sheds installed by people who think they are competent.

 

[oilman]

Competent person status has nothing to do with self belief in one's own abilities. It is a recognition that the person has taken and passed various assessments which are overseen by outfits such as UKAS, ERS, CITB to mention a few. The assessments are administered by CORGI, OFTEC, or HETAS and suitably qualified training schools things like water regulations and for unvented cylinders. There will soon be something similar for electricity as well. There is also FENSA who deal with installing windows and doors, and IOP dealing with plumbing.

The point of this status is to define who can carry out work to the required standards (building regs etc and then sign off THEIR OWN WORK. They cannot sign off work for someone else (unless they are daft). The other route is through the building control department.

Having said that, if you can sit upright, are reasonably literate, and can write and breathe at the same time, the assessments are not very denanding.

 

[taydo]

oilman in your last post last paragraph you should have checked your spelling mate.

mind you you did state reasonably literate,
ok I know the m&n are close together and your hands are cold so we will forgive you

 

[ollski]

What happens if Joe Bloggs installs his own combi, believing himself to be competent but actually not knowing his microbore from his isolation valve, then the next owners of the house get blown up because he made a pig's ear of it? Is he held responsible and brought up on manslaughter charges?

Then he has proven himself not to be competant and will receive the full force of the HSE.

 

[masona]

Then he has proven himself not to be competant and will receive the full force of the HSE.

I know what you're saying but will they ??
I have seen many property bought without planning permission,so are the solicitor still asleep

 

[AdamW]

Say I wanted to bring myself up to a standard where I could do my own building, electrics and plumbing (excluding unvented and gas) and satisfy a surveyor with legal certificates when it comes to sell-up time. Is this really feasible? Is it something that could be pursued in my free-time or is the only way to make a career out of trade?

I am wondering because I hope to do a new build at some point in the next 5 years and obviously would want to save money where possible (who doesn't!). Don't take this to mean I wouldn't care about the quality! If anything I would be able to lavish more on the materials and would spend more time over things (seeing as I won't working to a strict time budget!) so hopefully would end up with a better finished product.

I hoped to do this by learning as much as I could from places such as this forum and reading books on the topics. If I will need to be able to produce certificates this is critical to the build as I would need a surveyor to produce a report each time I want the next stage of the mortgage, not to mention when it comes to selling the house.

Now, would I be able to gain the necessary qualifications to do my electrics and plumbing through evening classes over a year or two? Would these classes be so expensive I wouldn't save any money over getting tradesmen in for one build?

Is it be possible to get insurance to cover my work on the build, so if I make a balls-up and someone gets hurt later on (or possibly because they make a balls-up and claim it was that way when they moved in) I don't get my bottom sued off or end up paying for rectification work?

Seeing as I am asking so much already, can't hurt to ask for the moon on a stick too!

 

[oilman]

taydo wrote

oilman in your last post last paragraph you should have checked your spelling mate.

Never mind, I do manage to put in all of the capital letters and punctuation marks.
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AdamW, don't worry about getting certified for all the trades, you don't have to. Nor does anybody else. The competent person status allows you to self certify that your bodges comply with building regulations and any other bit of applicable information. The alternative is to submit drawings to the building control department and have them sign off the works as complying.

This is with the exception of at least gas work (as far as anyone can tell) and definitely unvented cylinders which have legal demands for registered operators to do the work.

 

[taydo]

ok oilman its a draw