When the rules changed, the 3rd party inspection scheme was introduced at the same time that just about everything become non-notifiable. The cost issue comes about because the LABC charging bands do not not align well with most electrical work (charging several hundred pounds for the smallest of jobs). If the 3rd party cert scheme was opened up to allow registered electricians to sign-off for unregistered installers, the costs would fall below the LABC levels. The job should be charged at the electrician's hourly rate. This is just a thought.
Dangerous wiring by plumber
- Thread starter festive
- Start date
I have not said this the only way forward, just that the proposal to limit electrical work (specifically relating for paid work) would make it easier for a customer to check a tradesman and deal with any issues.
I'm actually referring to the case in this thread where festive has highlighted that it's not a simple job to get help sorting his problem.
If it's a notifiable job he can go to his LABC for help. If not he can go down the small claims route to (possibly) get some money refunded, but he'll have to get somebody else to sort out the shoddy workmanship.
As for the live cables sticking out of the wall he can go to his LA (I think Environmental Health look at this) but there is no guarantee they will have resource or the desire to take this plumber to court.
Are you expecting me to be quaking in anticipation of the damage you are about to inflict?
Surely any electrician who wants to be able to do that can become a 3rd-party certifier.
I think 3rd-party cartifiers are suppose to oversee the work as it progresses - not merely visit after completion.
Any registered electrician could do that therefore the 3rd-party scheme is unnecessary.
Any registered electrician could do that therefore the 3rd-party scheme is unnecessary.
Why?
Why would it make it any easier than it currently is to check a tradesman?
Who or what would emerge that currently does not exist that would enforce these new laws/regulations more successfully than the existing bodies enforce the existing ones?
Why would they be more successful? Are the existing people - Building Control, Trading Standards, Environmental Health, the court system, hampered because there are no existing laws for them to use to go after rogue traders?
No - don't worry on that score. You're doing enough yourself.
Any scheme organiser is free to give 3rd-party certifier status to any of their members at no extra cost if they want to.
No "opening up" as suggested by scouse is required, it's already completely open.
Do you mean that NICEIC et al should be compelled to make all their members 3rd-party certifiers?
I was just thinking that the reason the 3rd-party scheme came about was to give a cheaper way to DIY, but totally agree that this could easily be included in the general scheme.
Fair enough, although that seems to have little to do with NICIEC's main recommendations/proposals.
What you suggest would be a good idea, and would make sense, if it worked - and, interestingly, corresponds with what many of the general public seems to think is the system ("get a registered electrician to check and 'sign off' notifiable work they have done). However, over 5 years down the road, experience has been that electricians do not appear interested in getting involved with '3rd party certification'. I think it's probably a bit of a vicious circle - on one hand, if the cost to a DIYer of going down that route were considerably less than LABC notification fees (which are only around £200 for some LAs), the job/money might be too small to be attractive to electricians. On the other hand, given that a '3rd party certifier' is meant to be involved in design and supervision of the work, as well as I&T, that could involve multiple visits, the cost of which at an electrician's 'usual rates' might well not be much (if at all) less than at least some LA's notification fees.
However, as I said, if it could be made to work (which essentially requires that it be sufficiently financially attractive to both the certifiers and the non-registered electricians/DIYers), then I think it would be a good idea. As always, whether or not it would result in any appreciable reduction in injuries/deaths and/or damage to property, as a result of 'unsafe' electrical work is less certain.
Kind Regards, John
The proposal is for scheme members to carry ID, similar to Gas safe.
And again, I did not say the existing structures don't work, just that there is scope to simplify and streamline.
Wow, because I have posted something you disagree with, I get this abuse.
As the take up for the 3rd part scheme is so low, I was thinking more that making all domestic work notifiable would make it more viable for the scheme operators to adopt the scheme and open it to their members.
I'm not suggesting it should be compulsory.
I only referred to the NAPIT letter to open it up for discussion and stated my personal opinion that there are possible gains to be had from it. I have no issue with you or anybody disagreeing with me. I do have an issue with the abuse, but I'm not the first to get that from you and won't be last.
A completely separate issue from extending the scope of notifiable work and what registered electricians are allowed to do wrt 3rd-party certification.
By adding more rules/regulations/laws.
Abuse?
Stating that you are damaging your own case is abuse?
Good grief.
So you think that it would be a positive and helpful step to make it a legal requirement for people to get Building Regulations approval for changing a light fitting, for example.
Right now I can't think of any way to express how wrong-headed that is without you accusing me of abuse.
No way around that unless any new regime dispenses with any requirements for EICs, or the whole structure of them is changed.
I'd say that it shows NAPIT don't have a clue what they are talking about.
Part P already applies to anybody and everybody doing any work whatsoever on fixed electrical cables or fixed electrical equipment located on the consumer’s side of the electricity supply meter which operate at low or extra-low voltage and are—
(a) in or attached to a dwelling;
(b) in the common parts of a building serving one or more dwellings, but excluding power supplies to lifts;
(c) in a building that receives its electricity from a source located within or shared with a dwelling; or
(d) in a garden or in or on land associated with a building where the electricity is from a source located within or shared with a dwelling.
I wonder what scope they see for its extension.
Quite - so, as I said, going by the 3rd party Certifier route (assuming that riole was undertaken correctly) would not necessarily be much cheaper for DIYers/non-registered electrician than are L:ABC fees.
... which is clearly not going to happen.
My suspicion/fear would be that if all domestic work were to become notifiable, and if both LABC notification and 3rd party certification (done properly) are expensive, then there would, in practice, probably be a proliferation of 'notifiable' work being undertaken without notification or any supervision etc. Whilst, in relation to currently non-notifiable work, that would be essentially no different from the current situation, I fear that (with everything notifiable), many might invoke the "might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb" principle - so, if replacing a CU were 'no worse a crime' than replacing a light switch, many might then not bother to notify even those few things which are currently notifiable. I certainly can't imagine that many people would pay for a 3rd party supervisor in relation to, say, replacing a light switch (unless the cost was so little than no electrician would want to do the 'certifying' - so another vicious circle).
What NAPIT want is nothing other than job protection.
Yes.
The fundamental problem is that the notification procedure and all the associated rules and regulations were an attempted solution to a problem which did not and does not exist.
Since the removal in 2013 of most work from the notification requirements in England, the schemes have been rendered pointless.
The fundamental problem is that the notification procedure and all the associated rules and regulations were an attempted solution to a problem which did not and does not exist.
Since the removal in 2013 of most work from the notification requirements in England, the schemes have been rendered pointless.
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