DIY is not an electrician. No sir, not at all...

[JohnW2]

As part of the purchasing process I always conduct a PIR on the property and it is quite amazing how many times the responses to section 4 are at odds with reality. The net result is sometimes a significant reduction in the price of the property. .... I now conduct PIR's for a number of purchasers/solicitors when the the TA6 electrical work section is ticked no.

In my haste to press the 'submit' button, I forgot to specifically address this, in a manner which essentially reflects what I wrote about the courts.

Finding clear evidence that electrical work has been undertaken since 1st Jan 2005, despite the 'no' box having been ticked is presumably, in itself, of no real consequence, and will (or should!) have no effect on property price. Similarly, if your PIR comes up with findings that would have satisfied LABC at the time the work was undertaken, there is again no issue which should affect price. In fact, scope for negotiation over price only really exists if your PIR reveals things that need attention - and that would be true regardless of whether work was undertaken before or after 1/1/05 and, in the latter case, regardless of whether or not the work had been notified at the time. ... or am I missing something?

Kind Regards, John.

 

[Paul_C]

This is another point. If the DIYer meets all relevant British standards, what law has been broken?

The statutory requirement violated would be regulation 12 of The Building Regulations 2010:

Giving of a building notice or deposit of plans

12.— (1) This regulation applies to a person who intends to—

(a) carry out building work;

{.....}

(2) Subject to the following provisions of this regulation, a person to whom this regulation applies shall—

(a) give to the local authority a building notice in accordance with regulation 13; or

(b) deposit full plans with the local authority in accordance with regulation 14.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/2214/made

But who cares? I certainly don't. None of the friends and neighbors I know and have helped out since 2005 care. Potential buyers of a house are free to arrange an inspection or negotiate with the seller to have an inspection carried out to their satisfaction, so they probably don't care either. The fact that there has been not one single prosecution shows that even the system doesn't seem to care much, only in as far as trying to hoodwink people into paying vast sums of money with what are, apparently, pretty empty threats of what might happen otherwise.

Remember Part P was brought in by socialist/communist politicians its got nothing to do with electrical safety, it is another level of government control and knowing who is doing what.

Precisely. Welcome to the club of "right-wing anti-government nutcases."

It had absolutely nothing to do with safety because there was never any evidence to suggest that there was a problem which needed addressing in the first place. It was just lobby groups with vested interests coupled with the government's usual desire to expand its "empire" of control.

As a government worker on another forum commented some months ago, electrical work was seen as the last major thing in a house which had not yet been brought under the control of the building regulations and it was felt that there was a need to correct that "oversight."

 

[mbga9pgf]

The statutory requirement violated would be regulation 12 of The Building Regulations 2010:

I have been done for speeding before. Sure I can deal with reg 12. Besides, it was enacted by a socialist government that is(are thank god) no longer in power. If I can now shoot a burglar (as it seems) under the new powers that be under civil rights, I bet I can get away with a rewire!

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I find that comment hard to understand. Sure, a law is a law regardless of whether it is enforced or not. However, it is you that introduces the word 'reality', and the reality surely is that a law which is not enforced might just as well not exist and, indeed, (in terms of 'reality') effectively doesn't exist.

Kind Regards, John

I find your comments hard to understand.

"might just as well not exist" ... "effectively doesn't exist"


Either the law exists or it does not.

In this case it does.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Judges/courts will not accept prosecutions based on laws the are unenforced, this has been there stance for hundreds of years.

In that case no laws would ever be enforced, because until the first enforcement they would have been unenforced.

Does anyone (apart from BAS ) really think a judge would be interested in the fact that Joe Bloggs carried out electrical work in his own house in contravention of part P?

No judges are ever interested in anything before them - that is fundamental to our judicial process.

The judges attitude would be the same as someone being prosecuted for driving at 75mph on a motorway, he would dismiss the case and reprimand the prosecutors for wasting the courts time.

I'm not sure to what extent judges may decide that the will of Parliament is to be ignored, and the authorities reprimanded for prosecuting breaches of the law. AIUI it is the CPS who make decisions on what is in the public interest, not judges.

Remember Part P was brought in by socialist/communist politicians

"Communist" - blimey - doesn't that show how irrational you are.

Anyway - although the consultation document may have been issued in 2002, it contained the results of the Regulatory Impact Analysis (performed by Civil Servants, not politicians) which must have taken a while, and the first edition of Approved Document P (ditto).

The whole process which led to the consultation document being issued kicked off in response to the Construction Industry Deregulation Task Force’s 1995 report which recommended amongst other things that the Building Regulations should address electrical safety and that the administrative burden on builders should be rationalised. The Government at the time responded to these recommendations by agreeing to review the case for new requirements and how they might best be practically introduced.

Blair/Brown/Prescott were nothing to do with the Government in 1995 (some bloke called Major was in charge - was he a socialist or a communist?), and between 1997 & 2002 there were a few other distractions, like handing back Hong Kong, wars in Kosovo & Afghanistan and the run-up to the 2nd Gulf one, Scottish & Welsh Devolution, House of Lords reform, Foot & Mouth crisis etc. When a report produced after years of work by civil servants and industry experts telling them that painstaking and diligent research showed that this proposed legislation, supported by hundreds of relevant and expert bodies, would save lives arrived it was not unreasonable for them to say "OK, we'll lay it before Parliament", rather than starting all over again to verify the work already done. That's how governments work and that's what would have happened whoever had been in power.

its got nothing to do with electrical safety, it is another level of government control and knowing who is doing what.

Dear God what is wrong with so many people here?

Where to you get these paranoid, frightened little personalities, cowering at the prospect of Government control via a small law requiring electrical work to be done reasonably safely?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

This is another point. If the DIYer meets all relevant British standards, what law has been broken? I wouldnt call part Pi$$ in respect to the requirement to notify worth of the paper its written on.

Whether you would or not is irrelevant.

Why can you not grasp that how ever low your opinion is of a law it does not cease to exist?

This is why the council are more than welcome to busybody and inspect what they like in my home. It meets all relevant standards of installation. I wont be paying for the priveledge. They can have a free cup of tea if they fancy it though.

And as for this repeated "busybody" nonsense - it's so out of proportion as to be borderline pyschosis.

They are not "busybodies". Their job is not to snoop on you, or to pry into your affairs, or to concern themselves with things not properly their concern.

Their job is to do what they are paid to do, and that is defined by legislation over which they had no control, so to attack them for it is wrong.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Thats exactly why I wired using this:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/100m-Leng...nents_Supplies_ET&hash=item2314aea0a8[/QUOTE]
Over £1/m for 2.5mm²?

That's barmy - why on earth would you do something as stupid as that?

 

[holmslaw]

..

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Precisely. Welcome to the club of "right-wing anti-government nutcases."

Indeed.

So would you and your fellow travellers please take your pathetic paranoid whining off somewhere else?

That you keep on supporting the view that it was a socialist/communist totalitarian control move, which clearly does not fit with the truth, shows that you have no interest in the truth, only an interest in promoting your hatred of government, and presenting your position of opposing the Building Regulations as that of a freedom fighter, struggling against the forces of an evil dictatorship, standing up for your right as a free-born citizen to do what you like withing the walls of your castle.

It's pathetic, it really is.

The reason we have Part P is because of what a Conservative government initiated, at the behest of industry interests. Far from being a socialist/communist measure it is a capitalist one.

It had absolutely nothing to do with safety because there was never any evidence to suggest that there was a problem which needed addressing in the first place. It was just lobby groups with vested interests coupled with the government's usual desire to expand its "empire" of control.

Those "lobby groups" were commercial organisations with a financial interest.

They were capitalists seeking government backing for restrictive practices aimed at increasing their profits.

As a government worker on another forum commented some months ago, electrical work was seen as the last major thing in a house which had not yet been brought under the control of the building regulations and it was felt that there was a need to correct that "oversight."

And who felt that need?

Was it the busybodies in the Town Hall (who, if it was, have since behaved very oddly in bending over backwards to have nothing to do with it)?

Or was it the capitalist organisations who saw in it a way to increase their revenue?

 

[ban-all-sheds]

As for your history lesson, part P plans may have existed under earlier governments, but the fact is it was introduced by a socialist government.

That was purely because of when the electoral wheel of chance stopped spinning. It was born out of a capitalist cartel requirement, and would have happened whoever had been in power once the process ended.

And anyway - Blair's government a socialist one? Either the standard of foreign reporting in your country isn't up to much or you'd have regarded Ghengis Khan as a dangerous liberal.

There is no medical need for such a plan and no general reason why a someone in Birmingham needs to know the medical details of someone in London.

Actually I can see a valid reason for an A&E department in Birmingham having quick and easy access to the records of a Londoner taken there and needing rapid treatment.

 

[holmslaw]

..

 

[JohnW2]

I find that comment hard to understand. Sure, a law is a law regardless of whether it is enforced or not. However, it is you that introduces the word 'reality', and the reality surely is that a law which is not enforced might just as well not exist and, indeed, (in terms of 'reality') effectively doesn't exist.

I find your comments hard to understand. "might just as well not exist" ... "effectively doesn't exist" Either the law exists or it does not. In this case it does.

Unless I have totally misjudged the level of your intelligence, I'm sure that you completely understand my comment and are simply arguing an 'obvious truth', which I also mentioned ("..a law is a law, regardless...") just for the sake of argument.

You must be aware of the countless old laws, inapplicable/'rididiculous' in the current world, which actually still 'exist' because no government has ever repealed them, which "might just as well not exist" and "effectively don't exist", since they have not been enforced, or even thought about, for decades.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Note I used the word 'general', so you would be happy for those doctors to accept the info on your records entered by some bored to death data input clerk.

Those are the details already there.

I would prefer them to phone my doctor if they need any details,

If they know who your doctor is, and he can be reached.

 

[JohnW2]

There is no medical need for such a plan and no general reason why a someone in Birmingham needs to know the medical details of someone in London.

Actually I can see a valid reason for an A&E department in Birmingham having quick and easy access to the records of a Londoner taken there and needing rapid treatment.

Note I used the word 'general'....

BAS is right. There is a very valid medical need for 'centralised' access to medical records, and this was the reason the NHS attempted to implement the system - the problem is that they've proved completely incapable of implementing it. Holmslaw is also, and obviously, literally correct in say ing that there is not a 'general' need (i.e. every doctor does not need to access the records of every UK patient every day), but that is irrelevant - because one can't have a restricted system which knows which doctor will want to access whose medical records and when!

.... so you would be happy for those doctors to accept the info on your records entered by some bored to death data input clerk. I would prefer them to phone my doctor if they need any details, and people with serious medical conditions carry a warning card/bracelet.

It sounds as if it's probably a long time since you've visited a doctor - in general, there are no 'data entry clerks' involved (acd doctors' typing is generally much better than their writing!!). Believe me, 'phoning a doctor' to get information is fraught with difficulties and, in any event, any information obtained by that process is likely to be derived by the responding doctor accessing computerised records - so why does the human voice/telephone link in the process make that any different from direct access to the computerised records? Warning cards/bracelets are widely used (and, indeed, are often the thing that makes one realise the need to access medical records), but often contain far less detailed information that is really required for optimum clinical care.

Kind Regards, John.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Unless I have totally misjudged the level of your intelligence, I'm sure that you completely understand my comment and are simply arguing an 'obvious truth', which I also mentioned ("..a law is a law, regardless...") just for the sake of argument.

Did you understand my use of the word "reality"?

It had nothing to do with the reality of a law's enforcement, and everything to do with the reality of its existence, and it was used in the context of ridiculous claims that anybody who thought a law shouldn't exist could, in contradiction to the undeniable reality say that as far as they were concerned it did not exist.

They can say they aren't going to obey it.

They can say they'll give succour to others who disobey it.

They can say they'll campaign for it's repeal.

But to say that it doesn't exist because of their disapproval is at odds with reality.