So honestly, I am not sure what all the big fuss is about. Find a electrician you trust, pay for his help to design the layout plan what you will do and what materials are needed and then do the work getting it signed off at the end.
That can work, but rarely happens in reality.
There are many electrical jobs people of reasonable competence can do themselves.
However the electrical forum does attract a fair number of individuals who will never get the answers they are looking for. Examples include:
People who think they can do whatever electrical work they like and then get someone in to 'sign it off' later.
This will never happen, since it's likely most of these people won't ever contact anyone once the work is complete. It works, so why bother doing anything else?
Even if they do, their options are extremely limited. They can get someone in to inspect and test the installation - usually resulting in a list of defects the length of a toilet roll, and often due to the most fundamental errors in design and selection of materials.
Or they want someone to notify it to building control - can't be done, since electricians who belong to schemes can only notify their own work, and anyone else has to notify before the work is started, as with any other notifiable building work.
People who are unaware of any requirements to notify certain works, or to have the installation properly tested before it is connected to the supply.
Some of these initially want to do the right thing, but then when they discover that it will cost several hundred pounds to notify building control about the new £50 B&Q electric shower in the bathroom they decide to not bother and carry on regardless.
Those who are intent on doing things in a certain way, and want someone to say 'yes, carry on and do whatever you were going to do, it's all lovely and correct'
and then get all bent out of shape when they are told that their proposals are wrong and dangerous. Frequently they have already done a substantial part of the work, or already completed it.
Such individuals can't be helped, since they already know what they are doing is totally wrong, yet cannot accept this fact and will argue over it endlessly.
Those who tell blatant lies
These typically start out by saying someone else will be doing the work, it will all be connected up by some electrician later on, or the electrician who is rewiring their house has gone on holiday for 8 weeks and they just need to know what cable to buy for situation X, etc.
In all cases, the electrician does not exist, they are doing the work themselves, and would generally get better responses by saying so at the start.
Unfortunately once someone has provided a pack of lies, there is little incentive to believe anything they say afterwards.
Those who are convinced they can take on work far beyond their capabilities
Examples being people who clearly know nothing, yet want to install new circuits to several barns on a farm, wire up entire caravan sites or install half a mile of cable down a field.
Others are actually asking questions about some job they are doing for a paying customer - yet appear to have no understanding of the most basic and fundamental concepts.
Other causes of annoyance are people who ask questions which have already been asked thousands of times already - removing a ceiling rose and then not knowing which wire goes where in the new light is the usual one. If these people actually spent 10 seconds on a search, they would find all the answers they require.
Add to that trolls with dangerous situations that don't exist and persons at college who want to be spoon fed the answers to their homework, it's not surprising that some answers given may be less than helpful.
