Domestic Installer PIR?

[JackTheCat]

The NICEIC has a "DOMESTIC INSTALLATION PERIODIC REPORT" Certificate,
Can Domestic Installers issue these certificates?

I was always under the impression that only approved contractors can issue PIRs?

 

[cozycats]

Anyone who considers themselves competent enough can do a pir. Only nic APPROVED contractors can use the nic logo, excludes nic domestic installers unles fully APPROVED!
Hope that's clear!

 

[dingbat]

But to add to this. Given all the fuss (and not inconsiderable misunderstanding) about this very issue. The NIC are intending to allow DIs with the right knowledge and experience to issue logoed domestic PIRs. How this will be assessed is not entirely clear at the moment, but I know that one option will be to undergo the NIC's own PIR course.

 

[Pensdown]

I for one never knew DI's couldn't do a domestic PIR.

So we could end up with;

DI's who can do domestic work but cant do PIR's
DI's that can do domestic work and also do domestic PIR's
Full approval who can do domestic PIR's but not domestic work
Full approval + DI who can do the lot

Thats nice and simple for the customers to understand

 

[JackTheCat]

cozycats
form one cat to another
thats CLEAR

 

[JackTheCat]

pensdown
i couldnt agree with you more, its getting really out of hand.

I am going NICEIC Domestic Installers (just waiting for paperwork now)
and i have made my mind up that i am going to do PIRs regardless.

My way of thinking is
I am supposed to be competent?
the people who are making the rules up are a seemingly bunch of incompetent idiots who would make themselves look like a laughing stock if anything arose out of trying to prove competence

pensdowns reasoning says it all!!!!

 

[RF Lighting]

I think the reasoning for this is that you could for arguments sake feasibly have a kitchen fitter with DI approval who knows how to add an extra socket etc but is not necessarily competent or experienced enough to carry out a PIR.

 

[JackTheCat]

RF Lighting
In that case there should be no DI registration at all

 

[dingbat]

As has rightly been said, anybody with the necessary knowledge, experience and skill can carry out PIRs. But, as PIRs are not within the scope of Part P, which governs installation work, the NICEIC elected to not make their logoed PIR certs available for persons enrolled only under their Domestic Installer scheme.

Their original expectation was that qualified electricians would opt to become full Approved Contractors, while other trades would go for defined competence Domestic Installer.

However, the other schemes involved have served to muddy the waters in this and other areas, so a lot of people are understandably confused. One thing that has become apparent is that many one-man band electricians have elected to enroll only as DIs because this covers all their work. Not many small electrical firms have got heavily involved with testing (in fact - and you know who you are - a lot didn't even own test equipment until Part P!) Up to now.

Since the Housing Act 2004 came into force this April the NICEIC have been aggressively marketing towards landlords and in particular have been pushing the Domestic Installer, rather than the Approved Contractor logo. As landlords have an increased responsibility towards their tenants, it makes sense to allow suitably qualified DIs to carry out PIRs and issue reports with logos.

I'm still not certain how a customer goes about telling one from another though: NAPIT also has defined scope membership, so a NAPIT Part P Registered Installer could be anything from a kitchen fitter to a highly experienced all-round electrician in just the same way a NICEIC Domestic Installer could.

Me? I'm knocking on a bit, so I intend to get all the testing and inspection work I can lay my hands on!

 

[RF Lighting]

This is true but sadly not how it works.

It also seems to be that full NICEIC members are no longer distinguished from DI only contractors. People just see the logo and assume that it is all the same.

 

[Pensdown]

The NIC & ECA have always had various categories that relate to the type of work contractors undertake so I'm not sure why the NIC and ECA didn’t just include domestic only as a separate category. They could have reduced some of the red tape for that category but it would have kept the divide between electricians/electrical contractors and other non-electrical trades.

The other PP approval bodies could deal with the non-electrical trades. I don’t want my company associated via the NIC logo with any non-electrical trades kitchen fitters included . As you say, the DI logo still has the NICEIC branding.

 

[cozycats]

Well it seems that we are in the same quagmire here as part P in that a Co. employing xx sparks can use an inexperienced "competent" person to do the pir and sign it off as their own, NIC or not! it's a complete and utter F'''ing mess!

 

[RF Lighting]

We have the daft situation at work that a non competent person could do a job, and fill out the test certificate and sign off the certificate, all it needs is a signature on the bottom of the certificate from a qualifying (sp?) manager who hasn't even seen the job. I guess this would be the same for PIRs too.
I work for a company who has both full NICEIC membership as well as DI approval.

 

[JohnD]

...all it needs is a signature on the bottom of the certificate from a qualifying (sp?) manager who hasn't even seen the job

But surely he isn't signing "I haven't seen it and the person who has isn't qualified" - is he?

 

[Pensdown]

RF. Thats the way it has to works when you have loads of sparks. I'm not sure if you are your companies QM but ours gets a hard time during the NIC audit and he will not sign anything if he's in doubt. If the inspector picks a project from the certificate log to visit and finds a problem there's all hell to pay. When they get back the NIC inspector starts picking on me so I pick on QM, the QM picks on the sparks and it doesn't happen again, if you know what I mean