Electricians "guiding" DIY installation work

[ban-all-sheds]

We seem to be seeing more and more posts from people who have arranged for an electrician to inspect & check their work and then issue some kind of certificate at the end.

Do any of the electricians here who do domestic ever work like that? How well does it go in practice?

With a lot of these situations there appear to be communication difficulties - either the people paying for the electrician's services don't want to ask him questions, or can't because he's away on holiday.

 

[ricicle]

I think it's more a case of certain posters attempting to dupe us into believing that their non-existant Electrician is on holiday or too busy to come.
If I was a registered Electrician then I would not want to sign my name against any work that I did not do myself (with perhaps the exception of the trench digging/wall chasing variety and I had laid the cables myself)
If I had to stand up in front of anyone if there was a problem (say fire from a loose connection) then I would rather it be for something I did than carrying the can for someone else - or having to admit that I'd lied on the documentation....

 

[aa44]

There is also the situation where somebody (like me) wants to do the work themselves and then get building control to sign it off along the way (having notified them at the start, of course!). I am building my own house and I want to do as much as I can myself while keeping within the rules. There are bits that I know that I am not competent to do and where I know that I need to get in professional help, e.g. fitting the consumer units or wiring up the air source heat pump, but there is plenty that I can do and there are helpful people on forums like this that can fill in some of the gaps when there are questions on the areas that I do want to tackle.

Don't assume that everybody on here who asks a question is looking to do a cowboy job or bend the rules.

 

[ericmark]

I have tried to tell people what to do years before Part P ever came in and bitter experience showed me unless I had some power. As with Apprentice. Then they always seemed to think they knew better than me. As a result in the main it takes more time to instruct some one than do the job than do the job ones self. So let them dig the trench but very little else will ever save time so in turn does not save them money.

I am sure some signing for other peoples work does go on. I could see myself signing for my sons work or him signing for mine. But out of family just can't see it happening. Maybe where some one has more work than he can handle he will get a colleague to help him but colleague rather than friend. Some one you have worked with for years and can trust.

We all make mistakes and if a mistake is made then I am sure HSE will not let go if they even got a whisper of wrong person doing the work. And of course insurance would also be invalid.

What would interest me is what happens when some one stops trading. Some of the work I have done for DIY people takes years. And I have left the firm I was working for and moved to another before it was completed. So I can't sign the Installation certificate as not insured once I have left and no one else can sign it either. Old days no one worried but now it's a little different.

Reverse has also happened when I have replaced an electrician and been showed the job they were on when they left. No records and it is left to us to decide how much to check. When you find the last guy was sacked then you do wonder what hidden horrors one may find.

Yet the LABC signed off my work without even a visit once complete so some guys must be very trusting, or lazy?

But in the main I think we all know the guy is not really on holiday and the DIY man has no intention of getting anything tested. With these there is no reason why the DIY guy should not test his own work but at £45 there are those who would not even spend that to test their work and if they will not pay for the cheapest of tester than they are not going to pay an electrician to test.

 

[JACKC]

Agree with above, I have worked with homeowners who have done some work and assisted. I have also told them that if I see any additional work or come across anything that I have not said to do then I will spend all of my time testing and doing a visual so the money they save will soon be lost. I only let then chase walls and knock out flush box holes. Anything else its a no no. I will never sign off work as my own unless I have done it.

 

[1john]

Personally I have never signed of anything that wasn't my own, i recently went to a job where a 'builder' (I use the term in this instance very loosly) had done some wiring and an 'electrician' (again, term used very loosly) had come and 'tested and certified' (pattern emerging?!) the work. I dont know how the electrician managed to get a reading on the lighting circuit as the builder chap had cut the CPC's off along with the outer sheathing, also he decided it was acceptable to use a 30A (or more) connector block on a 1mm cable and tape it up for feeding the tranny for a down lighter.

I would be happy to assist a homeowner that wanted to do their own work but have never been approached, i see no harm in them doing the chasing of the cables, and IF they were completly visible throughout the run I would be happy for them to install them as long as they were routed as instructed. I think i would prefere to run them myself but if thats what they wanted, i suppose it would depend on the person in question, sometimes you get a feeling with people that they may not quite do as instructed. I would want to do all final connections as fault finding trapped cables in metal boxes is frustrating and time consuming.

 

[RF Lighting]

I've done it once where the agreement with the customer was that he'd do all the chasing, fit the boxes and make good.

I went in and did first fix, which involved removing most of the boxes to chop them in properly so they were actually flush and level.

When he called me back to do second fix after the house had been plastered out, the centre light had miraculously changed into 5 downlights. He'd put in a big torroidal transformer under the floor and looped 250W @ 12V on 1.0mm cable. Well why not. It's lighting cable

There were extra sockets in the kitchen which he'd managed to wire as a ring within a ring, and out of safe zones.

There was a mains fan right above the bath and the list went on.

It took even longer to put it all right than it would have done if I'd have done the entire job start to finish.

I'm glad I don't do any domestic work at all any more

 

[sparkwright]

The sad truth is that 98% of DIY electrical work is crap.

There is so much for an electrician to learn that a DIYer can't possibly pick it up quick enough.

Even the simple jobs like replacing a socket or drilling holes in joists result in fundamental errors.

Even on this forum, you know a DIYer isn't always going to do it EXACTLY how you would like it to be.

I wouldn't want to put my name to any DIY work.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

So where are people finding all these electricians to do what they are claiming they're doing?

 

[Weavertronix]

I don't know any sparks that like testing work done by other sparks who work for the same company, never mind work done by a DIYer who had to ask how to make it work on public forum while they were "away on holiday".

 

[1john]

I suspect that only the cream of the electricians visit this site

 

[conny]

For Eric,
that tester looks ok but it only tests sockets. How would the DIYer test lightcircuits, (where there may be missing earths, borrowed neutrals etc), or a dedicated immersion circuit fed direct from the CU?
Not a wind up or anything, just curious.

 

[nozspark]

I was at someones hose the other day and saw a dodgy extension lead... they'd use "table lamp" cable to make it, yes you guessed it.. 2 core 0.75mm, If I had to guess I bet it would have a 13A fuse in the plug, but I didn't look, just told them how dangerous it was and unplugged it! If people can't do that right then I'll never trust them to first fix.

I did have someone do all chasing, board lifting and box fitting in a house refurb... IIRC they didn't get one of them right.

 

[MalcofArabia]

Like a lot of guys on here I think in theory Part P was a good move but in practice not workable. It always amazed me that the actual company is registered and not the individual sparks.

I can not see why we can not be registered like the gas safe guys, it is us the sparks that are the competent persons not the company. I'm not 100% sure, and if I'm not then please tell me, but is any gas work notifiable to the LABC ?

Another difference with gas is money. In the average home there are perhaps 3 main gas appliances a boiler, a cooking unit and a fire. whereas in your home there are perhaps 15 to 20 elec trical ones if not more. This for places like B&Q, Homebase etc is a multi million pound business where they encourage the DIY'er to buy things and dabble, again not sure of this but can you buy any gas fittings in either of these places?

I can't see it ever changing because you can't see it, hear it or smell it, most people take electricity for granted, it's just there and that is it.

Yes it goes on signing off other sparks work in domestic. I'm sure if you knew the sparks, his/her work and it is safe it is done. Why not really, apart from the fact it is illigal, but in commercial as a QS you had to sign off perhaps 15 sparks work some that are subbies who you have never seen, you just have to test and be confident that if you tested correctly you should pick up most of the glaringly bad faults. But a DIY'er hmmmm perhaps not

 

[1john]

You can do gas workin your own home if you are competent, what ever that means?!