FR - rather than carry on diverting the topic concerning removal of a shower circuit, I thought I'd start this separate topic so that you can give us the benefit of your expertise and highlight where you think the Wiki is lacking.
I've split it into paragraphs, and left a space after each one for you to rate it - in order to keep it simple I was thinking that you could score each paragraph in the following way:
1 = completely wrong.
2 = essentially correct, but with minor errors and/or could be rephrased to explain it better.
3 = correct.
But if you'd rather devise a different, or more granular, scale of your own then that would be fine.
. . . . .
On January 1st 2005 legislation came into effect which brought electrical work in dwellings under the Building Regulations, and made it a controlled service. This amendment to the Building Regulations, known as "Part P", imposes safety requirements, and also classifies electrical installation work into two basic categories, notifiable and non-notifiable.
FR Rating:
Essentially the distinction is between major work, or work in what are deemed high-risk areas such as kitchens, bathrooms and gardens, and minor work such as replacing switches or adding sockets to existing circuits. (NB to those with a knowledge of the IEE Wiring Regulations, the term "minor work" is used here in its generic sense rather than the meaning defined in the Wiring Regs.)
FR Rating:
A very important and fundamental point to note is that DIY electrical work has not been outlawed. It has been brought within the remit of the Building Regulations and cannot be carried out as freely as it was before, and in many cases cannot be carried out without involving your local council, but you may still DIY.
FR Rating:
Major work is classed as notifiable, i.e. it must be notified to your Local Authority's Building Control department (LABC). How this happens depends on who does it.
FR Rating:
If the work is carried out by an electrician who is registered with one of the organisations who administer self-certification schemes, (sometimes referred to as "Competent Person" schemes) they carry out the work and report the details to their scheme organiser, who then notify the appropriate LABC that the work has taken place, and that it has been certified by the person who carried it out as being in compliance with the Building Regulations. You may be familiar with this method of operation if you have ever had windows replaced by a FENSA member.
FR Rating:
If the work is carried out by someone who is not registered with one of the schemes, be they an electrician or another type of tradesman (e.g. kitchen fitter) who has chosen not to register, or a DIYer, then it must be notified to LABC in advance in the same way that any building work which requires their involvement is notified in advance. And just like when you are building an extension, or converting a loft, etc, there is a fee payable to LABC to cover their activities related to checking compliance with the Building Regulations. (But see "LABC Issues" below regarding this).
FR Rating:
Another important point to note is that apart from a Building Inspector, nobody can certify someone else's work as being compliant with the Building Regulations. Unless arranged by or in cooperation with LABC, a 3rd party electrical inspection is of no value in terms of complying with the law.
FR Rating:
The full text of the legislation can be found here: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043210.htm amended by the 2006 SI here: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20060652.htm . It is worth making the effort to read and understand them, because there is a lot of misinformation on the Internet, some of it put out by organisations with a vested interest in pretending that DIY work is illegal, some of it by LABCs who have either misunderstood the legislation, or who are also attempting to mislead the public in order to reduce the amount of work notified to them by non-self-certifying people, some of it, surprisingly, by the DCLG themselves (The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, predecessor to the Department for Communities and Local Government, were responsible for the legislation), and much of it on electrical advice and discussion fora like this one.
FR Rating:
At the time of writing (April 2006), the following work was classed as not needing notification to LABC:
FR Rating:
{actual quoted text directly from the Building Regulations}
FR Rating:
Like any law, things can change, and you are urged to ensure that you make yourself familiar with the law as it stands now, not necessarily as it was when this document was written.
FR Rating:
The starting point on the DCLG website for information related to Building Regulations is
http://www.communities.gov.uk/planningandbuilding/buildingregulations/
and a list of the relevant legislation can be found at
http://www.communities.gov.uk/plann...englandwales/buildingregulations/buildingact/ .
FR Rating:
It is in the nature of the Internet for sites to change, and it may well be that today, when you are reading this, the links above no longer work, and you will have to search for the pages you want.
FR Rating:
On the Planning Portal website there are a number of "Approved Documents" ( http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/approveddocuments ). These are not definitions of the law, nor do they tell you what you must, or must not, do. Instead they give guidance on ways in which the law can be satisfied. They do point out that you are not obliged to adopt any solution contained in them if you prefer to meet the requirements in another way, but that said they are useful as they contain common sense advice and often there is no good reason not to adopt the solutions they contain.
FR Rating:
Approved Document P can be found here: http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/professionals/en/4000000001253.html .
FR Rating:
The DCLG website also has publications here: http://www.communities.gov.uk/plann...gregulations/buildingregulationspublications/ .
FR Rating:
The technical requirements laid down by Part P are remarkably simple. They are:
P1 Reasonable provision shall be made in the design and installation of electrical installations in order to protect persons operating, maintaining or altering the installations from fire or injury.
FR Rating:
It is worth noting however that they apply to all work, not just notifiable work, no matter who does it. So a DIYer adding a socket or a fused spur to a ring final circuit must work to the same technical standards as a registered electrician doing a complete rewire.
FR Rating:
The biggest practical issue that arises is testing. To carry out testing of electrical circuits requires expertise and equipment, neither of which are likely to possessed by the average DIYer. So although Part P allows a DIYer to replace an entire circuit cable if it is damaged, without notification, it is arguable that he could not be sure that he had done it properly unless he carried out a series of tests on it, something he would probably be unable to do.
FR Rating:
Surprisingly, perhaps, Part P does not alter the status of the Wiring Regulations. They are still non-statutory, and there is still no legal requirement to adhere to them in domestic installations. This is a source of great discomfort to many electricians, and some of them will jump through hoops to try and prove that they are mandatory, but the fact remains that they are not.
FR Rating:
HOWEVER, adherence to them is a very good way of ensuring that you meet the technical requirements of Part P, and you would need a very good reason, and a very good understanding of what you were doing, to decide to not adhere to them.
FR Rating:
Their status in civil law and, in particular, the law relating to actions for negligence relating to work carried out may, in many ways, be considered to be the same as that of the Highway Code to Road Traffic Law. Whilst non-adherence to the wiring regulations, and the Highway Code, does not, in itself, constitute an offence, in a claim for damages for negligence relating to work that was not in accordance with the wiring regulations, that same non-adherence will almost always give rise to a presumption that the work was carried out negligently. This would reverse the burden of proof requiring the defendant to adduce evidence to rebut that presumption rather than requiring the claimant to adduce evidence to show that the work was carried out negligently. The law would then require the defendant to show that it was reasonable, in all the circumstances of the case, to have departed from the regs; that a cohort of professional electricians and electrical engineers would consider the departure justified; and that such a departure was not a material cause of the damage complained of. This might well prove such an onerous burden, it could be argued a defence to a claim in such circumstances would, almost never, be succesful.
FR Rating:
As mentioned above, some LABCs are spreading misinformation, either by accident or design, about the status and acceptability of electrical work done by DIYers or other non-registered people.
FR Rating:
These include:
1) Stating that such persons simply cannot carry out notifiable work, and that it must be done by registered electricians. The legislation referenced above, Statutory Instrument 2004 No. 3210 The Building (Amendment) (No.3) Regulations 2004 makes it quite clear that this is not the case. LABCs are not allowed to refuse to process Building Notices submitted by non-registered people.
FR Rating:
2) Stating that work carried out by a non-registered person must be inspected and tested by someone who is registered, or who they regard as qualified. Again, there is no mention of this requirement in the statutory instrument.
FR Rating:
Some time ago the ODPM issued a circular to local authorities making it absolutely clear that they are not allowed to do this:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/plann...ionalcircularletters/buildingregulationspart/
FR Rating:
Additionally, the new Approved Document P now explicitly says
1.26 The building control body may choose to carry out the inspection and testing itself, or to contract out some or all of the work to a specialist body which will then carry out the work on its behalf. Building control bodies will carry out the necessary inspection and testing at their expense, not at the householders' expense.
FR Rating:
Unfortunately, many LABCs have been simply ignoring what the DCLG say, and persisting with their policy of requiring DIYers or other non-registered people to hire someone to inspect and test the work. The DCLG's position on this appears to be that if you are being told this by your LABC you should take them to court.
It will be interesting to see if LABCs change their behaviour given what the Approved Document now says...
FR Rating:
3) Attempting to impose extra charges to cover the inspection and testing of work done by a non-registered person. An LABC may well elect to subcontract inspection and testing if they do not have the capacity to do it themselves, but they are not allowed to charge extra because of this - the cost to them of subcontracting must be borne by them
FR Rating:
. . . . .
Once we've homed in on the parts which seem to need the most improvement then we can look at how this might be done.
Or of course, as I pointed out in the other topic, you are free to make edits to the Wiki at any time, so if you'd rather just do that then please go ahead.
I've split it into paragraphs, and left a space after each one for you to rate it - in order to keep it simple I was thinking that you could score each paragraph in the following way:
1 = completely wrong.
2 = essentially correct, but with minor errors and/or could be rephrased to explain it better.
3 = correct.
But if you'd rather devise a different, or more granular, scale of your own then that would be fine.
. . . . .
On January 1st 2005 legislation came into effect which brought electrical work in dwellings under the Building Regulations, and made it a controlled service. This amendment to the Building Regulations, known as "Part P", imposes safety requirements, and also classifies electrical installation work into two basic categories, notifiable and non-notifiable.
FR Rating:
Essentially the distinction is between major work, or work in what are deemed high-risk areas such as kitchens, bathrooms and gardens, and minor work such as replacing switches or adding sockets to existing circuits. (NB to those with a knowledge of the IEE Wiring Regulations, the term "minor work" is used here in its generic sense rather than the meaning defined in the Wiring Regs.)
FR Rating:
A very important and fundamental point to note is that DIY electrical work has not been outlawed. It has been brought within the remit of the Building Regulations and cannot be carried out as freely as it was before, and in many cases cannot be carried out without involving your local council, but you may still DIY.
FR Rating:
Major work is classed as notifiable, i.e. it must be notified to your Local Authority's Building Control department (LABC). How this happens depends on who does it.
FR Rating:
If the work is carried out by an electrician who is registered with one of the organisations who administer self-certification schemes, (sometimes referred to as "Competent Person" schemes) they carry out the work and report the details to their scheme organiser, who then notify the appropriate LABC that the work has taken place, and that it has been certified by the person who carried it out as being in compliance with the Building Regulations. You may be familiar with this method of operation if you have ever had windows replaced by a FENSA member.
FR Rating:
If the work is carried out by someone who is not registered with one of the schemes, be they an electrician or another type of tradesman (e.g. kitchen fitter) who has chosen not to register, or a DIYer, then it must be notified to LABC in advance in the same way that any building work which requires their involvement is notified in advance. And just like when you are building an extension, or converting a loft, etc, there is a fee payable to LABC to cover their activities related to checking compliance with the Building Regulations. (But see "LABC Issues" below regarding this).
FR Rating:
Another important point to note is that apart from a Building Inspector, nobody can certify someone else's work as being compliant with the Building Regulations. Unless arranged by or in cooperation with LABC, a 3rd party electrical inspection is of no value in terms of complying with the law.
FR Rating:
The full text of the legislation can be found here: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2004/20043210.htm amended by the 2006 SI here: http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si2006/20060652.htm . It is worth making the effort to read and understand them, because there is a lot of misinformation on the Internet, some of it put out by organisations with a vested interest in pretending that DIY work is illegal, some of it by LABCs who have either misunderstood the legislation, or who are also attempting to mislead the public in order to reduce the amount of work notified to them by non-self-certifying people, some of it, surprisingly, by the DCLG themselves (The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, predecessor to the Department for Communities and Local Government, were responsible for the legislation), and much of it on electrical advice and discussion fora like this one.
FR Rating:
At the time of writing (April 2006), the following work was classed as not needing notification to LABC:
FR Rating:
{actual quoted text directly from the Building Regulations}
FR Rating:
Like any law, things can change, and you are urged to ensure that you make yourself familiar with the law as it stands now, not necessarily as it was when this document was written.
FR Rating:
The starting point on the DCLG website for information related to Building Regulations is
http://www.communities.gov.uk/planningandbuilding/buildingregulations/
and a list of the relevant legislation can be found at
http://www.communities.gov.uk/plann...englandwales/buildingregulations/buildingact/ .
FR Rating:
It is in the nature of the Internet for sites to change, and it may well be that today, when you are reading this, the links above no longer work, and you will have to search for the pages you want.
FR Rating:
On the Planning Portal website there are a number of "Approved Documents" ( http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/approveddocuments ). These are not definitions of the law, nor do they tell you what you must, or must not, do. Instead they give guidance on ways in which the law can be satisfied. They do point out that you are not obliged to adopt any solution contained in them if you prefer to meet the requirements in another way, but that said they are useful as they contain common sense advice and often there is no good reason not to adopt the solutions they contain.
FR Rating:
Approved Document P can be found here: http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/professionals/en/4000000001253.html .
FR Rating:
The DCLG website also has publications here: http://www.communities.gov.uk/plann...gregulations/buildingregulationspublications/ .
FR Rating:
The technical requirements laid down by Part P are remarkably simple. They are:
P1 Reasonable provision shall be made in the design and installation of electrical installations in order to protect persons operating, maintaining or altering the installations from fire or injury.
FR Rating:
It is worth noting however that they apply to all work, not just notifiable work, no matter who does it. So a DIYer adding a socket or a fused spur to a ring final circuit must work to the same technical standards as a registered electrician doing a complete rewire.
FR Rating:
The biggest practical issue that arises is testing. To carry out testing of electrical circuits requires expertise and equipment, neither of which are likely to possessed by the average DIYer. So although Part P allows a DIYer to replace an entire circuit cable if it is damaged, without notification, it is arguable that he could not be sure that he had done it properly unless he carried out a series of tests on it, something he would probably be unable to do.
FR Rating:
Surprisingly, perhaps, Part P does not alter the status of the Wiring Regulations. They are still non-statutory, and there is still no legal requirement to adhere to them in domestic installations. This is a source of great discomfort to many electricians, and some of them will jump through hoops to try and prove that they are mandatory, but the fact remains that they are not.
FR Rating:
HOWEVER, adherence to them is a very good way of ensuring that you meet the technical requirements of Part P, and you would need a very good reason, and a very good understanding of what you were doing, to decide to not adhere to them.
FR Rating:
Their status in civil law and, in particular, the law relating to actions for negligence relating to work carried out may, in many ways, be considered to be the same as that of the Highway Code to Road Traffic Law. Whilst non-adherence to the wiring regulations, and the Highway Code, does not, in itself, constitute an offence, in a claim for damages for negligence relating to work that was not in accordance with the wiring regulations, that same non-adherence will almost always give rise to a presumption that the work was carried out negligently. This would reverse the burden of proof requiring the defendant to adduce evidence to rebut that presumption rather than requiring the claimant to adduce evidence to show that the work was carried out negligently. The law would then require the defendant to show that it was reasonable, in all the circumstances of the case, to have departed from the regs; that a cohort of professional electricians and electrical engineers would consider the departure justified; and that such a departure was not a material cause of the damage complained of. This might well prove such an onerous burden, it could be argued a defence to a claim in such circumstances would, almost never, be succesful.
FR Rating:
As mentioned above, some LABCs are spreading misinformation, either by accident or design, about the status and acceptability of electrical work done by DIYers or other non-registered people.
FR Rating:
These include:
1) Stating that such persons simply cannot carry out notifiable work, and that it must be done by registered electricians. The legislation referenced above, Statutory Instrument 2004 No. 3210 The Building (Amendment) (No.3) Regulations 2004 makes it quite clear that this is not the case. LABCs are not allowed to refuse to process Building Notices submitted by non-registered people.
FR Rating:
2) Stating that work carried out by a non-registered person must be inspected and tested by someone who is registered, or who they regard as qualified. Again, there is no mention of this requirement in the statutory instrument.
FR Rating:
Some time ago the ODPM issued a circular to local authorities making it absolutely clear that they are not allowed to do this:
http://www.communities.gov.uk/plann...ionalcircularletters/buildingregulationspart/
FR Rating:
Additionally, the new Approved Document P now explicitly says
1.26 The building control body may choose to carry out the inspection and testing itself, or to contract out some or all of the work to a specialist body which will then carry out the work on its behalf. Building control bodies will carry out the necessary inspection and testing at their expense, not at the householders' expense.
FR Rating:
Unfortunately, many LABCs have been simply ignoring what the DCLG say, and persisting with their policy of requiring DIYers or other non-registered people to hire someone to inspect and test the work. The DCLG's position on this appears to be that if you are being told this by your LABC you should take them to court.
It will be interesting to see if LABCs change their behaviour given what the Approved Document now says...
FR Rating:
3) Attempting to impose extra charges to cover the inspection and testing of work done by a non-registered person. An LABC may well elect to subcontract inspection and testing if they do not have the capacity to do it themselves, but they are not allowed to charge extra because of this - the cost to them of subcontracting must be borne by them
FR Rating:
. . . . .
Once we've homed in on the parts which seem to need the most improvement then we can look at how this might be done.
Or of course, as I pointed out in the other topic, you are free to make edits to the Wiki at any time, so if you'd rather just do that then please go ahead.
